Pepe (PEPE), a new memecoin, has experienced a significant drop in its price by more than 42% just days after reaching an all-time high on May 6. This has resulted in at least one investor suffering paper losses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to Lookonchain, a blockchain analytics service, a cryptocurrency “whale” purchased 962.3 billion Pepe tokens on May 5 using 70 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and 470 Ether (ETH) for an average price of $0.000003122.
However, the price of PEPE has fallen 42% from its all-time high since then, which according to CoinGecko, has left the crypto investor with PEPE holdings worth only $2.4 million, marking an unrealized loss of over $600,000.
Pepe Still Has a Market Cap Over $1 Billion Despite Price Decline
Despite the recent decline in price, Pepe still holds a market capitalization of just over $1 billion, making it the 45th largest cryptocurrency by overall valuation. Pepe has attracted widespread attention since its inception on April 14, witnessing over $636 million in trading volume within the last 24 hours, and burning more than 5,000 ETH in related gas fees through Uniswap trading as of May 5.
Although the memecoin has seen extreme volatility in its price, the number of individual holders has steadily increased over the past three weeks. According to data from Dune Analytics, there are currently 144,534 individual holders of the token at the time of publication.
The rise of memecoin mania has also led to Bitcoin (BTC) network fees surging to their highest levels in the last two years, following a significant spike in Bitcoin activity involving BRC-20-related transactions.
Investing in memecoins can be an incredibly risky trading strategy due to the lack of any fundamentals. While vast sums of wealth can be made, they can also be obliterated in equal measure. Nonetheless, memecoins have played a role in the cryptocurrency industry since the creation of Dogecoin (DOGE) back in 2013.