While most derivatives faded away, some stood out, such as APU, a community token that has withstood the test of developers and currently has a market cap of $215 million.
Perhaps more interesting is competitor PepeCoin, which predates PEPE, launching as a custom L1 blockchain in March 2016 and migrating to ETH in April 2023. Unlike PEPE, PepeCoin aims to build an emerging tech ecosystem that includes dApps such as Pepe Paint (an MS-Paint-style NFT creator) and Pepe Messenger (a wallet-to-wallet communication tool).
PEPE’s continued growth is a testament to the power of memecoins in this recent cycle, as well as the continued strength of ETH-based assets.
This cycle has seen multiple waves of memecoin activity, but the most talked-about wins have often been Solana-based tokens like WIF or BONK. The appeal of ETH L2-based memecoins has drawn attention to the memecoin space on networks like Base, but amid all that traction, it’s still hard to compete with L1.
The future of PEPE
PEPE’s rise has been marked by dramatic highs and difficult lows.
From a meme coin with no utility to… still a meme coin with no utility, but now also a top 20 token, PEPE’s cultural significance, political relevance, and title as an Ethereum meme have solidified it as not only the leading meme coin, but the leading token of this cycle.
However, as we have seen time and again, there are very few coins in crypto that only go up and never down, even a leading meme like DOGE, which fell from a high of $75.26 billion in market cap to $7 billion in the last cycle.
Given PEPE’s current size, it may be difficult to achieve “incredible” returns from now on. While derivatives may offer higher room for growth, they also carry higher risks due to their lower market capitalization.
