Former PEPE crypto team members steal $15 million from project’s multi-signature wallet: what will be the future of the meme coin?

Last week, 16 trillion PEPE tokens, equivalent to about $15 million, were “stolen” from the meme coin multi-signature crypto wallet. 

According to reports from one of the founders, the perpetrators of the theft were 3 former members of the project who unbeknownst to him took away 60% of all the coins in the wallet before walking away from the project for good.

However, the story does not convince the most detail-oriented, who notice some far-fetched details in the cryptocurrency founder’s account.

Let’s look at all the details of the news together.

Stolen $15 million in crypto from multi-signature wallet of PEPE meme coin: former team members accused of theft

On 24 August on the Ethereum blockchain, a strange transfer of 16 trillion PEPE crypto, with a countervalue of about $15 million, was noticed from the meme coin founders’ multi-signature wallet to several centralized exchanges such as Binance, Okx, Kucoin and Bybit.

Alerting the community was one of the founders himself, who allegedly blamed 3 former members of the project for logging into the decentralized wallet without his knowledge and then making various withdrawal transactions.

The account of this unpleasant affair occurred via a post on the PEPE project’s Official Twitter profile.

According to reports, these 3 former members allegedly distanced themselves from the memecoin just a week after its creation, preventing the remaining group participant from using the capital for donations or purchases of goods or services due to the inability to affix signatures.

Indeed, in a multi-signature wallet, it is necessary for a tot of the participants to approve a transition before it can be executed. In the case of the crypto founders’ wallet, 3 out of 4 signatures were required before the transaction could be confirmed, whereas now the number has been reduced.

Before abandoning the wallet to absolve any association with the memecoin, the thieves left a message with the project’s last administrator that quotes as follows: 

“the multi-sig has been updated, you are now in full control.”

The remaining tokens, about 10.6 trillion PEPE, were immediately transferred to a different wallet after the theft.

In the same Twitter post in which the incident was announced, the author clarified that the project has now been cleansed of bad actors where the only value they followed was that of greed and ego. PEPE is now free of this burden and can shine with its own light.

The same individual would be in negotiations with some web domain owners and user names to transfer all references. 

When this process is finished the remaining capital in crypto PEPE will be burned, trying to recover the collapse that the token has experienced in recent days in the markets.

A story that hides some rot

The story, as emphatically and movingly told as it may have been, seems to be hiding some dirt and suggests that there is anything but a conflicted team behind the PEPE memecoin.

Indeed, the more experienced and detail-oriented will have noticed something strange behind the explanation of the cryptographic theft that occurred via a multi-signature wallet.

How is it possible that the 3 former project members had access to the funds and all PEPE tokens were not transferred elsewhere long ago?

In fact, if these individuals had detached themselves from any association to crypto, why did the remaining founder not protect the loot given and considering that, as quoted by him, 3 out of 4 signatures were needed to approve a transaction ?

It also does not report the fact that these alleged “thieves” took away 60% of all crypto in the wallet rather than the entire supply. If it really was theft, then why leave $10 million on the plate?

Most likely the most plausible explanation is that behind the mem coin is a team that is in full agreement and knows exactly what to do to liquidate their bag in PEPE .

Having been spooked by the outlook of the crypto market in general, they thought well of selling part of their holdings before the latter could lose value.

The multi-signature wallet story does not add up and seems to be more of an excuse than a real explanation of the facts. In order to convince the community not to sell their positions sinking even more the price of PEPE and consequently also the countervalue of the remaining loot (10.6 trillion PEPE), the team tried this ploy.

If in fact the rugpull had been confirmed, the price of the meme coin would surely have lost much more in a very short time.

So the PEPE project is most likely not yet free from the burden of greed, and never will be as long as it remains a crypto tied exclusively to speculation in the markets with no real-world use case.

Price analysis of the memecoin PEPE

The price action of the memecoin PEPE is purely bearish and seems to be facing a very important price level for the future of the coin right now.

Indeed, around the current price lies a support that converges with an area where the asset bounced in mid-June following a strong retracement as well as in a cluster touched in May before the crypto’s last bullish leg up.

At the moment low market volumes and the whole dynamic related to the alleged “theft” in the project’s multi-signature wallet suggest a downward continuation of PEPE’s price for the next few weeks.

Unless burns of the last 10.6 trillion tokens are actually executed, confirming a genuine interest on the part of one of the founders in running the project, it is very likely that the bears will take control of the situation.

PEPE has now been below the SMA 50 for more than a month and also below the SMA 10 for a few days, indicating negative momentum for shitcoin.

Prices are a long way from the all-time high touched on 6 May, from which there is a drawdown of about 80%.

What seems most likely at the moment is that sharks and project insiders have monetized most of their holdings, leaving the crypto at the mercy of a market that could worsen an already dire situation.

The coin still registers a capitalization of $350 million today but could easily diminish its influence in the coming months.

What could prevent a decline of the token is only the strong community behind the project, which could maintain a strong price base and push prices up in the future. 

In any case, to date the outlook is mostly negative.