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Prices of main crypto assets dipped further this week, with Bitcoin and Ethereum close to two-month lows. In the meme coin space, Pepe the frog had a tough week as Milady Meme Coin took the center stage after Elon Musk tweeted about it.

Meanwhile, big investments in Artificial Intelligence unveiled this week by big US corporate giants could fuel AI-related tokens, and Cardano got some support from the launch of its Layer 2 scaling solution Hydra.

Also read: Ethereum scaling solution Optimism price gears for recovery with this bullish catalyst from Worldcoin

Milady Meme Coin (LADYS), Pepe coin (PEPE) prices have declined as the meme season narrative loses its popularity among crypto traders. LADYS price nosedived 62% after hitting an all-time high of $0.00000017 on May 11 and PEPE lost 70% of its value from record high of $0.00000431 on May 5.

Experts at Santiment discussed in a recent report on meme coins how these tokens derive their value from speculation and catalysts like social dominance. As other narratives like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Ethereum layer 2 gain prominence, the hype surrounding the two meme coins is likely to drop lower.

Read more here.

Find out more about PEPEs competitor Milady Meme Coin here.

As the spotlight shifts from meme coins, Artificial Intelligence (AI) tokens have made a comeback, starting their price recovery.

Several tech giants like Meta, IBM and Humane announced updates or released new AI products earlier this week, fueling the AI narrative. Render (RNDR), SingularityNET (AGIX) and Fetch.ai (FET) started their recovery from the pullback that followed the second-week of April 2023.

Top 5 AI tokens by market capitalization

As seen in the chart above, the top 5 AI tokens started their recovery after the recent round of announcements. Find out more about the tech giants updates here.

Among cryptocurrencies with a large market capitalizations, Cardano started its recovery with scaling solution Hydras mainnet release.

Hydra, Cardanos layer 2 scaling solution aims to increase speed, scalability and reduce transaction costs for ADA users. The launch of the scalability solution on Cardanos mainnet acted as a bullish catalyst, driving ADA price higher.

Ethereum-alternative Cardano started its recovery with 3% gains since Thursday. Hydras release on mainnet therefore fueled a bullish thesis for ADA.

Find out more about the Hydra release here.

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Weekly roundup: LADYS and PEPE prices drop, AI tokens recover, Hydra mainnet release drives Cardano higher - FXStreet

Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal has issued an apology after the crypto exchange sent out an email labeling the Pepe the Frog meme as a hate symbol a move that prompted many users to call for a boycott.

In a May 11 tweet, Grewal said Coinbase had screwed up in sharing information about the Pepe meme, which included that it had been co-opted by many alt-right groups as a hate symbol. According to the Coinbase CLO, the exchange was attempting to provide a fact-based picture of a trending topic to its users.

The price of the memecoin Pepe (PEPE) has significantly surged in the last 30 days, rising to an all-time high of roughly $0.000004 on May 4. Exchanges including Binance, OKX, MEXC Global, Bitget, Gate.io, Gemini and Huobilisted Pepe trading pairs amid the online frenzy. Many users responding to Grewals apology also called on Coinbase to start listing the token.

Coinbases May 10 email prompted many Crypto Twitter users to call for a boycott of the exchange, claiming that Pepe was not a hate symbol to members of the space. The hashtag #deletecoinbase was trending on Twitter after pseudonymous user borovik.eth posted the Coinbase email.

Related: Coinbase execs visit UAE to test potential of strategic hub for international operations

I never felt the need to delete my Coinbase account based off some misinformed copy pasta newsletter intern, said Twitter user 6101.eth. I truly appreciate all CB is doing for crypto advocacy in the U.S. [I] for one am hoping to see an apology email with the correct info sent out at the very least.

At the time of publication, the PEPE price was roughly $0.0000013, having fallen by more than 27% in the last 24 hours.

Magazine: Crypto Pepes: What does the frog meme?

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'We screwed up' Coinbase CLO responds to outrage after exchange associated Pepe with hate groups - Cointelegraph

In early April, the Twitter account @pepecoineth posted a photo of a cartoonish green frog wearing a red cap emblazoned with Make Memecoins Great Again, referring to Donald Trumps presidential slogan.

Two weeks later, the Pepe coin, whose name comes from a popular meme co-opted by the American alt-right, was released with a total supply of 420.69 trillion coins. (The meaning of these numbers is, ahem, self-evident.) A trading frenzy ensued, and Pepe, which is fueled by pure memetic power and trades under the ticker $PEPE, skyrocketed in value.

In less than three weeks, the market capitalization for the memecoina cryptocurrency thats typically a joke and tool for speculationcrossed $1.6 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. (It is currently hovering near $800 million.) Each coin is worth between two- to three-millionths of a dollar. Since CoinGecko began tracking it on April 18, one day after its debut, the Pepe token has increased more than 900% in priceits now listed on major exchanges like Crypto.com and Binance.

