- Pepe has dominated discussions over the weekend following a controversial $16 million transfer.
- A team member has offered a response to address concerns.
- The statement has done little to restore confidence in the memecoin sensation.
In April 2023, Pepe quickly became the latest crypto sensation, clinching a $1 billion market cap just two weeks after its launch and printing mammoth-sized gains for investors. Following recent questionable activity around the project’s multi-sig wallet, however, investor confidence has plummeted.
The Pepe team, or at least the individual in control of the project’s Twitter account, has made a statement to address growing concerns following the incident. But this response has failed to generate the desired response.
Too Convenient?
In a Twitter statement on Saturday, August 26, a member of the Pepe team accused three other unidentified team members of being behind last week’s jarring transfer of $16 million worth of PEPE from the project’s multi-sig wallet to exchanges.
Sponsored
According to the statement, however, these “bad actors” have now relinquished access to the project and erased their social media presence. The team member asserts that the multi-sig wallet, which still holds 10 trillion PEPE, is now in safe hands, outlining intentions to transfer them to a new wallet and eventually burn most of them.
The statement has failed to inspire confidence from the crypto community as no evidence was given for the claims. Blockchain consultant Martin Krung asserted that the story sounded “made up.”
Krung was not alone in this sentiment, as prominent crypto trader IncomeSharks commented, “How convenient.
Similarly, prominent NFT trader @0xQuit on Twitter quipped, “we’re good guys now I promise.”
Amid the continued uncertainty, PEPE’s price continues to fall. At the time of writing, the token is trading at $0.000000868255, representing a 3.6% drop over the last 24 hours and a 21.9% decline over the past seven days, per CoinGecko data.
On the Flipside
- The statement from the Pepe team member fails to provide any evidence to corroborate the claims made. It also does not outline any precise mechanisms to prevent future occurrences of last week’s events.
- Pepe’s recent downward spiral is nothing new, as memecoins are typically the most volatile crypto assets.
Why This Matters
The recent events surrounding the Pepe project highlight the risks associated with memecoins, especially with the lack of transparency of developers and the concentration of holdings in only a few wallets.
Read this to learn more about Pepe and how to stay safe during memecoin manias:
PEPE Coin Case Study: How to Stay Safe in Meme Coin Mania
Find out how to stay safe amid recurring rugs on Base:
