Green Frog PEPE Hits $1 Billion Market Cap, Joins Top 50 Before Binance Listing
On May 5, 2023, Binance made an unexpected announcement to list two memecoins, FLOKI and PEPE, in its Innovation Zone—a high-risk area for new tokens.
Starting from 01:00 AM on May 6 (Vietnam time), users can trade these two animated coins with pairs including FLOKI/USDT, FLOKI/TUSD, PEPE/USDT, and PEPE/TUSD. Binance will waive fees for the TUSD trading pairs.
#Binance will list @pepecoineth $PEPE and @RealFlokiInu $FLOKI in the innovation zone.
— Binance (@binance) May 5, 2023
➡️ https://t.co/yxcINj0whc pic.twitter.com/o4UTvWZkHj
Note: Binance has issued a warning:
"FLOKI and PEPE are relatively new tokens with higher than usual risks and therefore will experience high price volatility."
According to Binance, PEPE lacks any real utility and price support mechanisms. Additionally, there are signs that the anonymous team behind the project holds over 7% of the total supply since the token's launch.
Just hours ago, this meme coin, less than a month old, surpassed a $1 billion market cap, officially entering the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap. Despite losing nearly $200 million in market cap due to whale sell-offs at one point, PEPE’s current market cap stands at $1.5 billion.
Current market cap of PEPE: $1.5 billion. Source: CoinGecko
Following the Binance listing announcement, both memecoins saw impressive gains. Over the past 24 hours, PEPE's price surged by over 130%, trading around $0.00000388 with no signs of slowing. FLOKI also increased nearly 60%, currently priced at $0.00005070.
PEPE price chart over the past 24 hours, screenshot from CoinGecko at 09:30 PM, May 5, 2023
FLOKI price chart over the past 24 hours, screenshot from CoinGecko at 09:30 PM, May 5, 2023
Earlier this week, PEPE’s trading volume even surpassed that of Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB). In fact, the memecoin frenzy has burned over $10 million in Ethereum gas fees on Uniswap over the past three weeks.
"I downloaded 413,283 PEPE Uniswap transactions from @DuneAnalytics. PEPE traders have burned ~5,300 ETH ($10M) in gas over the past 3 weeks."
[Tweet by @thiccythot_]
Despite the massive gains, traders face liquidity issues. A Nansen report highlighted an instance where a whale sold $2.2 million worth of PEPE but only received $650,000 in ETH due to significant slippage.
"This is the purest representation of speculative power in cryptocurrency," said Steven Zheng, Director of Research at The Block.
In a Twitter Space AMA on May 1, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao admitted he doesn’t fully understand memecoins and that the exchange only lists tokens beneficial to users. "If a coin has a lot of trading and holding, we consider listing it. If it’s only been around for two weeks, the answer is no," Zhao confirmed.
Meme coins (and all crypto) are high risk!
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) May 5, 2023
Remember, no one is forcing you to buy them. DYOR and be responsible for your own actions. https://t.co/4GBHB3Llkx
CZ also mentioned that Binance has an independent asset evaluation team, and he prefers not to interfere. Binance previously listed SHIB, recognizing it as a high-volume trading token. Thus, Binance doesn’t oppose memecoins or any specific tokens.
In a tweet tonight, CZ advised:
"Meme coins (and cryptocurrencies in general) carry high risks! Be aware that no one forces you to buy them. Do your own research and take responsibility for your investment decisions."
