Dogecoin and Shiba Inu have more gas in the tank, PEPE fails to make an impact on traders

Shiba-Inu-themed meme coins Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) faced intense competition from PEPE meme coin, inspired by the “Pepe the Frog” meme. PEPE yielded 1,200% gains for holders between May 1 and 8, driving the token’s popularity and interest from participants in the crypto community.

PEPE, a meme coin launched on April 16, failed to beat SHIB and DOGE at trade volumes during their peaks. 

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PEPE fails to capture trade volume as SHIB and DOGE did during their peak

PEPE meme coin’s daily trade volume surpassed that of Bitcoin and Litecoin on a few occasions in the first week of May, however, the asset failed to surpass the euphoria of SHIB and DOGE holders during the peak period of these assets. 

When Dogecoin price hit its peak, the meme coin netted $70 billion in trade volume, in the case of Shiba Inu it was $40 billion, based on data from crypto intelligence tracker Santiment. This is a key metric to map retail participation and the euphoria surrounding an asset in the crypto community. 

DOGE, SHIB and PEPE trade volume 

Compared to competitors Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, PEPE’s trade volume currently amounts to $455.45 million, down from a peak of $2 billion, signaling the lack of retail trader participation in the meme coin’s trading across exchange platforms. 

Experts at Santiment compared the three meme coins and concluded that there is untapped potential in PEPE. At the same time, the liquidity and retail participation for PEPE is “nearly non-existent” compared to Shiba-Inu-themed tokens DOGE and SHIB. 

PEPE is on par with Dogecoin and Shiba Inu in terms of social volume, however, the token’s social media mentions are largely confined to micro-blogging platform Twitter. 

Social volume of PEPE, DOGE and SHIB

These on-chain metrics reveal that PEPE did not and might not have the same market impact on crypto as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. Furthermore, the recovery potential in the two largest meme coins by market capitalization (DOGE and SHIB) is greater, as the level of retail engagement, liquidity and social dominance is relatively higher when compared to PEPE. 

Why Dogecoin and Shiba Inu recovery is likely 

The on-chain metric “Balance by time held” from IntoTheBlock measures the variation over time of the balance of coins each group of holders possesses. There are three key groups, holders, who hold the asset for greater than 12 months, cruisers, who hold it for one to 12 months and traders who hold the token for less than a month.

Growth in the holder and cruiser segment fuels a bullish thesis for the asset’s recovery as these segments represent traders that hold the asset in their portfolio, rather than engage in active “pump and dump.”

For both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, there has been an increase in the percentage of holders and cruisers. At the same time, there is a decline in the percentage of traders.

DOGE balance by time held

SHIB balance by time held

Both Shiba-Inu-themed meme coins seem poised to recover from their recent pullback with an increase in retail market participation.