Some early users have turned a few hundred dollars to six figures on the latest meme obsession.

The most degen of Crypto Twitter traders seem to be moving over Shiba Inu-fashioned tokens to those branded after the internet meme Pepe the Frog.

A pepe token (PEPE) launched Sunday ran over 21,000% in the past three days, raking in $30 million in trading volumes on Uniswap and reaching a market capitalization of as high as $33 million on Tuesday morning.

“The most memeable memecoin in existence. The dogs have had their day, it’s time for Pepe to take reign,” the Pepe website says.

Pepe hit 10,000 individual holders on Tuesday, data from blockchain tracker Etherscan shows, meaning the token was quickly purchased by swathes of investors participating in the ongoing frenzy – and pinning hopes on turning a profit.

The tokens have a circulating supply of 420 trillion, a reference to ‘4/20,’ another popular cannabis culture slang. The trading action is rather serious for a token intended to be a complete joke: a trading pool on Uniswap for Pepe tokens locks up over $1.3 million in liquidity, all supplied by providers.

As such, the tokens have no connection to the actual Pepe the Frog meme or Matt Furie, the meme’s original creator.

Furie’s Pepe, a green frog with a humanoid body, originated in the 2005 comic Boy’s Club. It went viral in the years following, becoming a popular part of internet culture.

Crypto Twitter has a knack for jumping on memecoins, mainly after the rise of tokens such as dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) – which jumped to tens of billions in market capitalization in the previous bull market.

Most of these do not last beyond a few weeks. Last year saw hopefuls bet on articles from the English language to McDonald’s branded Grimacecoins.

Anyone can call a smart contract and issue tokens on Ethereum (or other blockchains) for a few cents, and the presence of decentralized exchanges means tokens can instantly be issued, supplied with liquidity and traded soon after.

Some professional investors have previously told CoinDesk that meme coins and their narratives will always remain a part of the crypto ecosystem.

“Meme coins are huge parts of the crypto trading landscape, whether we like it or not,” James Wo, founder at crypto fund DFG, told CoinDesk at the heights of one such meme obsession. “While the biggest currencies like bitcoin and ether have very low volatility, it’s only natural that traders will look for opportunities elsewhere.”

“Meme trading is a risky way to try to seek excessive return, but when it pans out, the upside can be very huge. So even in a bear market, some of the meme coins will have large up-swing, even if it’s just short term,” Wo explained.

The premise doesn’t matter: if there’s money to be made peddling trendy topics; expect a market for it somewhere in niche “s**tcoin” circles.

The post ‘Pepe the Frog’ Memecoins Rocket as Crypto Twitter Moves Over Doge Obsession appeared first on Crypto Insider.

The announcement comes as DOGE surged 102% in October

BitGo will be introducing wrapped Dogecoin (wDOGE) to the Ethereum blockchain through a partnership with wDogeDAO, the crypto custody firm announced Wednesday.

Wrapping dogecoin will mean that holders will be able to use their wDOGE tokens for decentralized applications (dapps) in the Ethereum ecosystem. All wDOGE is backed by a DOGE token, at a 1:1 ratio.

In addition, BitGo will provide hot wallets, qualified custody, and self-managed custody for both DOGE and wDOGE by the end of the month.

The announcement comes after DOGE’s price rose 102% during October. Analysts attribute the big jump to the excitement behind Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, who has been a major booster of the popular meme coin.

DOGE is the sixth largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of about $19 billion, according to CoinDesk’s crypto price index.

BitGo VP of Product Nuri Chang noted to CoinDesk that Dogecoin “holders, both large and small, are some of the most active in the crypto community.”

“The wDoge bridge enables that activity to spread to Ethereum and the DeFi ecosystem,” Chang said.

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The billionaire entrepreneur is supposed to close his purchase of the social media platform on Friday.

Popular meme coin dogecoin (DOGE) was up nearly 16% over the past 24 hours as billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter approached the finish line.

The Tesla founder’s $44 million deal is supposed to close Friday.

