ambcrypto.com
18 m
Just like the broader crypto market, memecoins have struggled since the October 2025 crash.
As a whole, the memecoin market has lost roughly $47 billion (65% of the market’s value) since the crash. $PEPE and $SHIB have also been hit by the bear market.
Using September 30, 2025, as the baseline, $PEPE has lost roughly $1.58 billion in market cap, dropping from $3.84 billion to $2.26 billion. Meanwhile, $SHIB has lost roughly $4.45 billion as it fell from $7.05 billion to $2.60 billion.
Point your phone camera to install
4.8 based on 40K reviews in the App Store and Google Play
To put this into perspective, $PEPE’s market cap has fallen 40%, while $SHIB’s has fallen 60%. With this increasing performance gap, many are speculating that $PEPE will overtake $SHIB soon. However, the key question is whether $PEPE is showing stronger momentum or simply benefiting from $SHIB’s weakness.
According to AMBCrypto, the answer to this question could determine $PEPE’s chances of flipping $SHIB.
The logic is simple: The above data highlights a clear performance gap between the two memecoins. $SHIB has clearly taken more bearish pressure, closing October more than 60% down from its then peak of $0.000012.
$PEPE, on the other hand, has only fallen 44% from $0.000009, while recovering more than 60% from its early Q3 2026 bottom of $0.000003.
This suggests Pepe [$PEPE] is showing stronger relative strength, while $SHIB continues to face deeper downside pressure. However, the real question will be if the memecoin can continue its momentum and generate enough buying pressure to help it close its market cap deficit.
$PEPE has had a busy few weeks since mid-October.
On the 18th, the memecoin rose 4.7%, as a wallet linked with Tron founder Justin Sun received 7.2 trillion tokens. Arkham later found that nearly 3% of the total supply was held in Sun-linked wallets, making him the largest individual holder. On the 22nd of October, $PEPE rose by 6% as futures volume neared $900 million.
However, the momentum was also tested by heavy selling. On the 30th of October, the attacker who hacked Binance sold off 7.77 trillion $PEPE worth around $31.7 million. Despite the large sale, $PEPE’s price only briefly dropped before buyers snapped up the token. More recently, on the 9th of November, surged over 4% in just one hour, adding to signs of renewed trading activity.
The key takeaway? This move came just as the market faced more than $1 billion in liquidations.
In essence, $PEPE’s strength is not limited to its performance against $SHIB. Instead, it is gaining ground against the broader market. As the chart above shows, the $PEPE/$BTC ratio has managed to break through a key level of resistance despite the ongoing market FUD, reinforcing $PEPE’s relative strength against Bitcoin.
According to AMBCrypto, this indicates a bullish divergence for the memecoin. Increased trading volume, combined with improving technical strength adds further weight to this trend. If $PEPE can maintain its upwards trajectory and continue to outperform Shiba Inu [$SHIB], it could eventually overtake it to become the second-largest memecoin by market cap before Q4 ends.
The third largest memecoin has held strong despite heavy selling and a wider crypto market crash.
Continued strength against $SHIB could help $PEPE become the second-largest memecoin before Q4 ends.
