The popular narrative surrounding the Pepe (PEPE) memecoin as a truly decentralized "coin for the people" is being strongly challenged. New analysis from the blockchain data visualization platform Bubblemaps suggests that nearly a third of PEPE's initial supply was actually controlled by a single, concentrated entity right at the token's launch in April 2023.
Bubblemaps recently published their findings, effectively claiming that the original promise of a "stealth" launch with no presale was misleading to investors. This concentration of the genesis supply directly contradicts PEPE's public image and the team's website claims.
The investigation by Bubblemaps found that the same cluster of wallets holding the massive 30% supply then executed a large sell-off, dumping $2 million worth of PEPE tokens just one day after the launch. This significant, coordinated early selling introduced heavy downward pressure on the token's price, which Bubblemaps suggests was a factor in preventing the token from reaching the major $12 billion market capitalization milestone.
PEPE/USD, one-year chart. Source: CoinMarketCap.com
Adding to the controversy, PEPE's price has struggled, falling 5.7% in the past 24 hours and currently trading over 81% down from its all-time high over the past year. Separately, the project also dealt with a security issue earlier in December when the PEPE website was exploited, temporarily redirecting users to a malicious "inferno drainer" scam tool used for phishing and wallet draining.
These findings were made possible by Bubblemaps' Time Travel feature, a sophisticated forensic analytics tool launched in May. This tool is designed to reconstruct a token's historical distribution, allowing analysts to spot signs of early insider activity or coordinated accumulation efforts that can precede rug pulls and memecoin scams.
Identifying tokens where a large proportion of the supply is concentrated in a few wallets is a crucial red flag for potential scams, where insiders remove liquidity or stage a mass sell-off, causing the token's value to collapse. Despite the price issues and alleged centralization, the PEPE memecoin still managed to create significant wealth for some; one trader, for example, reportedly turned an initial investment of $2,000 into a paper value of $43 million and realized a $10 million profit.