PEPE coin whales suspiciously amass 7% of all supply before 900% rally; threat or conviction?

PEPE, the newest addition to the crypto meme coin token list, is reinvigorating the meme coin discourse. The regurgitated discussions surrounding Dogecoin and Shiba Inu were diminishing the sector’s popularity, which is seeing a resurgence thanks to PEPE. However, this does not mean one should not practice caution when investing in this coin, given its whales’ recent behavior.

What PEPE really is

Pepe coin (PEPE), put simply, is just another meme coin that uses “Pepe The Frog” as its mascot. Since its launch on April 16, it has found popularity to become a hot topic in the crypto community. Feeding on the popularity of meme coins and Elon Musk, the token operates a total supply of 420.69 trillion PEPE, which are funny numbers associated with the Twitter CEO’s tweets from the past.

PEPE rally in the last three days is reminiscent of the Shiba Inu and Floki Inu rallies, which surged after the meme coin narrative gained strength. This also led to other small-cap meme coins, such as Dogelon Mars and Baby Doge Coin, exploding for a short period of time before returning to their nominal values.

Valued at $0.0000003441 at the time of writing, the meme coin has observed a nearly 900% rally in the span of just three days. 

PEPE/USD 1-day chart

The sudden popularity of the Pepe meme, which is the reason behind this massive rally, also extended to another crypto token called Memetic / PepeCoin (MEME). At the time of writing, MEME could be seen trading at $1.59, up from $0.245 less than eight hours ago, marking a 911% rally.

MEME/USD 1-day chart

Rallies like the ones noted on PEPE and MEME reinforce the stereotype that the crypto market is suffering from of crypto simply being a fad bubble. At the same time, it also raises questions about the lack of maturity in this space in comparison to other investment options such as stocks, commodities, Forex, etc.

PEPE whales accrue incredible gains

While on the surface, PEPE may seem like just another meme coin pumping out of hype, the in-depth on-chain analysis points out some interesting development. As noted by analyst An Ape’s Prologue, the meme coin’s mysterious whales have been making enormous gains thanks to the price rise. Across 13 wallets, whales have amassed close to 30 trillion PEPE worth a little over $10 million.

While the whales’ holding isn’t relatively massive, the concern arises when this holding is held up against the total liquidity of PEPE in the market. Despite rising significantly, the total liquidity at the moment is a third of whales’ holdings. This opens the meme coin up to the fears of a potential pump and dump. As noted by the analyst, even if the whales sell off 10% of their balance, the token could take a serious hit.

PEPE liquidity

However, there is some incentive to these whales even if they are insiders/members of the development team of PEPE, as the project is gaining traction despite low liquidity. If this bullishness persists, the meme coin could observe some more green candles, which would, in return, benefit the whales too.

Nevertheless, investors should wait out the PEPE hype before throwing any money on it, as such trend-based tokens can turn out to be a scam at any time.

The best examples of this can be found in the likes of the Squid Game token, which rallied significantly following the hype of the TV show Squid Games. In the past, many more such tokens have resulted in investors losing their money, including cryptocurrency Viking Swap and Metaverse hyped Metaverse Miner.