Pepe’s market cap briefly tops $10 billion on back of 77% price surge

Pepe’s market capitalization briefly reached $10.2 billion, up from around $5.7 billion a day ago, with major exchanges recently listing Pepe trading pairs. Its market cap currently stands at $9.5 billion.

The memecoin’s price jumped 77% in the past 24 hours to change hands at $0.000024 at the time of writing, according to The Block’s price page.

The price increase came as several major exchanges began listing the memecoin. Robinhood Crypto said yesterday that it listed Pepe, Solana, Cardano and XRP for U.S. customers. Robinhood’s listing of Pepe comes amidst the platform’s relisting of Solana, Cardano and XRP, which were previously discontinued after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission targeted various centralized exchanges with charges of offering unregistered securities.

Coinbase started to allow Pepe trading on Wednesday. Upbit, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, also opened the Pepe trading pair today. The Korean exchange is ranked fifth on CoinMarketCap’s top spot exchanges. In the past 24 hours, Upbit processed over $10 billion in trade volume.

Min Jung, research analyst of Presto Research, told The Block that the listings of Pepe on Coinbase and Robinhood are "notable" as both exchanges "had previously been conservative about listing memecoins."

"Now, with easier access on these platforms, U.S. retail investors — who were once limited to decentralized exchanges — can engage more directly, potentially driving further momentum for PEPE among American investors," Jung said.

The GMCI Meme index climbed 10.2% to 510.59 in the past 24 hours. Dogecoin edged down 1.6%, while Shiba Inu added 0.59%.

"We believe euphoria and memecoin pump could extend as bitcoin remains in a strong rally and the political narrative is still expanding," said Valentin Fournier, an analyst at BRN.

The article has been updated with analysts' comments.