With the new Shanghai update now finally out, many cryptocurrencies across the board are seeing significant activity that is causing their value to rise. This is especially true for layer 2 networks on Ethereum as the unlocked staking allows users to pull out significant amounts of assets that were locked in the Ethereum protocol, but there is one new token that is gaining significant traffic - Pepe. 

What is Pepe coin?

Pepe is the latest in a long line of memecoins that have sprouted across various blockchain networks for their silliness and familiarity among traders who frequent the internet constantly and are aware of popular internet culture. This has allowed many tokens in the past to gain traffic and value as well such as the well-known Dogecoin. 

Since its launch, the Pepe coin has gained a significant market cap of nearly $80 million at the time of this writing. While this pales in comparison to larger network coins such as Ethereum, Polygon, and Aptos, it is still a remarkable feat that has caused the token to double in price many times over. 

However, the coin itself provides no features or utilities despite the supposed roadmap on its website. Although the roadmap states that there will be community hubs, tools, newsletters, and other exciting applications, the very bottom of the website states “$PEPE is a memecoin with no intrinsic value or expectation of financial return. There is no formal team or roadmap. The coin is completely useless and for entertainment purposes only.” 

So why are people buying it?

Pepe coin trade volume and activity

The Pepe coin seems to be following Dogecoin’s original purpose when it first launched in 2013 as a joke. The lack of utilities and benefits appeals to a certain type of crypto investor that already believes cryptocurrencies lack real use cases. This strips away any notion or expectation that the coin will prosper due to technical advancements and provides early investors with an opportunity to simply gamble for a profit. 

However, similar to Dogecoin, Pepe has a willing audience behind it due to the popularity of the Pepe meme, which has been used in the world of web3 before. As many already know, Doge was a popular meme in 2013 as much as it is now, and that allows investors to identify it quicker than other memecoins, which tend to use current events and headlines as names for their useless coins. 

Don’t get it confused though, the Pepe coin website states “$pepe coin has no association with Matt Furie or his creation Pepe the Frog. This token is simply paying homage to a meme we all love and recognize.”

In fact, Matt Furie has been in numerous disputes with people in the past using Pepe against his will, but it’s unknown what his opinion of this new coin is. 

Is Pepe coin the next big memecoin?

Like most memecoins, the Pepe coin might just be a new trend among speculative crypto investors who are fine with investing in random coins that don’t necessarily have any interesting technical features. 

We’ve already seen this in 2023 with Bonk! Which was hailed as a savior for Solana when its value exploded in early January. Unfortunately, that value was unable to remain stable and quickly dropped in price, unable to recover since. 

As with most memecoins, if you’re just hearing about it now then chances are you are too late to the party. Although, that might not be an issue for most investors that wish to focus on more beneficial tokens. 

Regardless, Pepe’s explosion in price just shows that cryptocurrencies still remain highly volatile and, it can be difficult to pinpoint just what the next big thing will be because there are so many random opportunities to make successful profits.