Benzinga - In a significant milestone, frog-themed memecoin Pepe (CRYPTO: PEPE) hit $7 billion in market cap, with $4 billion added in May alone.
What Happened: PEPE became just the third memecoin after blue-chip currencies like Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) to achieve this feat.
The token outpaced not only rival memecoins, but also the wider cryptocurrency market, gaining roughly 135% over the month. Year-to-date, the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH)-based cryptocurrency has returned 12X to its holders.
The mad rush for PEPE could be gauged by its high trading volumes in the last 24 hours, nearing $2.5 billion, making it the most-traded memecoin in the said time period.
The rally garnered the interest of wealthy investors. According to on-chain tracking platform Spot On Chain, a whale withdrew a whopping 1.32 trillion PEPE tokens from Binance over the last five days. At the current price, their PEPE portfolio generated a 21% return.
In the past 5 days, a whale withdrew 1.323T $PEPE from #Binance at ~$0.00001378 (est. cost: $18.2M).Now, with the price surging 81% (7D) to a new ATH, the whale's PEPE holding is worth $22.1M (+21%)!
Will the whale dump with these $PEPE soon? Follow @spotonchain and set alerts… pic.twitter.com/nsTpdLwlzu
— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) May 27, 2024
Why It Matters: The coin's blockbuster performance amid an optimistic mood in the industry with the passage of spot Ethereum ETFs.
The last bull market saw a significant capital movement towards memecoins, with assets created out of internet jokes skyrocketing to multi-billion dollar valuations. Memecoin aficionados would be hoping for a similar story this year.
PEPE's daily active addresses rose 17% in the last 24 hours, according to IntoTheBlock. Supply held by long-term investors increased 0.53%, indicating accumulation.
Price Action: At the time of writing, PEPE was trading at $0.00001672, following a 12.29% surge in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Read Next: Bitcoin, Dogecoin Stay Weak, Ethereum Revels In Spot ETF Euphoria — Analyst Says King Crypto Needs To Cross $70K To Hit New Highs
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