- Over 16 trillion Pepe tokens were transferred to Binance, OKX, KuCoin, and Bybit
- Five of eight wallets had to approve a transaction, this went down to two of eight
Last week, the crypto market witnessed a number of unprecedented transfers out of the Pepecoin network, which it turned out rogue developers on the team were behind. Ultimately, they stole PEPE worth $15 million, according to a team member.
The Pepecoin team member and developer tweeted that there had been frequent conflict on the team. In fact, some members distanced themselves in the very first week after the project launched.
16 trillion tokens were transferred illicitly
More than 16 trillion Pepe tokens were transferred to accounts with Binance, OKX, KuCoin, and Bybit. This amount corresponds to $15 million. After the transfers, the token lost almost 20% of its value.
Suspicious last-minute permission changes
Blockchain sleuths detected suspicious changes to the platform’s mechanism of transaction approval. Previously, five of eight wallets had to approve a transaction before it could go through. Reportedly, this changed to just two out of eight.
These were the first outgoing Pepe transfers in the project’s history. Its multisig wallet held 26 trillion tokens out of a total supply of 420 trillion.
The entity now running the project promises full decentralization in the next few months. They shared they have been negotiating with some web domain owners to acquire the domains for the project. They will burn the remaining multisig tokens once the prospective purchases or donations of PEPE from the wallet are complete.
Analysts rang the alarm around early Pepe activity
Pepe was one of the biggest success stories of the year given the overall bearish market. In May, its market cap peaked at $1.8 billion, and its trading volume surpassed those of Shiba Inu and Dogecoin, which are the biggest meme coins in this respect.
Analysts pounded the alarm in the early days of Pepecoin trading, specifically that there were very few retail traders. The tokens were concentrated in the hands of whale investors, who determined the price. It is estimated that whales held up to a quarter of PEPE, while smaller, but still formidable investors held almost half of the supply circulating.
