Pepe (PEPE) surged 15% in a day following a Pepe meme shared by Elon Musk. The rally pushed this meme coin to a market cap of $4.5 billion briefly for the first time since it appeared on the crypto scene.
Pepe’s price ate another zero, propelling the token price to $0.00001. In terms of 24-hour trading volume, Pepe is now a top 10 cryptocurrency.
With Bitcoin breaking all-time highs and the crypto market entering a new bull run, Pepe has the potential to surge even higher. But new emerging meme coins like Smog (SMOG), Scotty the AI (SCOTTY) and Sponge (SPONGEV2) are just starting out, giving ample opportunities to early investors.
PEPE Makes All-Time Highs as Traders Keep Buying
Within a week of trading, Pepe outperformed the more popular dog-themed peers, Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, returning over 50% compared to 20% gains for DOGE and 6% gains for SHIB.
The renewed push brought the attention back to this meme coin as it made all-time highs with over $4.5 billion in market cap and a price of $0.00001074 at its peak.
PEPE’s surge contradicts some of the on-chain data, though. Two indicators – reduction of large holders positions and large transactions – show bearish signals. However, most holders are now in profit, according to the crypto analytics firm IntoTheBlock.
This suggests we are now in uncharted territory in terms of price resistance levels. Despite that, the recent surge made millionaires, according to Lookonchain. One such trader turned $3,000 into $30 million, cashing out $2 million already.
This guy spent only $3,000 to buy 4.9T $PEPE($35.5M currently) in the early time!
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) March 4, 2024
He sold 760B $PEPE($2M) and currently holds 4.15T $PEPE($30.8M), and is the 13th holder of $PEPE!
His total profit on $PEPE is ~$32.8M, a gain of 11,077x!https://t.co/QTL7oxruTk pic.twitter.com/sw2FcPfgdd
Pepe’s popularity is reflected in the daily trading volume, which currently stands at over $2.5 billion traded, making it a top 10 cryptocurrency by volume.
While Pepe pushes through all-time highs, both in market cap and price, new emerging meme coins are aiming to repeat the success.
Smog (SMOG)
Smog is the latest multi-chain meme coin that is available on Ethereum and Solana. Dropped on decentralized exchanges via fair launch, interested investors can find this meme coin on the Jupiter DEX.
Unlike most meme coins that only have a speculative value, Smog introduced staking features to bring utility. Staked tokens on Ethereum earn annual percentage yield, while SMOG holders on Solana are eligible for an airdrop of 490 million tokens.
Launched at a price of $0.0029, Smog surged to $0.36 one month later, returning over 10,000% to early investors. The move outperformed many of the popular meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, which is why investors have followed Smog on X to learn more about this exciting new meme coin.
Smog’s fully diluted market cap stands at $380 million at the current prices. If Smog becomes as successful as Pepe and reaches its market cap, this could be a 100x move.
Scotty the AI
Scotty the AI (SCOTTY) is a meme coin that aims to integrate AI into the blockchain space to improve protection against scams and fraud.
Some of its features include AI algorithms to analyze blockchain data, and detection of suspicious transactions and network anomalies. The team will renounce ownership of the token contract to empower the SCOTTY community to guide future development.
According to the Scotty the AI whitepaper, there are three phases in the project’s development:
- Presale launch and token audit.
- Token listing on DEXs and CEXs.
- Building AI tools, including Scotty Swap, Scotty Chat and “Blockchain Takeover”.
The token presale has been a huge success so far, raising over $10 million where each token is available for just $0.01 before the official token launch.
Given the current price and the potential of both blockchain and AI technologies, many investors consider this an excellent opportunity to buy before it becomes available on exchanges.
Scotty the AI’s Telegram channel offers valuable insight to investors.
Sponge V2
Sponge V2 (SPONGEV2) is the successor of the popular meme coin Sponge (SPONGE) that gave early buyers a 100x return on investment during the bear market.
The new iteration of Sponge aims to outperform its predecessor by adding a Sponge play-to-earn game to its ecosystem. SPONGEV2 tokens will be used and earned in-game, giving utility to the meme coin, per the Sponge whitepaper.
Investors who want to participate before the token’s official launch on exchanges can do so by purchasing SPONGE tokens and staking them on the Sponge V2 website.
Staked tokens come with a 175% annual percentage yield, making this an exciting opportunity to increase holdings before the token takes off.
Because of its success where over $33 million tokens are staked, early investors are joining Sponge V2’s Telegram channel to learn more about this hot new meme coin.
Dogwifhat
Dogwifhat (WIF) became the fourth-largest meme coin as community members raised over $700,000 to put the WIF logo on the Vegas Sphere. Dogwifhat now boasts a market cap of over $3.3 billion, overtaking popular crypto projects like Celestia, Monero and Maker.
After it launched on Solana last year, Dogwifhat became an instant hit, returning over 2,000% in 2024 alone as it moved from $0.16 to $3.32. With the recent surge, Dogwifhat flipped Bonk, which was the largest Solana meme coin until now.
The team plans to continue having fun and announced they will launch a “Wif Hat Generator” soon.
Interested investors and meme coin traders can find WIF on the Jupiter DEX on Solana or on a centralized exchange like Binance.
Bonk
Bonk (BONK) was the most popular meme coin on Solana until recently when Dogwifhat took over its spot. Despite that, Bonk is still a household name on Solana as it was airdropped to thousands of wallets on Christmas Day 2022 when Solana was battered by the FTX collapse.
Within five months, Bonk returned over 4,000% to its holders and it now stands at a market cap of over $2.2 billion. Given how the two most popular meme coins – Dogecoin and Shiba Inu – trade at a market cap of over $20 billion, Bonk still has a chance to do a 10x from current prices.
Bonk is already listed on major exchanges including Coinbase and Binance, and the team behind Bonk constantly innovates. There is an NFT collection, a Telegram trading bot, Bonk Swap and more.
This meme coin is already accepted as a means of exchange within the Solana ecosystem and is integrated within multiple projects, such as staking Jito SOL to earn Bonk as well as lending and borrowing on DeFi platforms like Solend.
