Pepe coin price jump 7000% in 17 days of launch

Inspired by an anthropomorphized frog popular in internet memes, the Pepe coin hit the market last month and its total trading volume increased to $2.6 billion in the first week of May from $408,000 the week before, according to Dune Analytics data.

However, the price of Pepe's coin, which is a fraction of a cent, is down 60% from its May 5 peak on Monday. It still has a market capitalization of almost $740 million, making it the third largest memecoin after Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. Dogecoin has a market cap of over $10 billion while Shiba Inu has a market cap of over $5 billion.

The rally of the Pepe coin has reignited interest in memecoins, an ultra-volatile and hyper-speculative class of cryptocurrencies.

"Memecoins just pop up from time to time, and historically it's happened when the market is a bit choppy or sideways," Todd Groth, head of indices research at CoinDesk Indices, told Reuters. "It's almost like the market isn't going up fast enough, traders find these smaller tokens to trade."

In fact, the latest memecoin frenzy comes as the 2023 bitcoin rally comes to a halt. The number 1 cryptocurrency is down 6% since mid-April to $27,416.

Also read: Crypto Conundrum: Coinbase's Love-Hate Relationship With PepeCoin, Love Hate Inu, and Ape Brigade

Reuters could not immediately identify Pepe's creators and his Twitter account did not respond to a request for comment.

According to Pepe's website, he says the coin was launched "for the people" without "a formal team or roadmap" and is "completely useless and for entertainment purposes only."

Despite this, Pepe Coin is the fastest growing cryptocurrency hosted on Ethereum, the second largest blockchain, according to data firm Messari.

Meanwhile, Binance says on its website that pepe has "no utility" or "value support mechanism." He also warns users about Pepe's volatility and says that the platform "will not be held responsible for your trading losses." Binance did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on Pepe's jump.

(With contributions from Reuters)