Brandon Brown of Let’s Go Brandon fame now has a Let’s Go Brandon cryptocurrency racecar

What began as a stadium chant has taken on a life of it’s own

Brandon Brown, the racecar driver whose NASCAR win inspired the viral “Let’s Go Brandon” meme, is now sponsored by a cryptocurrency inspired by, you guessed it, the Let’s Go Brandon meme.

His team at Brandonbilt Motorsports announced on Monday that LGBcoin ($LGB) would sign on to sponsor the driver’s Chevy Camaro for the 2022 season.

“We are proud to support Brandon this season, to help him continue his American dream,” James Koutoulas, an investor in LGBcoin, said in a statement. “If we do our job right, when you think of us, and you hear, ‘Let’s Go Brandon,’ you’ll think and feel, ‘Let’s Go America.’”

The coin, which began trading in November on the Ethereum blockchain, has a market capitalisation of more than $300 million, and aims to fight “against the establishment, their mismanagement, and the financial fleecing of the American people,” according to a post on its website last month.

Since then, LGBcoin seems to have changed its tune, writing in a news release on Thursday it “aims to inspire positivity and unity, grounded in a strong belief of the American dream.”

The meme began in October, when a crowd at a NASCAR event was chanting, “F*** Joe Biden”, which a sideline sports journalist misheard as, “Let’s go Brandon!”, believing the fans to be cheering for driver Brandon Brown, who had just won the race at Talladega Superspeedway.

Since then, the phrase has appeared in Donald Trump fundraising giveaways, on the marquee of retail stores selling anti-Biden merch, on the mask of congressman Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, and reportedly over the PA system on a Southwest Airlines flight, prompting an investigation – its popularity then fuelling a set of parodies and riffs including a country-rap song and a Saturday Night Live sketch.

A caller even dropped the phrase during a Christmas call-in event with Joe Biden.

For his part, despite capitalising off the momentum behind meme, Mr Brown, the driver, has insisted he’s not political.

“I have no interest in leading some political fight. I race cars. I am not going to endorse anyone, and I am certainly not going to tell anyone how to vote,” he wrote in a December op-ed in Newsweek, where he also added some politician-like notes, declaring, “I’m also no longer going to be silent about the situation I find myself in, and why millions of Americans are chanting my name. I hear them, even if Washington does not.”

Mr Brown has said he’s a Republican, but has “zero desire to be involved in politics”.