PEPE Surpasses $11B Market Cap and Breaks Into Top 20 as Rally Overtakes Dogecoin and SHIB

• PEPE Coin’s year-to-date gains of 2,570% far outpace rivals Dogecoin (200%) and Shiba Inu (400%).
• On-chain data reveals a rise in new PEPE wallets, with 13,030 created between December 6 and December 9, driven by fresh demand from market entrants.

Meme coin Pepe Coin has been on a massive rally with the PEPE price soaring another 5% earlier today and surging all the way past $0.00002747 thereby taking its market cap above $11 billion. With more than 28% weekly gains, PEPE has surpassed giants like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) in weekly price rally. 

On December 8, 2024, PEPE, the second-largest meme coin on the Ethereum blockchain, surged to a new all-time high. This rally came amid potential speculation about the crypto policy changes under the Donald Trump administration, as highlighted by Bernstein analysts.

These proposed changes will let exchange-traded funds (ETFs) track the spot price of PoS coins, such as Ethereum, and stake their holdings to generate additional yields for investors. This development marks a significant shift in the regulatory outlook toward crypto ETFs. These expectations, coupled with Donald Trump appointing Paul Atkins as the SEC Chair, have fueled major inflows into spot Ethereum ETFs during the past week.

The chart below illustrates the onset of PEPE’s price rally on December 5, coinciding with record-breaking Ethereum ETF inflows of $428 million in a single day. Since then, PEPE has surged 33.9%, climbing from $0.000020 on December 5 to $0.000028 by December 9, reported CNF.

This rally has achieved two significant milestones for PEPE: its market capitalization has surpassed $11 billion, securing its position as the 20th largest cryptocurrency globally. Furthermore, PEPE’s recent price surge has pushed its year-to-date gains to nearly 2,570%, significantly outpacing rival memecoins. In comparison, Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) have recorded gains of 200% and 400%, respectively, in 2024.

PEPE Price Surge Comes Amid Heavy Whale Accumulation

As the PEPE price hovers around around $0.000027 levels, the whale activity remains bullish as well. On-chain data supports this perspective, revealing a surge in new wallets acquiring PEPE following Trump’s nomination of Paul Atkins as Gary Gensler’s replacement. As per the data from IntoTheBlock, there’s a sharp surge in new PEPE addresses and wallets.

As shown above, PEPE’s new addresses have steadily increased over the past three days, with a total of 13,030 new wallets recorded between December 6 and December 9. This spike in new addresses suggests growing interest in PEPE, driven by fresh demand from new market participants.

Additionally, the data indicates that PEPE’s 33.9% price gains over the past three days are largely attributed to organic spot purchases rather than speculative trading activity.

This positions PEPE to maintain robust support levels and mitigate the risk of sharp declines, even if some short-term traders decide to take profits in the coming week.