Cryptocurrency Explained: Pepe Coin ($PEPE)

What’s with all the Pepes?

Pepe the Frog is a character from the comic “Boys Club,” created by Matt Furie in 2005. Many Internet commentators found Pepe’s expressions relatable and used screen grabs from the comic to emote melancholia, impish euphoria, or disappointment on their posts on forums like 4chan and Reddit. From the frequent re-posting and remixes, Pepe became one of the most recognizable memes on the Internet.

The comic frame below shows the source material for the first iterations of the meme.

Image Source: MattFurie.com

For years, Matt Furie distanced himself from Pepe, stating in various outlets that he was disappointed in the hijacking of Pepe imagery by political extremists, including neo-Nazi and white supremacist hate groups. But since 2016, Furie, the Anti-Defamation League, and fans of Pepe have worked to rehabilitate Pepe’s image and bring him back into the mainstream. 

Pepe in the Crypto Space

The cryptocurrency Pepe Coin (henceforth referred to as $PEPE) pays homage to Pepe the Frog by placing monetary value on community sentiment. It is a memecoin, which is a type of cryptocurrency designed to reference a cultural moment, instead of promoting a monetary theory or experimenting with a technology. The $PEPE website clarifies the purpose of the token in clear language here:

$pepe coin has no association with Matt Furie or his creation Pepe the Frog. This token is simply paying homage to a meme we all love and recognize.

$PEPE is a meme coin with no intrinsic value or expectation of financial return. There is no formal team or roadmap. the coin is completely useless and for entertainment purposes only.

It is important to know that $PEPE isn’t the only Pepe-the-Frog-based cryptocurrency. There’s GigaPEPE (GPEPE), PepeSol (PEPE), $Playtime, and even Pepecoin, which is an open-source, independent, and decentralized blockchain in the style of Dogecoin.

With all these nearly identical projects it can be hard to know exactly what you are investing in.

All about $PEPE

CoinFlip only sells the original Pepe memecoin ($PEPE), which is an ERC20 token built on the Ethereum network.

Here are some quick facts to help you determine if $PEPE could be a good addition to your portfolio:

• The total token supply is 420,690,000,00,000

• Token ownership appears to be fairly well distributed, with no single entity holding more than 2% of the supply and exchanges holding the largest shares. In theory, this means a sudden rug-pull is unlikely because only the exchanges have enough holdings to crash the market, but doing so would involve using their client’s money and ultimately be counter-productive to their bottom line, and possibly illegal.

• $PEPE’s Liquidity Pool (LP) tokens appear to be all burned up. Developers create LP tokens when they launch a new memecoin to provide the initial monetary base for the currency to trade and function and are usually owned and controlled by the memecoin’s developer. If the LP tokens are burned or locked, that means nobody owns or controls them, so the developer cannot suddenly pull them out of circulation and crash $PEPE’s price.

• $PEPE developers renounced ownership. $PEPE was built using smart contracts, and the developer designed the contract so that once it was completed,When the developer renounced their end of the contract, theyforfeited all administrative control, permanently. This means they cannot alter $PEPE’s protocol in a way that would affect token supply or distribution.

• There are no “taxes”. This means that under normal market conditions you can exchange ETH for $PEPE without paying an extra fee.

• A little bit of $PEPE is burned in every transaction, making it deflationary.

How to Buy $PEPE at CoinFlip

Before buying $PEPE, you need a compatible wallet. The CoinFlip wallet is a good choice, as it allows you to buy with a debit card through Moonpay, but most wallets built to hold Ethereum and ERC20s will work. For your initial purchase you will not need any ETH to add $PEPE to your wallet, but if you want to send your $PEPE or swap it for something else, you’ll need a little bit of ETH to pay for network fees.

CoinFlip sells $PEPE in a grouping of one-million tokens called a milliPEPE. So, if you buy 15 units from a CoinFlip ATM, you receive 15 million $PEPE tokens. We do this because individual $PEPE tokens have such a low value that it is more efficient and less confusing to sell in amounts that more closely correspond to the dollar denominations used at our ATMs.

You can also get help from a real, live person when you buy and sell $PEPE with a wire transfer or ACH (and Interac in Canada) through CoinFlip Preferred. Our experienced Client Managers can assist with any part of the buying or selling process and can share market insights.

Most importantly, CoinFlip offers 24/7 support. Speak with us or chat online if you run into any issues with a CoinFlip product.