New PEPE coin debuts amid skepticism; critics believe original will prevail

PEPE, a frog-themed cryptocurrency, faced intense backlash after developers stole and sold nearly $15 million worth of tokens on the open market. This caused the meme coin to tank 17%. But a new meme coin seems to have emerged on the Ethereum chain, which boasts a 137% rally in the last 24 hours with a total market capitalization of $27.6 million. However, critics are unfazed by this impressive rally and are cautious about this new token.

Read more: Pepecoin says 'bad actors' on team stole $15M PEPE

PEPE coins battle for survival

PEPE was a measly on-chain altcoin that mirrored the original meme coin, Dogecoin, and its competitor, Shiba Inu. The frog-themed crypto hit its peak when it was listed on one of the world’s largest centralized exchanges, Binance, on May 5. At this point, the market capitalization of the meme coin was $1.5 billion, and its price was $0.00000372. While this move was a massive success, it was short-lived as the coin continued its descent due to deteriorating market conditions. A fatal blow was dealt to this meme coin on August 25 after some of its developers dumped nearly $15 million PEPE on exchanges. 

The remaining developer confirmed that others stole the meme coins without his knowledge but promised that the remaining 10 trillion tokens would not be sold. Regardless, the move was made, and the damage was dealt. 

On August 25, a new PEPE coin emerged on the Ethereum blockchain, which has now inflated 1.52 million% in the last five days and currently trades at $0.02724. The 24-hour volume of this newly launched coin is $32.42 million and runs on the narrative that promises no dumps on centralized exchanges. As a result of the recent occurrence, this project has garnered a lot of attention among meme coin investors. But a closer look at the altcoin reveals that this project might not sustain itself in the long run, according to critics on social media platform X.

New PEPE might be doomed to fail

When a new PEPE coin was launched on August 25, it tweeted, “The liquidity has been burnt, tax is zero, and the contract has been renounced.” The ethos behind this newly launched project was to renounce the contract of the token so there are no backdoors whatsoever. Hence, developers or anybody related to the project are unlikely to scam investors. 

The new PEPE coin is capitalizing on the downfall of the old one and has found its way to be listed on lesser-known centralized exchanges like MEXC and LBank.com.  But critics warn that investors need to be cautious of the new token, which has multiple names on different exchanges. While MEXC calls it PEPE Community with a ticker symbol of PEPE, LBank.com calls it PEPENEW with PEPE as the ticker. 

The new PEPE project also mentions an auto-burn mechanism that reduces 0.25% of the pair token balance every 2 hours. This reduction in supply is deflationary and causes a spike in the market value of the token. 

A crypto enthusiast with the screen name “Plazma” noted that the last time a project with a similar token burn mechanism launched, it crashed by 80%. 

Another critic, “Yazan,” adds that the new PEPE is being wildly advertised as a "’community driven’ alternative where the devs will not sell.” They warn investors from investing by noting that the distribution is extremely skewed with “four” addresses that can “effectively send it to zero if they decide to sell.”

They also mention that the liquidity burn mechanism is not sustainable and that it “artificially increases the value of the token with no added liquidity.” The user confirms that “There is no next PEPE” and gives it two weeks, suggesting this new PEPE project will go under in that timeframe.