Pepe leads meme coin market with notable 11% surge

Pepe (PEPE), the popular frog-themed meme coin, has outshined most of the popular memecoins with an 11% surge in the last 24 hours.

At the time of writing, PEPE was trading at $0.0000129, with a trading volume of $1.27 billion over the past day. The memecoin has surged by 50% over the last seven days and a massive 1372% over the last year.

PEPE 24-hour price chart | Source: CoinMarketCap

The crypto asset’s market cap has also risen by 9%, currently holding at $5.43 billion. However, the token is still down 23% from its all-time high of $0.0000167, reached on May 28, 2024.

It is interesting to note that PEPE was earlier falling in tandem with the broader cryptocurrency market, as seen from the token’s 11% drop in the last seven days, per data from CoinMarketCap.

The latest price reversal follows a significant acquisition by a whale that sparked speculation of a potential PEPE rally. In a June 11 X post, on-chain analytics platform Scopescan revealed that a whale withdrew 256 billion PEPE coins priced at $2.9 million from the crypto exchange Bybit.

Earlier in May, the whale had deposited 200 billion PEPE worth about $2.8 million to the exchange platform immediately after a price pump.

Notably, the latest withdrawal is a signal of renewed interest in the memecoin, as the whale now holds over 291 billion coins valued at around $3.5 million. The whale’s acquisition of such a massive amount of PEPE has possibly reinstated confidence in the asset’s future, urging retail investors to reconsider their positions.

Another potential reason for the latest PEPE surge is the potential listing of the asset on leading crypto exchange Coinbase. The exchange had also caused a price spike in PEPE earlier, as it opened a perpetual futures market for the token on April 18.

Major meme players

Pepe remains the top-traded memecoin, far surpassing the likes of Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Floki (FLOKI), and Dogwifhat (WIF).

However, among the other major meme players, only WIF, Bonk (BONK), and Book of Meme (BOME) registered any gains in the last 24 hours.

• WIF was up a modest 1%.
• BOME managed an even lower 0.60%.
• BONK performed much better, rising 8.5% to exchange hands at $0.000028 at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, the global cryptocurrency market is still reeling from a downturn of 0.67%, bringing its market cap to $2.45 trillion.

The world’s leading cryptocurrency by market cap, Bitcoin, is seen in the red with a 0.65% drop in the last 24 hours, currently being traded at $67,338.