PEPE claims throne of meme coins, leaving Dogecoin and Shiba Inu in the dust
Memes have been part of the internet from the beginning and are an important attribute of digital spaces in the form of tokens. The resultant meme coins are backed by strong communities that give them their market-explosive nature.
Most meme coins like Shiba Inu (SHIB), Dogecoin, and Floki Inu (FLOKI), have attracted much attention, leading to mass adoption. In this article, we discuss the performance of PEPE coin, a meme coin launched on 16 April 2023.
PEPE crypto achieves an all-time high price
Although launched in April, the PEPE coin’s market capitalization has surpassed $1 billion and is already within the top 100 best-performing cryptocurrencies. By 5 May, the value of PEPE had risen to a new all-time high (ATH) of $0.000000431, representing a 38,900% from its launch price.
According to CoinGecko data, the PEPE crypto became the number 17 most traded cryptocurrency a few weeks after its launch. However, it is too early to confirm that it will maintain that performance. Notably, PEPE coin, an ERC20, was included on Etherscan on 18 April.
The hype around the PEPE coins has led them to garner higher trading volumes than the other established meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. Before the PEPE coin, Dogecoin and Shiba coin were the leading meme coins in terms of trading volumes.
Nevertheless, some analysts believe that most of PEPE’s trading volume was conducted by automated bots that kept on buying and selling the tokens to generate profit. Significantly, the traders who were consistent in their trading activities got much profit. For example, one trader with an ETH value of $1,800 turned it into $3 million worth of PEPE coins in about two weeks.
Despite the continued hype around the PEPE coin, some traders have already cashed out their profit. Sadly, high slippage affected many of the traders who sold their coins. The minimal liquidity led to this high slippage, which caused some traders to lose over $350,000.This is because, in some cases, the slippage was as high as 25%.
The performance of the PEPE coin could be a result of the cyclical market behavior where meme coins gain much traction soon after their launch. However, they also experience much volatility as a result of the absence of sustainable demand or low liquidity. It was the same case with Dogecoin when it was launched. It had a high trading volume on the very first day but experienced a downward price spiral with time.
PEPE coin is concentrated in few wallets
As highlighted above, currently the PEPE coin is in the hands of a few whales. This is because when the coin was launched a few people amassed it. For example, according to Blockchain sleuth Lookonchain, a wallet for pepecexwallet.eth obtained more than 8.87 trillion PEPE coins for just $385.
Also, according to Arkham, a wallet belonging to Dimethyltryptamine.eth, one of the earliest PEPE coin buyers, acquired 5.907 trillion of PEPE tokens for $263. These whales have been taking profits from time to time.
What is the PEPE coin?
Although the PEPE coin is modeled after Pepe the Frog meme, which went viral in the 2010s, it is not connected to it or its creator, Matt Furiey. Instead, PEPE is a meme coin that has no intrinsic value aside from the backing of many meme lovers.
It has a total supply of 420,690,000,000,000. Nonetheless, the PEPE website reports that 93.1% of these tokens were burnt, meaning that 6.9% are available for use on exchanges, liquidity pools, and bridges.
PEPE Listed on Binance
Despite PEPE coin’s high trading volume, it is not yet listed on many exchanges. This is different from the other existing meme coins like Dogecoin, Floki, and Shiba Inu which are on various exchanges including Gate.io.
However, some crypto exchanges are in the process of listing PEPE coins. For example, Binance Exchange has listed PEPE crypto alongside FLOKI. This listing led its price to rise by 70% which has resulted in a market capitalization of more than $1 billion. In a similar way, the value of FLOKI increased by over 57% following its listing on Binance.
Ethereum Network congestion and high gas fees
The major problem that the investors encountered when trading PEPE was the high gas fees associated with the Ethereum network. Recently, the average fee for transacting PEPE coins was 100 Gwei, which was equivalent to about $4.00. However, fast sending of the coins required at least $11.00.
PEPE Coin price momentum
The market still waits to see if the PEPE coin will maintain an upward price momentum or if the buying pressure will decrease. However, it will be unique for the coin to maintain the investors’ attention for a long time. The reason is that the price of meme coins is volatile. Therefore, their values may fall once the hype associated with them decreases.
Conclusion
The value of the PEPE coin rose by almost 39,000% a few weeks after its launch. With such momentum, the investors anticipate that its price may rise further if it is listed on other crypto exchanges, bridges, and liquidity pools.
