Strange New World

The anonymous duo behind $BAGWORK have steadily upped the ante in their viral antics, and now they appear to have leaked new songs from one of the year’s most-anticipated albums

Surely Drake has heard of meme coins, the relatively new trend in the crypto world where pretty much anyone can launch their own cryptocurrency and boost its value through viral stunts. There was the infamous Green Dildo Coin that spurred pranksters into throwing green dildos onto the court during WNBA games, and shortly before the inauguration, President Donald Trump launched the coins $TRUMP and $MELANIA in a move that many analysts believe could have brought nearly $2 billion in essentially anonymous donations to Trump’s White House. Most of these coins are launched on the blockchain Solana, and they commonly start with Pump.fun, which has become the de facto platform for starting meme coins, thanks to the fact that it does not require any technical know-how to get coins started. Recently, Pump.fun relaunched its streaming platform, enabling users to promote their coins through livestreams. 

All of this shouldn’t be news to Drake, a co-owner of the crypto gambling site Stake, which also owns the streaming platform Kick, where Drizzy often streams himself wagering frightening amounts of money on what look like low-budget iPhone games. Still, not even the ever-tapped-in Aubrey Graham could’ve imagined his music getting leaked by a couple of teenagers livestreaming to pump the value of their meme coin. Over the weekend, during a Pump.fun stream promoting a coin that they call $BAGWORK, two young creators played what sounded like an unreleased single from Drake’s upcoming album Iceman. The leak took Drake by such surprise that he called into the Kick stream of his resident young people whisperer, Adin Ross, to find clues about who these kids were. At first, Ross seemed skeptical, as Drake is known to roll out songs via unconventional means, and assumed he was aware