View the Market Capitalization For $pepe In 2023 chart

Pump the frog, an exhortation to increase the token's price, became a common refrain on Twitter, and the cryptocurrencys Telegram group is a chaotic mishmash of memes and price talk. How did something so unabashedly worthless become so valuable?

If theres one meme that encapsulates the confusing twists and turns of internet culture, its a green frog with a preternaturally expressive face.

In 2005, illustrator Matt Furie released a web comic titled Boys Club that featured a frog named Pepe. The character made frequent appearances in Furies work. At one point, in response to a question about his bathroom habits, the character responds, Feels good, man.

Soon, Pepe became a popular meme, and the internet used the frogs expressive face in almost every conceivable circumstance, including hate speech. In 2016, the Anti-Defamation League designated the meme as a hate symbol. The organization cited various online examples, including an image of Pepe saying feels good while wearing a Nazi stormtrooper helmet.

Furie, incensed by the co-option of his comic-book frog, launched a campaign with the Anti-Defamation League to rescue Pepe from the American alt-right. Since then, the meme has lived in comparative ambiguity. Its association with hate speech still continues, but it became a symbol, for example, of the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

The Pepe token is the latest chapter in the memes almost two-decades-long history. But it's certainly not the first memecoin.

Dogecoin, created in late 2013 by developers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, was arguably the first memecoin to land on the market. They said they made it as a joke, with its name a reference the popular doge meme, or an image of a Shiba Inu, a particular breed of dog. As opposed to Bitcoin, a replacement for currency, or Ethereum, a decentralized computing platform, Dogecoin unapologetically had no purpose.

That didnt stop the token from taking off in popularity, and even Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter and Telsa, has repeatedly jumped on the doge bandwagon. Now, the cryptocurrency has a market capitalization of more than $10 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Since then, a flood of memecoins have saturated the market, including Shiba Inu, another dog-inspired token, and even recent additions like Good Gensler, a token that pokes fun at Gary Gensler, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission whos set his crosshairs on the crypto industry writ large.

Many of the most popular memecoins, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, are canine-inspired. "The dogs have had their day," wrote the developers behind the Pepe token, "its time for Pepe to take reign."

The world of crypto is a pseudonymous slurry of nicknames, numbers, and memes. And the developers of Pepecoin are similarly unknown.

They operate the @pepecoineth Twitter account, and their website has no contact information. The only clues to their activities are two press releases from mid-April: one launched from Guadelejara, Mexico, that advertises the success of the Pepe token, and another launched from London that announces the creation of another memecoin, DanGPT, the daring twin of ChatGPT. The name David Costla accompanies both releases.

In addition to messaging account handles associated with the Pepe token across different social media platforms, Fortune reached out to both email addresses listed on the press releases but has yet to receive a response.

In the meantime, memecoin trading has seen a dramatic uptick, according to data compiled by Dune analyst James Tolan. Pepe fervor is partly fueling the crazemany are still looking to "pump the frog"although after crossing $1.6 billion, the token crashed to a market cap that's now closer to $800 million, according to CoinMarketCap. Pepe has traveled the internet for decades. Where he goes next is anyone's guess.

Read the rest here:
How the Pepe coin, fueled by pure memetic power, soared past a $1.6 billion market cap in 3 weeksand then tumbled - Fortune

Welcome back to Distributed Ledger. This is Frances Yue, crypto reporter at MarketWatch.

Crypto investors have recently witnessed the meteoric rise of another meme coin.

Three weeks after it was launched, Pepe coin, a token in reference to the internet meme Pepe the Frog, saw its market capitalization rise to as high as $1.6 billion on May 5, though it has since fallen over 60% to around $600 million. The token has lost more than 70% of its value from its all-time high on May 5.

Also read: Why meme coins are trending again

Pepes rally reminded investors of the meme coin craze they witnessed in 2021, especially evidenced by the rise of dogecoin and Shiba Inu then. Pepes surge also inspired a buying frenzy of several other meme coins, which together contributed to the congestion of the Ethereum and Bitcoin network.

Most recently, crypto enthusiasts are eyeing the tension between the Pepe coin community and digital asset exchange Coinbase COIN , which, in a newsletter Wednesday said the Pepe the Frog character has been co-opted as a hate symbol by alt-right groups, citing Anti-Defamation League.

It has since sparked outrage from the meme tokens supporters on Twitter. Pepe The Frog is a lot of things, but it is definitely not an alt-right hate symbol, Twitter user @farokh, a supporter of Pepe coin wrote. Was the narrative taken away from Matt Furie [creator of the character] for a moment? Yes, it was. Does that mean the entire character is racist and condones hateful speech and behaviour? No, it doesnt.