Musk has been a major supporter of DOGE, which has become a proxy for sentiment about him. The entrepreneur’s statements about the token have also consistently influenced its price.

DOGE was most recently trading at slightly over 7 cents. It had been languishing below 6 cents for much of the past six weeks. A year ago, DOGE was trading at 25 cents.

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XRP’s rise came amid positive sentiment for the payments tokens as Ripple founder Brad Garlinghouse said his company’s ongoing defense against the SEC’s lawsuit was going “much better than expected.”

XRP and dogecoin (DOGE) added upwards of 6% each in the past 24 hours as separate catalysts powered purchases of the two tokens amid a weakening crypto market.

The total capitalization of the crypto market, according to CoinMarketCap, decreased by 2.8%, to $1.87 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance ratio – its share of the overall crypto market capitalization – slipped by 0.3 percentage point to 40.7%.

XRP’s rise came amid positive sentiment for the payments tokens as Ripple founder Brad Garlinghouse said Thursday its ongoing defense against a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was going “much better than expected.”

Ripple, which uses XRP in its payments protocol, disputes the SEC’s contention that the XRP token was issued and sold as an unregistered security to U.S. investors.

XRP broke over resistance at $0.75 to as much as $0.80 in Asian hours on Friday before slightly retreating. If the current buying power continues, the tokens could regain the $0.82 and above levels.

Positive proceedings have historically caused a surge in XRP prices as investors see the ending of a legal case as an overall bullish sign. In February, for instance, XRP climbed 22% as important documents related to the case were ruled to be unsealed.

Meanwhile, DOGE’s rise came as Tesla CEO Elon Musk offered to take over the entirety of the popular social media platform Twitter. Musk holds a 9.2% stake and has offered to take Twitter private at a valuation of $54.20 per share.

DOGE rose to resistance of 15 cents on Friday morning from Thursday’s $0.13 levels, price charts show. Current price action could see DOGE continue a broader uptrend since March, when prices rose from the $0.11 mark.

Musk’s potential involvement in Twitter isn’t directly related to dogecoin. But some analysts speculate that Musk, who has publicly backed dogecoin’s growth and development, could integrate the token in some capacity on Twitter.

“The speculation is that advertisers could be able to pay DOGE for ads and for other uses on Twitter,” explained Kryptomon Chief Marketing Officer Tomer Nuni in a note to CoinDesk last week. “We have seen the same happening when Tesla revealed the ability to pay for its goods with DOGE. So the speculation could be around Musk’s businesses and stakeholdings starting to accept crypto, as Tesla does.”

The speculations aren’t all hot air either: Musk teased DOGE payments on in a tweet earlier this week when asked about lowering the cost for Twitter’s premium subscriptions.

The post XRP, Dogecoin Outperform as Crypto Markets Continue Slide appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Prices of the memecoin often see a surge after celebrity mentions.

Dogecoin (DOGE) briefly jumped as much as 10% during Asian trading hours on Monday after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet that he is not selling his crypto holdings, which includes DOGE.

DOGE exchanged hands at $0.111 on 4:10 UTC amid a largely flat crypto market. It surged following Musk’s tweet at 4:11 UTC, where he said he will continue to hold DOGE, ether, and bitcoin, and reached as high as $0.122 at 4:17 UTC.

The spike was likely driven by automated trading bots that track token mentions from popular accounts on social media sites like Twitter. Musk’s Twitter account, for instance, has a following of over 77.6 million.

Musk has previously tweeted about DOGE on several occasions. In Feb. 2021, he posted a picture of a rocket next to the moon and followed that tweet with a one-word tweet that stated “Doge” – a play on the saying of “going to the moon,” a term for an asset-price surge.

In May. 2021, Musk stated he was working with dogecoin developers to improve system efficiency, which sent DOGE prices flying by 22%.

Musk’s Tesla started accepting DOGE payments on its merchandise store earlier this year, as reported. DOGE payments continue to remain active, with the “Giga Texas Belt Buckle” and other products priced in both U.S. dollars and DOGE.

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