One of the major PEPE coin holders has resurfaced after two years of silence, withdrawing over 2 billion tokens from Binance in a move that caught the attention of the cryptocurrency market.
This sudden activity has sparked a new wave of interest in the meme coin, leading to price increases and trading volume.
PEPE trading explodes thanks to the whale
On May 17, blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain reported that the whale began a large transaction involving PEPE tokens. The investor withdrew 1.79 billion PEPE - worth $22.23 million - from Binance to a newly activated wallet.
One day later, the whale withdrew another 420 billion PEPE tokens, with an approximate value of $5.39 million, from the cryptocurrency exchange. As a result, the whale has now withdrawn 2.21 billion PEPE tokens, worth $29 million, from Binance in two separate transactions over a 24-hour period.
Market watchers noted that these actions effectively reduced Binance's PEPE reserves by about 2%. The withdrawals, directed to self-custody wallets, indicate a deliberate accumulation strategy and suggest the whale's confidence in the long-term value of the token.
This behavior typically reflects a shift from short-term speculation to a buy-and-hold approach. Meanwhile, the whale's return and rapid accumulation of tokens coincided with an increase in PEPE's price. According to data from BeInCrypto, the memecoin's value has risen by over 10% in the last 24 hours and is now trading at $0.00001345.
PEPE's march
This represents an astonishing gain of 87.5% in the last month. Moreover, the surge has had cascading effects on digital asset derivatives markets. CoinGlass data shows that short positions betting against the rise of PEPE's price faced liquidations estimated at around $2 million in the past 24 hours.
Over the same period, long traders also incurred losses of about $907,000. Meanwhile, open interest in PEPE futures contracts jumped by 15%, surpassing $500 million - a level last seen in January.
Open interest measures the total value of active and unsettled futures contracts and is typically used to gauge market sentiment and trading activity. This new wave of activity, driven by a major investor, is reinforcing PEPE's position as a leading digital asset. It also places this token among the most followed cryptocurrencies in today's volatile market.
