$PEPE, a Purple Lamborghini, and More: The Story Continues

The first story I wrote about Pepe back in May was very popular, and I wasn’t sure if I would be writing about PEPE again… but here we are.

A lot has happened in the past few days, and it looks like this story has now reached a major plot twist.

Since I’m picking the story up from where I left it last time, I strongly suggest you read the first part here so you have more context and it makes better sense.

So, let’s see how things have been since then.

A few days after my Pepe article was published, there was another Medium post that came out. That one painted everything in much darker colors and brought to attention things that, if true, were disturbing.

Things like:

Prior to hitting it big with $PEPE, the individual behind the curtain is guilty of countless consecutive hard rugs.

This token launch was about as unfair as humanly imaginable. There was no equal opportunity present, there was no decentralization in the building; there was only thirty or more wallets controlled and manipulated by the same entity.

shortly after the launch the dev blacklists the earliest of buyers that weren’t him or his friends

As far as I know, this was also the first time the public found out about who one of the Pepe team members was: i.e., Zachary Testa.

As you can see, the accusations were quite serious, especially if you look back and compare it to how $Pepe was marketed and positioned (fair launch, distribution, etc.…), which, in turn, was probably one of the biggest reasons people aped in.

So were we all fooled (again)?

And if that’s the case - why didn’t that article gain any significant traction? Why did it get forgotten and/or ignored?

I don’t really know, but there may be several reasons:

• It was published by an anon account.

• The piece was extremely emotional.

• The author was shilling another coin at the end.

No matter the reasons though, the article was not taken seriously, and pretty much everyone moved on.

The community was strong, the X Spaces kept going, the memes kept flowing, the coin got several centralized exchange listings, and at one point, $PEPE even hit a $1.6B market cap.

And just as I had already noticed, in the very beginning, the main community action was happening on X and X Spaces… Those official Telegram and Discord channels full of “wen moon, wen lambo” guys kind of did not matter.

The team seemed not to be involved either. They never came to Spaces, and as far as I know, there was no engagement with the community apart from periodic broadcasting from their accounts.

Even the PepeFest that took place all around the world in June was completely self-organized by the community.

So you could say, that at this point, the community was self-sufficient, and the vibes were very positive.

Many who got in early made quite generous profits… but obviously, the ones who made the most were the anon dev team.

And What Happens When ICO/IDO Founders Succeed? What’s the First Thing They Do?

Yup.

They Go and Buy a Brand-new Lamborghini.

It’s a well-known classic move. I’ve seen it happen before.

I’m Surprised that Lambo is still a definition/demonstration of success among crypto bro-s… but oh well…

And that’s exactly what Zachary did too - he bought a purple Lamborghini priced over $800k.

Most of the community found out about it from Pauly. Seems like he knew the team from when he introduced them to Binance to help with the coin’s listing on the exchange.

While Zachary drove his shiny new Lambo, Pauly (in his distinguished style) kept insisting that the artist (Matt Furrie) whose work they profited off should be paid.

Unfortunately, that never happened, and up to now, to my knowledge, the team has not made any donation to Matt Furie (there is a separate story about this, but I will tell it in a different piece).

Up to now, the community did not worry much about anything.

The common thought process probably was: What is there to worry about?

• The smart contract is renounced, so the devs can’t change anything anymore.

• Everything is community-driven so it feels like the team is kind of irrelevant at this point.

• And the last:

  
  Just as I was predicting in the previous article the community was indeed tracking the multisig wallet.

And here we are - we have reached the big plot twist!

The multisig wallet was touched.

To be more precise, here is exactly what happened:

On August 24, 2023, the multi-sig wallet reduced the threshold to just 2/8 signatures. This means that any transaction approvals will need only 2 signatures out of 8 to execute.

That by itself felt strange and alarming, and obviously, the community started tweeting about it and discussing the topic immediately.

Please note that there is a big misconception that those signatures are always from different people (obviously that should be the case, otherwise what’s the point, right?).

But the setup can’t check if it’s different people or not.

It can check the list of wallets and see that 2 out of the list of eight have signed…

But theoretically, both wallets can belong to the same person, right…?

This means that from the community perspective, the number really doesn’t matter much, and you either trust the team or you don’t.

So right after that change, the team started transferring $PEPE to centralized exchanges.

We all know what happens after that by now, right?

Yup - a huge selloff and price drop.

Oh, wait… but didn’t they say…

Oh dear… what a shock. Yet another anon dev team lied to its community. As if it never happened before… right?

How Many Lambos Have Degens Already Funded By Now?...

All this happened with no transparency and zero communication from the Pepe team. And what happens when there is an information vacuum?

Usually FUD…

The community gathered in Spaces and kept discussing… many followed wallet movements and charts… and X was full of findings, speculations, emotions, and what not…

That’s when Pauly published a thread about Zachary.

In his thread, he too (like in the Medium post from May) mentioned Pepe insider distribution wallets.

The team finally came out with the announcement on the 3rd day: on August 26, 2023.

The whole blame was put on “3 ex-team members” who were “bad actors led by big egos and greed” who allegedly were the ones who moved roughly $15m USD worth of Pepe to centralized exchanges.

But there is still 10 trillion $PEPE remaining in the multi-sig and here is the promise:

The remaining 10 trillion tokens left in the multi-sig will be transferred out of the old multi-sig and into a new wallet where they will safely rest until a use or burn arises.

I have been in negotiation with the owners of some web domains and usernames that I am looking into acquiring for $PEPE, and when I am complete with any of these prospective purchases or donations of $PEPE from the multi-sig, I will burn the remainder of these multi-sig tokens.

Once all is set and complete, I would like $PEPE to be left in a position where it can stand and thrive as strong as ever in a truly decentralized and anti-fragile state.

Together, we are all $PEPE.

Do you trust this statement?

Seems like not many do as this poll suggests that the community wants those burnt immediately!

The story is still unraveling.

The community wants justice and keeps meme-ing Zachary and his purple Lambo.

Pauly has tweeted out tons of information about Zachary, and by now, pretty much all his family.

There may already be a report filed with the SEC (but I have no proof). Some exited their positions and/or reallocated them into other coin/s.

I even saw this emerge in the middle of this all.

Note: I have taken out the links, so you don’t go there. I’ve only seen this tweet and am not endorsing anything related to it.

I think $PEPE’s future depends entirely on the community. They will either be able to do what Phunks did back in the days of similar highly turbulent times, when they fought for survival … or not.

Only time will tell.

Disclaimer: I had bought a small amount of $PEPE for the culture back when I was writing the 1st article and still HODL most of it now.

Also published here