Return of Whales to Pepe (PEPE)

Despite the decline of meme tokens, whales are returning to Pepe (PEPE). Three whale wallets began purchasing PEPE, with funds originating from Tornado Cash.

Whale Activity

On-chain data reveals that three significant addresses invested $4.3 million into PEPE in just a few hours. The purchases included:
– Wallet 0x7A7D: Spent 1,413.4 ETH ($2.72M) for 437.7 billion PEPE.
– Wallet 0x9212: Spent $1 million for 158.58 billion PEPE.
– Wallet 0x7779: Spent 299 ETH ($574K) for 93.51 billion PEPE.

These whale wallets received their funds through Tornado Cash, which raises suspicions about potential laundering of stolen funds, especially following the Bybit hack.

Increased TornadoCash Activity

Recent data indicates a 2.3% rise in ETH deposits in TornadoCash over the past month, primarily due to the activity of the Lazarus group, a known hacker entity.

Buyer Wallets

The three buyer wallets display recent and suspicious activity with the coin mixer. The second wallet shows a longer history of transactions and received funds from blacklisted USDT addresses prior to making PEPE purchases. Two wallets accrued assets totaling over $1.02 million in PEPE, while the third held about $604K.

PEPE’s Market Performance

Following these whale purchases, PEPE gained 8.6% in value over the previous day, demonstrating increased trading activity across various platforms including Robinhood, Bybit, and OKX.

PEPE, which has had prior success as a meme token, showcases potential for a resurgence despite recent declines in ownership among meme assets.

Conclusion

Although PEPE has seen some revival, it parallels other meme tokens experiencing challenges. The ongoing interest from whales and favorable trends in internet culture may support its comeback.