PEPE plunges 15% as strange token movements spark fears of rug pull

The price of the frog-themed memecoin Pepe (PEPE) has plunged nearly 15% after recent changes to a multisig wallet and new token transfers ignited fears of a “rug pull” by its developers.

The allegations — as well as the negative price action — came as $16 million worth of Pepe tokens were sent from the developers’ multisig wallet to various crypto exchanges on Aug. 24.

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1 hour ago, the Pepe multisig wallet, changed the amount of signatures required on their multisig from a 5/8 to 2/8. This comes after sending $15.7 million worth of $PEPE to exchanges.

A breakdown of what we know: pic.twitter.com/bxBxp6Nzqz

— ASXN (@asxn_r) August 24, 2023

According to data from blockchain custody app Safe Global, the wallet address transferred 16 trillion Pepe tokens — approximately 3.8% of the total supply — to three exchanges and an unverified wallet address.

Data shows $8.2 million worth of Pepe was sent to OKX, $6.5 million to Binance and $434,000 to Bybit, while an additional $400,000 was transferred to an unknown wallet.

Owners of the Pepe multisig wallet transferred 16 Trillion PEPE. Source: Safe Global

Following the transfer of the 16 trillion Pepe tokens to exchanges, the developers made a curious change to the team’s multisig wallet, which at the time of publication still contains $10 million worth of Pepe.

Data from Etherscan shows that the wallet now only requires two out of eight signatures — formerly five out eight — to sign off on whether or not the wallet should make transfers.

The change in number of signatures required to approve transactions from the multisig wallet. Source: Etherscan

Notably, the transfer of funds marked the first time that Pepe tokens had ever been sent from the project’s multisig wallet to exchanges.

Related: Is the 25% drop in PEPE, SHIB and APE a sign of a deepening crypto bear market?

Many memecoin investors heralded Pepe as the next major memecoin, with some suggesting that — come the next bull run — the frog-themed meme token was capable of “flipping” the original memecoin, Dogecoin (DOGE).

The movements of funds out of the multisig could throw this thesis, for some, into question.

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