By James Davis
While many crypto enthusiasts believe it’s the end of the road for PEPE, a section of the meme coin proponents are still showing their support on X. Among them is Bitcoin influencer Jason Williams, who reaffirmed his dedication to PEPE on Monday. On his X account, Williams said he will continue being a PEPE maxi and assured investors of the meme coin that the project was doing fine.
Last Thursday, PEPE developers were accused of rug-pulling investors after on-chain observers spotted over 16 trillion tokens being transferred to various crypto exchanges from the meme coin’s multi-sig wallet. Hours later, all the PEPE tokens were cashed in. The developers pocketed more than $16.5 million.
The following day, PEPE’s official X account claimed that not all developers were involved in the rug pull. There was one remaining, and he held over 9.5 trillion PEPE tokens. However, it is still unclear if there is any developer left to spearhead the project. Many crypto fans believe the entire PEPE team went rogue after pumping the meme coin’s price.
Swan CEO Criticizes PEPE Influencer Williams
Meanwhile, Williams’ affirmation has not sat well with some crypto community members. Swan boss Cory Klippsten called him out, saying Bitcoiners do not hype shitcoins.
Nonetheless, the criticism has not stopped other influencers from promoting PEPE. Crypto influencer Pauly claimed on Tuesday that the meme coin was still in positive territory and that it could witness a price increase rather than a downfall. Another influencer, Alchemist, said he doesn’t believe the PEPE developers abandoned the project. He added that the meme coin’s value will soon skyrocket.
PEPE’s Brief History
PEPE rose to fame in May this year when its market cap hit $1.5 billion, becoming the second-biggest meme coin, only behind Dogecoin. At the time, PEPE proponents touted the project as the next Bitcoin. However, the hype around the token has since cooled down, with its market cap dropping to $370 million as of this writing, according to data from CoinGecko.
Analytics protocol LunarCrush reports that bearish sentiments around PEPE have increased by over 250% in the past seven days. During the same timeframe, bullish sentiment rose by 150%.
Despite PEPE developers dumping tokens, Kaiko Research has released a report today indicating that there have been 300,000 more buy orders than sell orders on centralized exchanges over the last 24 hours. Moreover, PEPE’s liquidity remains stable despite its price being in freefall.
Meanwhile, Mando, the founder of NFT analytics platform DegenzNFT, says if there is no PEPE developer left, then the community of this meme coin can take a prominent role to ensure the project is successful. And with most of the tokens being held by investors, even if the developers dump the remaining tokens, they won’t massively affect PEPE’s price.