The price of this new crypto meme coin surged 21,000% as Bitcoin and Ethereum stalled – but there’s a nasty catch
BitcoinBTC and ethereum have crashed back this week, with the latest rally crumbling in the face of Federal Reserve uncertainty.
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Bitcoin price has fallen back below $30,000 per bitcoin, down 10% in the past week, with ethereum price down about the same after founder Vitalik Buterin issued a future bull run warning.
Now, a new meme coin designed to compete with dogecoin has surged 21,000% since its launch last weekend, making it already the sixth largest meme coin with a market cap of around $150 million.
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“Meme coins are once again polarizing the crypto world. A new project, pepe, has amassed a market cap of $100 million in less than one week,” analysts at crypto research firm Messari wrote in a report this week. “Like previous meme coin price rises, pepe has generated eye-popping returns for its early investors.”
Pepe, based on the Pepe the Frog meme adopted by various internet communities, has a “self-reported” circulation of 420.69 trillion and has a warning on its Coinmarketcap listing that traders should “exercise caution.”
Messari analysts also warned that while early investors may be looking at big returns on paper, they will struggle to convert their pepe into any other cryptocurrency, let alone dollars. Pepe’s liquidity pool is only $3 million, compared to ethereum’s daily trading volume of $775 million.
“One of the earliest buyers has turned a 0.125 ethereum purchase into close to $2 million on-chain,” the report said. “However, since this person owns 1.4% of the total supply, they will not be able to realize these returns without crashing the market.”
Earlier this year, a similar dogecoin contender, Solana-based bonk, mounted a challenge to the memecoin throne, but was unable to hold on to its huge gains.
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