PEPE, the biggest winner of 2023’s memecoin craze, crashed by over 20% on Aug. 24 after a wallet controlled by the token’s creators sent 16T PEPE tokens worth $14.2M to centralized exchanges after routing them through various wallets.
The multi-signature wallet was seeded with 6.9% of the supply of PEPE at the token’s conception, according to the memecoin’s website.
All the PEPE tokens went to major crypto exchanges — one transaction went to KuCoin, one to Bybit, one to OKX, and one to Binance.
The tokens’ movements can’t be tracked once they are on centralized exchanges, but large transfers to companies like Binance and OKX generally tend to precede sales.
Reduced Security
Immediately after the transfer, the team’s multi-sig wallet, changed the required number of signers from five to two. This means that just two signatures are needed to approve transactions from the wallet, which still holds 10.6T PEPE, worth nearly $10M at the time of writing.
The mysterious moves have cast a cloud over what has been the darling memecoin of 2023 — PEPE peaked at a market capitalization of $1.5B on May 5 after launching less than a month earlier on Apr. 14. Early buyers of the token made millions.
However, modifying a multisig, with another $10M in PEPE still to sell, doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence in the PEPE team.
That said, PEPE is a memecoin — it doesn’t need to provide utility.
Lower Volumes
PEPE’s downward price action comes as transfers of the token have also slowed, implying that traders had settled into their positions and were potentially waiting for a rally.
It’s not just the transfers — the team behind PEPE has also been quiet on social media — Pepe’s account on X hasn’t posted since Aug. 11.
Moving forward, PEPE holders and the crypto community at large will doubtless keep a closer eye on the remaining $10M worth of the token sitting in the now less-secure team wallet.
