Crypto trader turns $2K PEPE into $43M, sells for $10M profit

A savvy cryptocurrency dealer reportedly turned $2,000 into greater than $43 million by investing within the memecoin Pepe at its peak valuation, regardless of the token’s excessive volatility and lack of underlying technical worth.

The dealer made an over 4,700-fold return on funding on the favored frog-themed Pepe (PEPE) cryptocurrency, in accordance with blockchain intelligence platform Lookonchain.

“This OG spent solely $2,184 to purchase 1.5T $PEPE($43M on the peak) within the early stage. He bought 1.02T $PEPE for $6.66M, leaving 493B $PEPE($3.64M), with a complete revenue of $10.3M(4,718x), Lookonchain wrote in a March 29 X put up.

The dealer realized over $10 million in revenue regardless of Pepe’s worth falling over 74% from its all-time excessive of $0.00002825, which it reached on Dec. 9, 2024, Cointelegraph Markets Pro knowledge reveals.

Memecoins are thought of among the most speculative and risky digital belongings, with worth motion pushed largely by on-line enthusiasm and social sentiment moderately than elementary utility or innovation.

Nonetheless, they’ve confirmed able to producing life-changing returns. In Might 2024, one other early Pepe investor turned $27 into $52 million — a 1.9 million-fold return — in accordance with onchain knowledge.

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Memecoins are stealing the highlight from altcoins

Regardless of their intrinsic lack of utility, memecoins continued to steal the highlight from extra established cryptocurrencies, Stella Zlatareva, dispatch editor at digital asset funding platform Nexo, informed Cointelegraph:

“Excessive-beta, i.e., risky tokens, are stealing the highlight. Working example, memecoins surged 5.6% on common, with DOGE, PEPE, and FLOKI responding to price minimize optimism and broader crypto energy.”

Whereas investor demand for memecoins has surged, it could even be siphoning capital from extra established belongings. For instance, Solana (SOL) has fallen greater than 51% because the launch of the Official Trump (TRUMP) token in January, in accordance with Cointelegraph knowledge.

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Memecoins “don’t have a tendency to attract in a lot exterior capital circulate; as a substitute current eco-system capital ‘round-robins’ from one meme to the following,” Dan Hughes, founding father of the decentralized finance platform Radix, informed Cointelegraph, including:

“Even within the case of TRUMP, a lot of the inbound liquidity was outflow from different crypto belongings, individuals promoting their crypto portfolio to purchase TRUMP in excessive FOMO [fear of missing out].”

Insider scams and fraudulent exercise have plagued the memecoin trade, and US regulators are taking notice. On March 5, New York lawmakers launched a invoice aimed toward defending crypto traders from rug pulls and related insider scams shortly after the scandal across the Libra (LIBRA) token, which was endorsed by Argentine President Javier Milei.

Journal: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge