The seasoned trader’s position reached $43 million during Pepe’s valuation peak as memecoins continue to create new crypto millionaires.
An experienced cryptocurrency trader reportedly turned $2,000 into over $43 million by investing in the Pepe memecoin at its peak valuation, despite the token’s extreme volatility and lack of underlying technical value.
The trader made a return of more than 4,700 times on the investment in the popular frog-themed memecoin Pepe
PEPE R$0.00004154, according to blockchain intelligence platform Lookonchain.
“This OG spent just $2,184 to buy 1.5T $PEPE ($43M at peak) in the early stage. He sold 1.02T $PEPE for $6.66M, leaving 493B $PEPE ($3.64M), for a total profit of $10.3M (4.718x),” Lookonchain wrote in a March 29 post on X.
The trader made over $10 million in profit despite Pepe’s price falling over 74% from its all-time high of $0.00002825, reached on Dec. 9, 2024, data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro shows.
Memecoins are considered some of the most speculative and volatile digital assets, with price action driven primarily by online enthusiasm and social sentiment rather than fundamental utility or innovation.
Still, they’ve proven capable of generating transformative returns. In May 2024, another early Pepe investor turned $27 million into $52 million — a 1.9 million-fold return — according to onchain data.
Memecoins are stealing the spotlight from altcoins
Despite their intrinsic lack of utility, memecoins have continued to steal the spotlight from more established cryptocurrencies, Stella Zlatareva, dispatch editor at digital asset investment platform Nexo, told Cointelegraph:
“High-beta, or volatile, tokens are stealing the spotlight. For example, memecoins are up 5.6% on average, with DOGE, PEPE and FLOKI responding to rate-cut optimism and broader crypto strength.”
While investor demand for memecoins has increased, it may also be diverting capital away from more established assets. For example, Solana (SOL) has fallen more than 51% since the launch of the official Trump token (TRUMP) in January, according to data from Cointelegraph.
Memecoins “don’t tend to attract much external capital flow; instead, capital from the existing ecosystem ‘rotates’ from one meme to the next,” Dan Hughes, founder of decentralized finance platform Radix, told Cointelegraph, adding:
“Even in the case of TRUMP, most of the inflow liquidity was outflow from other crypto assets, people selling their crypto portfolio to buy TRUMP in extreme FOMO [fear of missing out].”
Insider scams and fraudulent activities have plagued the memecoin industry, and U.S. regulators are taking notice. On March 5, New York lawmakers introduced a bill aimed at protecting cryptocurrency investors from rug pulls and similar insider scams in the wake of the scandal surrounding the Libra (LIBRA) token, which was endorsed by Argentine President Javier Milei.
Listing an altcoin traps exchanges on 'eternal hamster wheel', says River CEO
River Financial CEO Alex Leishman argues that once an exchange lists ETH and SOL, it 'doesn't make sense' not to list related crypto tokens from their ecosystems.
When a cryptocurrency exchange lists its first altcoin, it sets itself up for an endless cycle of memecoin launches, warns an executive at a Bitcoin-only institution.
“The minute an exchange adds a non-Bitcoin token, they are signing up to be on the eternal hamster wheel of memecoins,” River Financial CEO Alex Leishman said in an X post on March 29. “There is no point in listing ETH if you don’t list tokens issued in ETH, and the same goes for Solana,” Leishman said.
River has no interest in building a “successful crypto casino”
Leishman said that while there are many “successful crypto casinos,” he has no interest in building one. River Financial is a Bitcoin-only financial institution focused on buying and selling Bitcoin.
BTC R$ 478.970
. Several companies have opted for the Bitcoin-only approach, including Swan Bitcoin, Bull Bitcoin, and decentralized exchange Bisq.
Leishman stated that multi-asset trading platforms prioritize short-term speculation over wealth accumulation:
“The casino business model is built around extracting maximum value from customers, and the Bitcoin-only model is focused on helping people build long-term wealth.”
Critics have expressed this point before, even during the memecoin’s early 2024 bull run. In April 2024, a16z CTO Eddy Lazzarin said that memecoins hinder the long-term vision of the cryptocurrency that kept many of the original creators in the space.
“At best, it looks like a risky casino,” Lazzarin said.
The memecoin’s market cap has fallen 27.94% over the past 12 months. Source: CoinMarketCap
The overall memecoin market cap has seen a significant drop since the start of 2025. Since Jan. 1, the memecoin market cap has fallen nearly 49% to $48.49 billion at press time, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
However, while altcoins have historically been more volatile than Bitcoin, offering them alongside Bitcoin has been a profitable move for cryptocurrency brokers and exchanges.
Related: Waiting for altseason? Data suggests it’s already started
On Feb. 12, Robinhood, which offers a variety of cryptocurrencies to its customers, reported a 700% increase in Q4 2024 crypto revenue from the previous year.
Some traders appear to interpret a memecoin listing on an exchange as validation of its credibility. Among the 15 memecoins listed by cryptocurrency exchange Binance in 2024, 12 have seen significant increases in value after going live on the exchange, pseudonymous onchain analyst Ai_9684xtpa said in November.
CoinGecko founder Bobby Ong recently speculated that the memecoin market may be heading toward an “extreme case of a power law,” where 99.99% fail and a few rise to the top and endure.