On Thursday, Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, tweeted an apology to the Pepe coin community, saying that the exchanges newsletter didnt provide the whole picture of the history of the meme.

Find me on Twitter at @FrancesYue_ to share any thoughts on crypto, this newsletter, or your personal stories with digital assets.

Chase Devens, senior research analyst at Messari, attributed Pepes rise to a perfect storm of conditions.

I would say that in the past month or so, there hasnt really been anything too noteworthy happening in crypto, Devens said in a phone interview. So when Pepe coin popped up, it was relatively easy for people to be like, this is something interesting, and to start directing their attention towards it.

It also contributed to the cryptos rally that the meme of Pepe the Frog was already popular on the Internet, noted Devens.

Jeff Mei, chief operating officer at BTSE, said the rise of PepeCoin was largely driven by investors fear of missing out, which is often referred to as a crypto slang called FOMO.

The support of so-called whales, or individuals or entities that hold large amounts of Pepe coin, also helped with the rally, Mei said.

While the crypto market overall might be stuck in an elongated winter, viral dynamics follow their own logic, Mei said.

Bitcoin has gained over 60% so far this year, but is still down over its all-time high in 2021, according to CoinDesk data.

Pepe coins price peaked on May 5 at around $0.000004, after Binance said it would list the token, but has since fallen more than 70% to about $0.000001 on Thursday.

Its relatively common for meme coin prices to spike as they are listed on major exchanges, and fall afterwards, noted Devens. For example, Shiba Inus price peaked in October 2021 at around $0.000018, after Coinbase listed the coin in September 2021, but has then lost half of its value to about $0.0000086 on Thursday.

Its hard to say whats next for Pepe coin, noted Devens. Compared with Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, whose market capitalization stands at $9.8 billion and $5.1 billion, Pepe coin is still relatively small.

To be sure, cryptocurrencies, especially meme coins, are highly volatile, and remain largely unregulated.

The rise of Pepe coin, which is based on Ethereum, has also pushed up the gas fees, or the fees paid to validators on the blockchain, as more transactions are happening on the network.

The meme coin resurgence inspired by Pepe has also led to more tokens created on the Bitcoin network using BRC-20 token standard, which allows users to create and send fungible tokens through the Ordinals protocol.

Since the launch of PEPE, BRC-20 meme coins have exploded in popularity and caused heavy congestion on the network, Devens wrote in a recent note.

Read: Binance twice pauses bitcoin withdrawals due to large volume

Bitcoin lost 6.3% in the past week and was trading below $27,000 on Thursday, according to CoinDesk data. Ether declined 4.5% in the same period to below $1,800.

Read more from the original source:
Meme crypto Pepe coin had a meteoric rise, but has lost 70% of its value in a week. - MarketWatch

Pepe is the latest memecoina category of altcoins, or smaller cryptos after heavyweights Bitcoin and Ether to capture the attention of the crypto crowd. Dogecoin, referencing the doge meme, is the eighth-largest digital asset by market capitalization, with similarly dog-themed crypto Shiba Inu close behind.

For its part, Pepe references the Pepe the Frog memewhich has a checkered cultural reputation. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has named the Pepe the Frog meme a hate symbol, while noting that the character did not initially have racist connotations and that many uses of the meme continue to be non-bigoted.

Pepe has taken off since its launch in April, with its listing on OKX last Monday and addition to Binancethe worlds largest crypto exchangelast Friday acting as accelerants, funneling new liquidity to trading in the token.

Pepe prices ripped higher in turn, with its market cap surging from $280 million before the OKX listing to a peak of $1.8 billion after it was listed on Binance, with trading volume in Pepe at times dwarfing that of much larger memecoin peers such as Dogecoin, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko.

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The rally has since cooled, likely as a result of profit-taking, with Pepes market cap falling to near $430 million on Wednesday.

But dont expect such a frenzy to fall flat so soon, especially since it looks like whales (holders of significant amounts of crypto) are getting involveda sign that trading in Pepe is attracting more influential market participants.

Three whales have started to buy Pepe in force since prices dropped back from their peak, crypto analytics group Lookonchain detailed via Twitter on Tuesday, citing public blockchain network data. Two of those whales hold positions worth more than $1 million combined at current prices, while Lookonchain noted that the third began withdrawing Pepesome $2.76 millionfrom Binance.

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Another whale, Lookonchain detailed Wednesday, has steadily bought Pepe across the past three days, scooping up around $150,000 in this current spree.

These positions might seem small in size compared with the total market cap of Pepe, but they have the potential to be market-moving in the volatile memecoin space.

More broadly, the attention of whales may signal that this memecoin frenzy is more than a flash in the pan, potentially symptomatic of improving sentiment in one of the most risk-on corners of the marketor just more crypto hype.

Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com

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Dogecoin Rival Pepe Hooks Crypto Whales. Memecoin Frenzy May Just Be Starting. - Barron's