The PEPE Phenomenon: Why a Useless Meme Coin Hit Top 100

So here’s the wild part—PEPE launched on April 15, 2023 at basically $0.000000001, and two weeks later it cracked the top 100 cryptos. No team. No roadmap. No utility whatsoever. Just pure meme energy.

It’s literally built as a tribute to “Pepe the Frog” (the internet meme from the early 2000s), and the devs straight up admitted on their website: “This coin is completely useless and for entertainment purposes only.” Zero cap.

But here’s where it gets interesting—PEPE borrowed the playbook from Doge and Shiba Inu, except it’s frog-themed instead of dog-themed. The mechanics are actually solid though:

Deflationary burn: Each transaction burns a small chunk of tokens, creating scarcity over time and theoretically pushing value up.

Redistribution rewards: A cut of every transaction goes back to holders, so you’re getting paid just for holding.

Fast forward to now, and PEPE is sitting around $0.0000014—that’s a 1,400x jump from launch. Currently ranked #70 on CoinMarketCap.

The real lesson? In crypto’s current cycle, hype + meme culture + solid tokenomics (even on a joke coin) can absolutely moon. PEPE proved that fundamentals aren’t everything when sentiment is this strong. Whether it stays relevant? That’s the million-dollar question.