The daily trading volumes of the crypto Pepe have exceeded those of Dogecoin and Solana.
Indeed, in the last 24 hours the total trading volumes of the PEPE token on crypto exchanges was about 3.8 billion dollars, while SOL did not exceed 2.4 billion and DOGE remained below 1.7.
Even BNB did not exceed 2 billion, so excluding stablecoins only Bitcoin and Ethereum have outperformed Pepe, with 24.7 billion and 11.5 respectively.
In other words, among the true cryptocurrencies in the last 24 hours Pepe was the third most traded overall, after BTC and ETH, surpassing all the others.
Summary
The boom of the crypto Pepe: surpassing Dogecoin and Solana
Technically Pepe is not a real cryptocurrency, but a token on Ethereum.
It belongs to the so-called meme-coins, of which Dogecoin is the main representative.
Yesterday, however, Pepe was not only the most traded meme-coin, but also the most traded altcoin overall, since both Bitcoin and Ethereum are now making history on their own.
To tell the truth, this boom of Pepe started two days ago, when the price went above 9 millionths of a dollar.
Later it also rose above 10 millionths, setting the new all-time high today at 11.4 millionths of a dollar.
The previous record was on March 13, the day before the new all-time high of Bitcoin, when the price of the PEPE token touched for the first time in its history the 9 millionths of a dollar.
So the increase since then has not been particularly high, also because by mid-April it had dropped below 5 millionths.
Being a meme-coin, it has a very volatile price, supported only by speculation or the community that follows this memecoin.
Meme-coin and meme-stock
The recent boom of Pepe in the last few days was most likely triggered by a new boom of the so-called meme stocks on traditional stock exchanges.
At this moment the meme-stock par excellence is GameStop (GME), which in the last three sessions of the New York Stock Exchange has even gained 160%.
Even in this case we are dealing with purely speculative titles, so much so that a +% in three sessions on traditional stock exchanges is really something very anomalous.
Actually, the rise of the GME stock started on May 2nd, when in less than ten days its price went from $11 to almost $20.
Only the climb did not stop there.
Indeed, probably also thanks to an organized and coordinated action of retail investors who follow the trend of this stock, it resumed on Monday, bringing the price to almost $65 yesterday.
However, there was a correction afterwards, with the price returning below $50.
Note that these are not absolute highs, as in a situation quite similar to January 2021 it even exceeded $120.
The following month ended up collapsing below $10, but then bounced back.
Starting from December 2021, when the last major bull run ended, the price of GameStop shares began a slow descent that, within two and a half years, brought it from $40 to less than $10.
This decline stopped right at the end of April 2024, and always just below $10, which is the same price level it bounced back to in February 2021.
Even on the first of May the price was around $11, then with three jumps it was brought back above $15, then above $20, and then even above $40.
Now this sequence of leaps may have been interrupted, although it should not be forgotten that from the current $48 to the all-time high of $120 there is still a lot of room in theory.
Dogecoin and Solana: volumes beaten by the crypto PEPE
It is worth noting that the surge of the meme-coin Pepe has not been replicated by the main meme-coin in the world, namely Dogecoin.
DOGE for example is the only meme-coin present in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, while Pepe is only in 27th place with a market capitalization that is four and a half times lower than that of Dogecoin.
However, for some time now the price of DOGE has lost some volatility, perhaps due to its relatively high market capitalization.
Dogecoin even loses 2.5% in the last 24 hours, and more than 9% in the last 30 days.
After rising above $0.10 in March, it started a period of sideways movement that is still ongoing.
Note that it is still down 80% from the historical highs of 2021.
In theory, Solana could also have benefited from this renewed, albeit brief, interest in meme-coins. In fact, many new meme-coins have been issued on the Solana blockchain.
And instead SOL is losing 1.7% in the last 24 hours, and in the last 30 days it is down 5.5%.
The price trend of Solana is instead much more similar to that of Bitcoin and Ethereum, which reveals that probably not many SOL are used to move meme-coin tokens on the Solana blockchain.
Other meme-coins
Although Pepe is, among the main meme-coins, the one that has recorded the best price performances in recent days, there are also others that are performing well lately.
First of all Floki, whose price has increased by 10% in the last 24 hours.
Note that Floki’s current price is only 37% lower than its 2021 all-time highs, paradoxically in line with the -41% of ETH.
In theory, Floki should move similarly to Dogecoin, but instead it is following more the trend of Pepe on one side, and Ethereum on the other.
It should be remembered that Pepe was not there yet in 2021.
Another meme-coin that is performing relatively well is Bonk, based on Solana, although in the last 24 hours it has only recorded a timid +1.5%.
Even Bonk was not there in 2021, but despite this, it is down by -47% from the March highs.
What is surprising, however, is the -6% drop in the last 24 hours of WIF (dogwifhat), the meme-coin on Solana that theoretically should behave similarly to Floki or Dogecoin. WIF has only been around since December, and at the moment it is down 40% from its March highs.
The other great meme-coin, SHIB (Shiba Inu), has been remarkably stable for two months now, so much so that its behavior on the markets doesn’t even seem so much like that of a meme-coin anymore.
Its price, however, is down by -73% from the highs of 2021, in line with that of DOGE from this point of view.