Blockchain data is challenging Pepe’s “for the people” origin story, with new analysis indicating that nearly one-third of the memecoin’s initial supply may have been controlled by a single entity — a concentration that contributed to heavy early selling pressure.
Roughly 30% of PEPE’s genesis supply was bundled at launch in April 2023, according to blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps, which claimed in an X post on Wednesday that investors had been “lied to.”
Bubblemaps says the same wallet cluster sold $2 million worth of PEPE just one day after launch, creating significant sell pressure that it argues prevented the token from breaking past a $12 billion valuation.
The alleged concentration stands in stark contrast to Pepe’s branding as a “coin for the people.” The project’s website maintains that the token launched “in stealth” with no presale or insider allocations.
PEPE has dropped 5.7% over the past 24 hours and is down more than 81% year-over-year, according to CoinMarketCap.
Adding to investor concerns, Pepe’s website was compromised earlier in December, briefly redirecting visitors to a malicious “inferno drainer” — a scam tool commonly used in phishing attacks, wallet-draining schemes, and social engineering exploits.
Despite PEPE’s recent slump, some traders have still managed to secure massive gains. In March, one investor turned a $2,000 position into $43 million, ultimately realizing $10 million in profit after holding through a 74% drawdown from the token’s all-time high before selling.
Forensics tool targets insider-heavy launches
Bubblemaps’ latest findings were produced using its Time Travel feature — a forensic-level analytics tool released in May that reconstructs historical token distributions to help identify insider accumulation or coordinated activity, reducing the risk of rug pulls and memecoin fraud.
Concentrated token allocations across a handful of wallets can be a major red flag, often pointing to rug-pull scenarios in which insiders yank liquidity or sell en masse, triggering a rapid price collapse that leaves investors with near-worthless holdings.
Bubblemaps has previously helped expose suspicious wallet patterns behind several memecoins, including the Melania token and a series of fake Eric Trump-themed projects.
One of the most severe rug pulls of the year occurred with the Wolf of Wall Street-inspired WOLF token, which plunged 99% within hours on March 16, erasing nearly $42 million in market value.
The token was created by Hayden Davis, who also co-founded the Official Melania Meme (MELANIA) and the Libra token.
