PEPE price crashes by 15% due to scam FUD, sudden 16 trillion PEPE transfer to exchanges

PEPE price took an unexpected hit on Thursday as the meme coin fell victim to FUD (Fear, Uncertainity, Doubt). The meme coin made headlines in the last quarter but lost the traction it had among investors come August, with the FUD making it worse for the altcoin.

PEPE price crashes following a 16 trillion transfer

PEPE price at the time of writing is hovering under the $0.0000010000 mark, trading at $0.0000009227. The meme coin can be seen noting a red candlestick on August 24; however, most of the drawdown was observed around the closing hour of the day following the emergence of FUD.

PEPE/USDT 12-hour chart

Arising from an exec transaction of 16 trillion PEPE tokens to four centralized exchanges, the investors believed that they were being scammed. Exec transactions are basically a function of the Gnosis Safe contract, a multi-sig wallet smart contract. Usually considered to be executed by the developer, this transfer is also likely conducted by the PEPE team.

Furthermore, according to reporter Colin Wu, the PEPE multi-signature wallet changed from 5/8 to only 2/8. He tweeted,

“6.9% PEPE (29 trillion) of the team wallet, a total of 18.3 trillion has been transferred to CEX.

While the validity of the claim is yet to be confirmed, the investors were quick to jump to the conclusion that the team likely scammed the users to make profits. However, that is far from the truth, as a scam would have resulted in a much larger transfer of assets.

Regardless, panic selling took precedence, and the sudden drop in price created an atmosphere of Fear. Across the network, Realized Losses hit a three-month high, noting the third-highest highest single-day losses since the token was launched. In all, the investors’ losses extended to $14 million.

PEPE realized losses

As is, the project has been losing traction among new investors who have been pulling back from joining the network. The meme coin hype fading over the past few weeks is one of the biggest contributors to the declining interest in addition to the bearish broader market cues. Consequently, the network growth has been falling considerably.

PEPE network growth

With this new FUD and crash, the meme coin might further decline, resulting in further losses for investors.