What is Pepecoin? Meme-coin mania creeps back with a new unsettling mascot

After a crypto winter, meme coins seem to be making a bit of a comeback. Over the past couple of weeks, crypto enthusiasts have been pouring money into Pepecoin. And long-time observers of the digital currency space are feeling a bit of déjà vu.

As with Dogecoin, this cryptocurrency is based on a popular internet meme, except this time it’s Pepe the Frog, a lovable cartoon that became a mascot of alt-right, anti-Semitic, and white supremacist groups. PEPE’s value has skyrocketed in little time, gaining roughly 500% in the past two weeks.

Here’s what you should know about Pepecoin:

What is Pepecoin?

The Twitter feed for Pepecoin calls it, “the most memeable meme coin in existence,” and it’s leaning hard into that, throwing veiled digs at Dogecoin and even creating its own Pepe memes that show the frog peeing on other meme coins.

The coin launched with little fanfare on April 17—and while it’s based on the Pepe the Frog meme, it has no official connection to Matt Furie, the artist behind the original cartoon. It leans further into the joke realm by having a maximum circulating supply of 420,690,000,000,000 coins.

Despite the lack of seriousness, it has already grown to be one of the 50 largest cryptos being traded. And trading volume in the coin was up 425% on Friday.

Where is Pepecoin trading today and how high has it spiked?

On Friday alone, Pepecoin saw its price more than double. Since its April 17 launch, it’s up 580%. Part of the reason for that could be the decision by Binance, the market’s largest exchange, to list the token Friday afternoon in its “innovation zone.”

It’s still an incredibly cheap coin in real-world dollars, though. You’d need to buy nearly 3,000 Pepecoin to convert them into a single penny.

And it’s worth noting that even Binance urged caution, saying, “Please note that the token has no utility and it is created by an anonymous team. . . . Also, there are signs that certain insiders or team members were able to buy 7% of the total token supply minutes after TGE [the Token Generation Event, when coins become publicly available].”

What is Pepecoin’s market cap?

Because there are so many Pepecoin on the market and because the price has been soaring, this meme coin’s market capitalization is already well above $1 billion. As of Friday afternoon, it stood at $1.34 billion—and was still climbing.

Is there a risk of a rug pull with Pepecoin?

Anytime you see a coin explode this quickly, it’s a good idea to be cautious. When the focus of the coin is an internet meme that is tied to so many negative groups, that’s another red flag.

Skeptics have pointed out that the coin has a number of so-called whales, who hold large amounts of the token. Should they decide to dump their holdings, average investors could see the value of their holdings evaporate. That led to some short selling on Pepecoin early on, but so far, the people who have bet against the token are the ones who have lost money.

Historically, how have meme coins performed?

So far, the biggest meme coins have failed to hold onto their value, even as celebrities like Elon Musk have pumped them up. Dogecoin never reached its goal of a $1 value and currently trades for around 8 cents, which is right about what it was trading at before its big surge. Shiba Inu, another popular meme coin that saw a brief spike, is trading for well under a penny—about where it was in October of 2021, right before its spike. Buyers, as always, should beware.