Twitter and Red Flags - Will the Pepe Coin Survive Scrutiny?

We all have been observing the immense rise of a new token, a new meme token, to be precise. Yes, the Pepe coin, a meme that is supposed to make the time of Doge-themed meme coins end.

Let me recall how it all started though.

On April 14th, Pepe went live with a Twitter post. 

Source: https://twitter.com/pepecoineth/status/1646978289267769345 

A couple of days later, the number of PEPE holders surpassed 1,000, and the market capitalization skyrocketed. The token price started growing, too.

Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pepe/ 

New tweets appear in mass, all of them are provocative, angry, and claim to end the time of Doge-themed meme coins. Pepe is celebrating, and everybody is counting how much those investors earned who bought Pepe when it was launched. But indeed, who were those people?

The First Red Flag

Here, the first red flags appear to me.

Source: https://etherscan.io/token/0x6982508145454ce325ddbe47a25d4ec3d2311933?a=0x4a2c786651229175407d3a2d405d1998bcf40614 

The very first wallet involved in the Pepe transactions purchased PEPE as soon as it went live, the guy bought billions of Pepe. 

Now, it still holds a lot of tokens.

Source: https://etherscan.io/token/0x6982508145454ce325ddbe47a25d4ec3d2311933?a=0x4a2c786651229175407d3a2d405d1998bcf40614

Now, let us think: a meme token with almost no value, no team, and even no popularity: how much one needs to buy to pump its price? It looks like a well thought scheme to me. Somebody from the team or somebody involved in the scheme purchased this immense amount of Pepe tokens to pump its price as soon as the famous Tweet appeared. The token is not listed anywhere yet, but its price has started growing, and it is not surprising considering the immense purchase. (By the way, this wallet is not the only one that purchased billions of Pepe immediately when the token was launched).

Pepe Popularity Is Growing but Claiming Profits Is Impossible

Meanwhile, Twitter also does its job, and I shall admit that this job is great indeed. More people get to know about a new meme coin (meanwhile, there are plenty of new meme projects being launched but they are left without attention), and start buying. 

Pepe continues growing in value, new billionaires are supposedly made with the new meme coin. But while users are counting the profits of those who have bought Pepe, they forget about one major detail: liquidity. 

Yep, the price of a new coin can surge as high as one can imagine, but if there is no liquidity, investors cannot cash out their profits. 

So does Pepe ensure enough liquidity to allow investors to cash out their earnings? 

It looks like no. 

While the Pepe market capitalization reached over $150 mln, the coin liquidity pool on Uniswap was just slightly over $3 mln. It means that at that time (5 days after the token launch), those who have supposedly earned millions could not cash them out. 

Now, the token is being listed on major exchanges such as Huobi, Binance, etc., so eventually, the liquidity issue may be solved. However, those who didn’t manage to cash their earnings out will have to deal with lower returns than they expected. 

The Contract Looks Suspicious

Meanwhile, another red flag appears. When checking the contract address on the GoPuls Labs website, it was detected that there are some details that normally would alarm investors.

Source: https://gopluslabs.io/token-security/1/0x6982508145454Ce325dDbE47a25d4ec3d2311933

Coinmarketcap where the token was listed already publishes a warning for investors.

And the Pepe team reacts immediately, by pointing out that the contract has been fixed, and the coin rank provided by Coinmakretcap is incorrect.

Source: https://twitter.com/pepecoineth/status/1649915486493200385

And indeed, if you check the contract address on the GoPlus Labs website, the tax issue doesn’t appear anymore. 

However, the blacklisting function is there, as well as other issues. 

Even though Coinmarketcap removed the warning, to me, it still remains unclear who is lying here and why everybody suddenly got silent about it. Eventually, are the main token holders going to dump the token in a well-prepared honeypot scam? Time will show, and for now, just have a look at how the transactions are performed by the wallet that bought a huge number of Pepe when the token was launched:

Source: https://etherscan.io/token/0x6982508145454ce325ddbe47a25d4ec3d2311933?a=0x4a2c786651229175407d3a2d405d1998bcf40614#tokenAnalytics

And see how the token price is moving.

Try to imagine what will happen if other major token holders start dumping the token. Here, another question arises: how many wallets are among the major Pepe holders? Let’s have a look at this data, too.

Major Pepe Holders

So, how many wallets are the major Pepe holders?

Source: https://www.coincarp.com/currencies/pepe/richlist/ 

More details are provided by Etherscan, as usual. Here, we can see that the major holders are the biggest exchanges. Indeed, Pepe has been listed on many of them recently. 

Source: https://etherscan.io/token/0x6982508145454ce325ddbe47a25d4ec3d2311933#balances 

However, if you check addresses that do not belong to the exchanges, suspicions arise again. Have a look at the addresses that do not belong to exchanges.

Source: https://etherscan.io/token/0x6982508145454ce325ddbe47a25d4ec3d2311933?a=0x339b07af597a2c6128d067633611baf3f0725b1a 

Source: https://etherscan.io/token/0x6982508145454ce325ddbe47a25d4ec3d2311933?a=0x339b07af597a2c6128d067633611baf3f0725b1a

They have bought immense numbers of Pepe asap after the token launch and are either inactive or very moderately active. 

What Does the Future Hold for Pepe?

What will happen if they dump the coin? I believe that the major event is coming now when Pepe was listed on the main exchanges. Normally, the token price shall surge, and thus, the perfect point for a big dump is approaching if only the major holders decide, for some reason, to keep the token alive or if the community support appears to be strong enough for the token to survive. What will happen? Observing for now. 

But with all the controversies, one thing is clear: the power of Twitter in the contemporary world is immense. Even though there are plenty of red flags, Pepe continues to attract attention. Sincerely, Pepe looks cool, and whoever is responsible for Twitter shilling is doing a great job, so I hope this meme will survive.