decrypt.co
The number of blockchain addresses transacting in Pepecoin (PEPE) has exploded over the last month, more than doubling over the past 30 days amid the top Ethereum meme coin’s recent SEC validation and subsequent surge in price.
Daily active addresses holding PEPE have increased 230% to 9,830, according to data from IntoTheBlock. That growth outpaced other meme coins, such as Floki, which still saw daily active addresses jump 179% during that span. Meanwhile, the daily number of active addresses for Dogecoin had increased 10% to 53,000.
Built using the ERC-20 standard from Ethereum, both tokens exist on the network as assets that trade on little more than vibes. In light of the approval of spot Ethereum ETFs, however, the price of Pepecoin and Floki have each jumped more than 27% in the past week.
Although it’s not a perfect metric, tracking the daily number of active addresses can show a network’s adoption trends or usage patterns. Of coins tracked by IntoTheBlock, the metric had increased over the past month for Pepecoin the most among other major cryptocurrencies.
Pepecoin is based on the Pepe the Frog meme, originally created by Matt Furie in 2005, and launched last April to little pizzazz. But the crypto community’s interest in meme coins has recently reached a boiling point—becoming a dominant trend despite their infamous volatility and rug-pull risks.
The U.S. stock market may have been closed for Memorial Day on Monday, but crypto traders pushed Pepe to an all-time high of $0.00001698 that day. Extending the meme coin’s yearly gains toward 1,000%, the meme coin had fallen 4.8% over the past day on Tuesday, however.
Despite Tuesday’s dip, most Pepecoin holders are in the money. According to IntoTheBlock, 97% of Pepecoin holders have gains on paper, while 2.73% are at break-even prices.
As the crypto industry gains greater legitimacy on Wall Street through the approval of products broadening investors’ access to digital assets, meme coins may be causing “damage,” some executives have warned. Still, crypto traders’ appetites for meme coins appear insatiable.
While Pepecoin’s market cap ranks 22nd among all coins at $6.75 billion, the frog-themed crypto was traded 7th-most among all coins over the past day. Notching $1.7 billion in trading volume, Pepecoin ranked only behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and several stablecoins.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.