PEPE, a memecoin launched on April 14, fell 18.81% to US$0.0000002626 in the 24 hours to 7 p.m. on Monday in Hong Kong. The coin is still up over 392% on the weekly chart and has a market capitalization of US$116 million, according to DEXTools.
Fast facts
PEPE is an Ethereum-native ERC-20 memecoin based on Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character that became a popular internet meme also known as the “sad frog meme.”
Memecoins are cryptocurrencies based on internet memes that became popular with retail investors after tokens like Dogecoin and the Shiba Inu token grew to multi-billion dollar assets.
Growing demand for PEPE could lead to higher gas fees on the Ethereum network. Gas fees spiked to a one-month high of 81.95 Gwei on Wednesday, a day before PEPE reached its all-time high of US$0.0000004036, according to CoinMarketCap.
PEPE announced its first token airdrop on Monday, to celebrate reaching 50,000 holders.
“$PEPE” has been trending on Twitter since last week and is currently the fifth most trended crypto on DEXTools.