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(Kitco News) - Meme-token mania has returned to the crypto market as degen crypto traders have found a new token with no intrinsic value to send to the moon: Pepe (PEPE).
The meme coin, created as an homage to the popular internet ‘Pepe the Frog’ meme created by Matt Furie, has a circulating supply of 420,690,000,000,000 PEPE and currently trades at a price of $0.0000009585.
Meme tokens have been a phenomenon in the cryptocurrency market since the launch of Dogecoin (DOGE) – the first meme token, which started as a joke – in 2013. Since that time, the meme token genre has been dominated by Shiba Inu and other dog-themed tokens that looked to harness the momentum of DOGE.
In 2020, users on TikTok set out on a mission to drive DOGE to a price of $1, but that attempt fell far short of its goal, failing to even breach the $0.01 mark. But the idea was firmly planted, and later that year, Elon Musk began to tweet about the popular token, which kicked off a frenzy of buying activity.
Dogecoin and its descendants, such as Shiba Inu (SHIB), played a major role in helping to kick off the bull market of 2021. During this time, DOGE saw its price increase more than 23,000% from 0.0024 to a high of $0.76 on some exchanges.
Every cycle in the cryptocurrency market sees several new tokens embraced as the latest darlings of the degen trading space, and this time around, PEPE has emerged to fill the role.
“The Inu’s have had their day,” the website for Pepe states. “It’s time for the most recognizable meme in the world to take his reign as king of the memes. Pepe is here to make memecoins great again. Launched stealth with no presale, zero taxes, LP burnt and contract renounced, $PEPE is a coin for the people, forever. Fueled by pure memetic power, let $PEPE show you the way.”
Since its debut two weeks ago, PEPE has already rewarded several early adopters with million-dollar returns as the token has seen its price increase more than 2,000%, catapulting from a low of $0.00000002764 to a high of $0.000001439.
PEPE/USDT 1-hour chart. Source: TradingView
At the time of writing, PEPE is trading at $0.0000009293, a decrease of 25% on the 24-hour chart as profit-taking has led to a sharp correction in the tokens price.
While some have claimed that the frenzy is now over and it's time to move on to the next flash-in-the-pan token, the fact that numerous exchanges – including Huobi, MEXC Global, Bitget, Gate.io and OKX – have started to list the token to capitalize on trading fees suggests that the journey for PEPE is just getting started. Up until recently, the only way to access PEPE was by using decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap.
Dogecoin has seen multiple large surges and pullbacks, as has Shiba Inu, and the popularity of the Pepe meme gives reason to think that PEPE could follow a similar path before it risks fizzling out.
Unlike Dogecoin, which operates as its own proof-of-work blockchain, and Shiba, which has launched its own layer-2 chain – Shibarium – to go along with its own decentralized exchange and non-fungible token community, PEPE is merely a standalone token without anything else to offer at the moment.
The project’s roadmap includes sparse details outside of exchange listings, growing its presence on social media and increasing the number of holders.
As a way to try and avoid any legal repercussions, the Pepe homepage states, “$PEPE is a meme coin with no intrinsic value or expectation of financial return. There is no formal team or roadmap. The coin is completely useless and for entertainment purposes only.”
Those things being said, it cannot be denied that the project is still in the early stages of its meme token mania cycle, and there is a large cohort on Twitter who believe the token could go on a fantastic run in the short to medium-term once the next cryptocurrency bull market gets underway.
$pepe just had its first sell off.
— pepe (@im_pepe_) May 3, 2023
the top will come after @coinbase and @RobinhoodApp list $pepe. pic.twitter.com/vt7Z6XyGTA
