$PEPE price is in freefall after 60% of the team account’s funds were sold. One co-founder blames team members for pulling the rug on the project, but the community is finding it hard to believe his story.
Pepe Coin is now the worst-performing asset on the crypto markets due to a panic sell triggered by the unexpected transfer on August 24 of 16 trillion PEPE, worth around $15 million, from the team’s multi-sig Ethereum address to centralized exchanges.
In a lengthy post on the meme-coin’s X account, one of the co-founders accused fellow team members of conspiring against him to acquire the necessary 3 out of 4 signatures to move the funds from the joint address and blame it on him.
Behind the scenes of the Pepe The Frog-inspired cryptocurrency, the post’s author describes a poisonous work environment “plagued by inner strife” owing to “a portion of the team being bad actors led by big egos and greed”.
After the funds were sent to OKX, Binance, Kucoin, and Bybit, the parameters of the multi-sig account were altered – giving full control of the wallet to the remaining co-founder.
According to them, the treacherous team members “removed themselves from the multi-sig in an attempt to absolve any association to PEPE, deleting all of their social accounts.”
Over the course of the meme currency’s brief history, these “nefarious ex-team members” have allegedly been blocking coin donations and purchases.
“The CEX-wallet tokens were never meant to be sold on the market or for the team to profit from. Had I been in charge myself the whole time, I would’ve made some donations and burned the majority of the Cex wallet long ago.”
The sellout comes after a rollercoaster ride in the first weeks of August. While Bitcoin and Ethereum struggled, the price of the “most memeable meme-coin in existence” soared by 22.5%. But after reaching an almost $600 million market capitalization on August 14, Pepe Coin’s price began tumbling down, decreasing by almost a quarter in just one week.
By the morning of August 25, the PEPE added the 6th zero and it is now sitting at $0.00000088.
Inspired by the internet meme Pepe The Frog, $PEPE launched in April 2023 and soon rivaled the more popular crypto meme-coins - Shiba Ibu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE).
Offering “more entertainment than usability,” meme-coins lack practical applications and underlying technology, making them the most volatile and riskiest cryptocurrencies.
While price fluctuations don’t easily scare meme-coin crypto bros, the sellout of most of the team’s supply by the founding members is an entirely different story.
The PEPE community on X was skeptical about the heartfelt explanation given by the last remaining team member. Users asked for “real evidence” and demanded to know the real identity of all actors involved. The co-founder was accused of “playing the victim”, “trying to cover your tracks the next day”, and of being “the same person.”
As meme-coins are a cult symbol they depend on the support and hype generated by their community to thrive. As PEPE loses the trust of the ones who keep it alive, a question arises - Are the frog coin's days numbered?