Meme coins have also been a highly volatile and hyper-speculative digital asset that has been difficult for many to understand. However, it has come under the spotlight again as the new digital token has been witnessing a historic gain.
Pepe, a coin that is designed on the anthropomorphized frog, saw a massive rise in its value by around 7,000% in less than 3 weeks. The coin was launched on the 16th of April and by the 5th of May, it has market valuation had reached $1.8 billion.
Stratospheric Gains by the New Meme Coin
The rise in Pepe’s value has renewed interest in the meme coin market. It has caused the overall trading volumes to reach the value of $2.6 billion for the first week of May. A week before that, the trading volume was only at $408,000.
According to Todd Groth, the department for index research at the CoinDesk Indices, meme coins tend to rise on certain occasions and this usually happens when the market is a bit choppy or sideways.
He further added that it feels like the market isn’t going up as it should be which is why the traders look for such smaller coins to trade with. Interestingly, this growth in the meme coins comes after Bitcoin’s bull rally came to a stop in 2023.
The top currency saw a decline of 6% since mid-April and is close to the $27,000 mark. Pepe is currently trading for a fraction of a cent and saw a decline of more than 60% since its peak on 5th May. However, it still has a market capitalization of around $740 million.
As a result, it has now become the third-largest meme coin in the market after DogeCoin and Shiba Inu. Just like Pepe, both these coins also came into existence due to internet jokes. But they now have a market cap of $10 billion and $5 billion respectively.
Experts Warn and Advise to Stay Cautious
Meme coins have been a popular type of cryptocurrency that first made their appearance in the mainstream view because of the “Wall Street Bets” movement in 2021. It was given by some big players in the market, and even Elon Musk, causing many investors to invest in the coins.
However, there is no practical use of this coin and the only logical explanation behind this boom is speculation. Unlike coins such as Bitcoin and Ether, which have the potential to act as means of payment or store of value, there is nothing that you can do with the meme coins.
Market players have been warning traders and investors to be very cautious when dealing with meme coins. “Human beings love to speculate and that is why meme coins are the purest form of gambling,” said Martin Leinweber, who works at MarketVector Indexes as a product strategist.
No Purpose Whatsoever
Pepe’s website show that there is no roadmap and doesn’t even have any formal team. This shows that the meme coin is only for entertainment purposes and is completely useless.
The coin is hosted on Ethereum and has become the fastest-growing cryptocurrency, but there isn’t long-term sustainability. Chase Devens, an analyst at Messari stated that Pepe’s popularity was mainly due to the listings on different centralized exchanges such as Binance.
But even then, Binance says that the website doesn’t have any utility or value support mechanism. Therefore, it is suggested people stay cautious about investing in the platform since it can see huge volatility in the long run.
The crypto exchange also mentioned that it would not be bearing any responsibility for the losses incurred by the traders on this platform.