Pepe Coin (PEPE), a meme-based cryptocurrency, has recently experienced extraordinary growth, with its value soaring more than 1000% in the last seven days. This remarkable surge seems to be unique to PEPE, as other popular meme-coins, including Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and Floki Inu (FLOKI), have not shown similar gains.
An Unstoppable Rally
The astonishing ascent of PEPE continues, as its valuation has surged more than 90% in the past twenty-four hours. Since its launch last month, PEPE has experienced a 2,000% increase in value, primarily driven by fervent memecoin enthusiasm. Over the past month, the project has gained widespread attention on Twitter, contributing to its explosive growth.
Despite the impressive performance, the Pepe website explicitly states that PEPE is “a meme coin with no intrinsic value or expectation of financial return.” Furthermore, the project claims to have no formal team or roadmap and emphasizes that the token is “completely useless and for entertainment purposes only.”
Exchanges Embrace PEPE
Numerous cryptocurrency exchanges have listed PEPE following its launch and subsequent investor interest. Major platforms such as OKX, MEXC Global, Bitget, Gate.io, and Huobi have all added meme-coin to their offerings.
From its modest beginnings with a market capitalization of under a million dollars in mid-April, PEPE has experienced rapid growth in the past month. As a result, the meme coin’s market capitalization has surpassed the impressive $1 trillion mark on both CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap as of the time this article is being written.
Despite this, futures traders have taken a bearish stance, with negative funding rates dominating perpetual futures tied to the token. A negative funding rate signifies that short positions are dominant, and traders are willing to pay long positions to maintain their bearish bets.
CoinGlass data reveals that short positions against the token lost at least $11 million across several exchanges in the past day. Losses on the OKX exchange alone amounted to $5.5 million, while traders on Huobi, Bybit, and BitMEX experienced additional losses.
