Meme coins led the 2024 mania, capturing the most investor interest globally and price gains in the crypto space.
Now, as we enter into 2025, the cryptocurrency market is preparing for yet another massively bullish year amidst renewed institutional and retail interest and regulatory clarity in the US with the most pro-crypto administration ever.
The positive momentum has already begun, with traditional financial investors (TradFi) pouring in over $1.64 billion (net inflows) in Bitcoin Spot ETFs in the first few trading days of the new year.
On the meme coin front, Elon Musk kicked the year off by changing his name on his social media platform X (previously Twitter) to “Kekius Maximus.”
The world’s richest man made the change last week without any explanation, which also included putting on a new profile image that represents the character ‘Pepe the Frog.’ Musk’s profile image shows Pepe in a Roman military dress holding a video game joystick.
The association with the popular meme has social media buzzing as ‘Pepe the Frog,’ a popular Internet meme, garners a lot of attention both inside and outside the crypto space.
From Controversy to Celebration: Pepe the Frog’s Positive Transformation
Musk changing his new persona to ‘Pepe the Frog’ raised questions about the symbol, whose Internet journey has been filled with ups and downs.
‘Pepe the Frog’ was created about two decades ago by cartoonist Matt Furie for his comic Boys Club. With his red lips, big expressive eyes, and green skin, Pepe looks innocent. This friendly charm has made Pepe very popular as a meme all across the Internet.
Pepe can be anything one wants him to be. While he started as an easygoing, bro-like character, he eventually took on a completely different identity. ‘Pepe the Frog’ was classified as a “hate symbol” by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) due to its frequent use in racist contexts during the 2016 presidential election.
The #SavePepe campaign was launched to help ‘Pepe the Frog’ regain its original glory—and it succeeded. In 2019, Hong Kong protesters adopted the cartoon frog as a symbol of a pro-democracy freedom fighter. With that, ‘Pepe the Frog’ became a part of the people’s struggle against the authorities. Protesters didn’t just hold signs with his image; they even spray-painted Pepe’s face on walls and used his stickers in discussion forums.
Celebrating Meme Culture: Pepe’s Influence on the Crypto Revolution
‘Pepe the Frog’ has come a long way, and today, it’s all about a meme with humorous value. In the cryptocurrency space, Pepe is part of the crowd, with people frequently sharing his depiction as all kinds of characters.
The frog is actually the inspiration behind several tokens, but of course, not all coins are the same. Just typing ‘Pepe’ in the CoinGecko search bar will get you tons of results. However, the original Pepe was first released when meme coin mania was a small fraction of what it is today.
A community of crypto enthusiasts and meme lovers came together about a decade ago to create Pepecoin ($PEPECOIN) to celebrate the meme culture. It started as a proof-of-work (PoW) mineable blockchain, but the ADL’s ‘hate symbol’ designation forced the project to take a step back.
But as Pepecoin ($PEPECOIN) began to work on the launch of Pepecoin ERC20, another project bearing the name ‘Pepe’ popped up in 2023, igniting a meme coin frenzy with thousands of new tokens emerging every day now.
Pepecoin ($PEPECOIN), however, remained committed to its goal of spreading the fun around while rewarding its community with constant innovation. While it started as a meme coin, today, Pepecoin ($PEPECOIN) has a thriving ecosystem that includes an operating system called PepeOS, a retro-themed web-based operating system; PepePaint, an art creation and NFT minting platform; and most recently, two mini-games that are getting a lot of attention from casual gamers.
PEPECOIN’s Market Leadership: Innovation Meets Meme Culture
$PEPECOIN is a $220 million market cap cryptocurrency, which, as of writing, is trading at $2.02. The token price is up 345% in the past year and 18541.6% from its Oct. 2023 low of $0.01088.
The meme coin hit its all-time high (ATH) at $7.51 in April last year, and since then, it has lost 73% of its value. This downtrend isn’t specific to $PEPECOIN, though; rather, it can be seen market-wide as BTC’s dominance remains strong above 50%, and the total crypto market cap sits not far from the 2021 peak of $3 trillion.
Unlike many other coins, $PEPECOIN has a fixed supply of only about 133.7 million, the majority of which is already circulating in the market. But that’s not all. This supply is even reducing further, which, in the event of increased demand as the meme coin narrative takes center stage again, can create upward pressure on the price.
The reduction in supply is due to a burn mechanism where $PEPECOIN is burned in exchange for Brain Credits. These credits are used to gain full or partial ownership of Brains, the processing units that drive the Based network by performing complex AI tasks. At the time of writing, 18.6% of $PEPECOIN’s supply has been burned for Brain Credits, reducing the total supply to 109.4 million.
AI agents are the leading narrative going into 2025, both in crypto and in the mainstream world. So, equipped with the two most popular and profitable narratives that are set to attract market attention and capital this year, $PEPECOIN is set to drive innovation and gains in the crypto space.
The post Pepe the Frog Goes Mainstream: How $PEPECOIN is Leading the Bullish Narrative appeared first on Blockonomi.
