Pepper (PEPPER)
The friendly Pepe the Frog, one of the most well-known memes on the internet, has become a cryptocurrency, Pepe coin. Although the meme first appeared in 2005, in April 2023, the cartoon was the face of one of the most meteoric rises in currency history.
It comes in the wake of the popularity of meme coins, which bring together communities engaged in spreading the word. Memes are images that are widely shared on the internet around the world. They are simple drawings, whose meanings can be different depending on the culture in which they are installed.
Who created Pepe coin?
It is not known who created Pepe coin: the developers remain anonymous to this day, but they were inspired by the story of Pepe the Frog, developed by cartoonist Matt Furie. Pepe was one of the four characters in the comic strip Boy’s Club.
What propelled Pepe to fame was a comic strip in which he says “feels good, man”, becoming an internet meme, always associated with funny situations. In the end, the meme of the frog with bulging eyes and rustic drawings rode the wave of meme coins and became one of them.
How Pepe coin works
Pepe coin runs on Ethereum and runs on the ERC-20 protocol, which establishes a standard for creating cryptocurrencies, making the process easier. Because of this standardized language, the protocol is widely used in the creation of coins and tokens.
The Pepe coin system is secured by the PoS (Proof-of-Stake) consensus, in which users act as validators of new transactions and receive rewards for the task. In addition, holders are periodically rewarded for the time they hold the coins and support the project.
This is one of the new features of this coin: encouraging users to keep Pepe coin instead of selling it quickly, to maintain stability. The project has limited the supply of coins to 420 trillion units, which are burned from time to time to maintain value.
The phases of Pepe coin
The anonymous developers have launched three phases of Pepe coin. The first is the launch itself, including listing on centralized exchanges (known as CEX) CoinmarketCap and Coingecko and spreading the coin virally on Twitter. The second phase will include the Pepe Times newsletter and listing the token on more exchanges.
Finally, the third phase will have what is called Pepe Academy, Pepe tools and more than 100 thousand holders. What is not yet clear is how the transition between these phases will happen and when this will happen. So, it is not known which one Pepe is currently in.
The jump in appreciation
Pepe coin jumped 10,000% in value in one day when a user exchanged 0.125 ETH for 5.9 trillion Pepe. This caught the attention of crypto investors, who saw the coin gain importance and relevance, causing more users to buy Pepe coins.
This is one of the characteristics of meme coins, which go viral in the same way as memes. One of the particular advantages of Pepe is the community of holders, who are very engaged and who hold the coins for longer to earn rewards, as already mentioned.
Another detail is a trading platform for Rare Pepes, Pepe the Frog images treated as collectible digital assets. Some of them are really rare and become valuable, such as NFTs. This has the potential to attract more investors, which could further increase the value of the token.