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.

April saw bearish sentiment despite being a historically favorable month for cryptocurrencies.

April fared relatively well for memecoins such as dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB), but marked big losses for decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens like aave (AAVE) and thorchain (RUNE), research by crypto exchange Kraken noted this week.

Considering bitcoin’s (BTC) 17% loss as a benchmark, the broader DeFi sector lost 34% on average, closely followed by tokens of layer 1, or base blockchains at 33%. DeFi relies on smart contracts instead of third parties to provide financial services, such as trading, lending, and borrowing, to users.

DeFi tokens have been the biggest losers on a yearly basis with over 71% in average drawdowns for investors. Ether (ETH), the native token of Ethereum over which most DeFi protocols are built, gained 3% in comparison.

DeFi-centric RUNE slumped 51%, the most in that sector, while the minimum loss was 22%. Among layer 1s, Solana’s SOL, Avalanche’s AVAX, and Near Protocol’s NEAR slumped at least 34% in the past month.

DeFi projects also saw a drop in revenues, which are earned each time a user conducts financial activity on the protocol with the protocol a small cut of volumes as fees. The drop likely occurred as token prices fell and interest among investors took a hit.

Financial services platform SushiSwap saw a 29% drop in revenue, while those on DeFi exchange Balancer fell as much as 66%. Their corresponding tokens, SUSHI and BAL, have lost 45% and 18% over the past month respectively, CoinGecko data shows.

Curve (CRV) and Uniswap (UNI) were the only DeFi projects to post revenue gains. Curve earned 51% more in April than it did in March, while Uniswap made 13% more. The strong fundamentals failed to attract buyers, however, as CRV and UNI lost 15% and 34% in the past month.

Memecoins and exchange tokens were the relative outperformers among crypto sectors. Memecoins lost an average of 19%, while exchange tokens – such as OKX’s OKB and FTX’s FTT – lost just 13% on average. Privacy tokens also outperformed with 16% in gains, buoyed by the likes of Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC).

Meanwhile, trading activity in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) increased in April compared to prior months, even as the number of users remained the same. Average daily volumes bumped 40%, while the average transaction amount increased by the same percentage as well.

Popular Ethereum-based NFT collection CryptoPunks lost favor among investors, slipping to third rank by market capitalization as the Mutant Ape Yacht Club jumped to second place with a $2 billion capitalization.

The post DeFi Tokens Are April’s Biggest Losers as Revenues Fall; Memecoins Outperform appeared first on Crypto Insider.