Pepe’s Market Cap Sinks $1B in 5 days, Some Whales are Still Buying

The market worth of new memecoin Pepe (PEPE) has dropped $1.1 billion from its peak on May 6, according to on-chain data, yet it is still being purchased by some crypto whales. 

According to CoinGecko, the price of the memecoin has dropped more than 56% in the previous five days, from a high of $0.00000431 to $0.00000193.

Pepe’s price decline has reduced the token’s entire valuation from a high of $1.82 billion on May 6 to $820 million at the time of publication. According to a May 8 report by experts from crypto fintech business Matrixport, Pepe’s sudden price drop was caused by traders selling substantial sections of their holdings to new retail investors following the memecoin’s launch on Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume.

Furthermore, the analysis discovered that the biggest driver of Pepe’s meteoric price action since its introduction on April 14 appears to be Asian traders. According to Matrixport, buying activity during Asian trading hours contributed an astounding 3,657% to the memecoin’s total 9,071% surge as of May 8.

Another piece of evidence supporting the claim is that Ethereum deposits on the exchange increased to levels not seen since November 2021 in the 24 hours following the memecoin’s introduction.

According to Santiment, this was owing in great proportion to early Pepe buyers ensuring profits by converting their holdings — which were largely obtained via ETH swaps on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and 1inch — back into Ether $1,830.

Despite the significant drop in price over the last week, some of the crypto space’s most well-known and notorious whales are still buying Pepe at low prices. According to blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain, “Machi Big Brother,” the online persona of former tech entrepreneur Jeffrey Huang, has purchased a total of 73.4 ETH — roughly $137,000 — of Pepe in the last four days, with an average purchase price of $0.000002082, which is roughly 3% lower than the current trading price.

While other memecoins like Dogecoin $0.07 and its similarly canine-themed sibling Shiba Inu $0.000009 have exploited their monetary success to build out additional applications and use cases for their individual tokens, Pepe appears to be a stab at delivering any value at all.

Essentially, Pepe’s mysterious development team has stated unequivocally that the token is “completely useless,” and the irony of this is reason enough for investors to “ape” into it. The official website of the frog-themed currency concludes with the following disclaimer: “$PEPE is a meme coin with no intrinsic value or expectation of financial return.” There is no defined team or roadmap in place. The currency is utterly useless and is purely for fun.”