PEPE’s price has risen considerably over the last week, which was backed by a rise in trading volume. Generally, a rise in volume amidst a bull rally acts as a foundation for a further price hike
So, will PEPE grow further in the remaining few days of this year?
PEPE to rise further?
Over the last seven days, the memecoin displayed promising performance as its value increased by more than 8%.
At the time of writing, the memecoin was trading at $0.00001855 with a market capitalization of over $7.88 billion, making it the 24th largest cryptocurrency. In the meantime, PEPE’s trading volume increased.
While the coin’s price gained bullish momentum, buying pressure around it also increased.
As per Hyblock Capital’s data, PEPE’s buy volume reached 78 on the 29th of December. For the uninitiated, a value closer to 100 indicates high buying pressure on a token, which often pushes prices up.
What other metrics suggest
AMBCrypto then assessed other datasets to find out the likelihood of the memecoin’s upward momentum continuing in the coming days.
As per our analysis of Santiment’s data, the memecoin’s network growth started to increase after a dip. This indicated that more new addresses were created in order to transfer the token.
The memecoin’s MVRV ratio registered a slight increase, indicating that the market cap had increased relative to the realized cap.
Apart from that, the big-pocketed players in the market were showing confidence in PEPE. This was evident from the rise in the supply held by whales in the last seven days.
The fact that investors were buying the memecoin was further proven by the Relative Strength Index (RSI), which rose. However, not everything was working in the memecoin’s favor.
For instance, PEPE’s MA Cross indicator revealed a bearish upper hand in the market, as the 21-day MA was above the 9-day MA.
Going forward, we then checked the memecoion’s liquidation heatmap to look for possible targets and support zones in the near term.
As per our analysis, if the memecoin’s price continues to rise, then it might soon retouch the $0.0000191 mark.
However, if the trend changes as PEPE falls victim to a price correction, the memecoin’s price might plummet to $0.0000181.$PEPE
Another rollercoaster year for crypto, 2024 was the one that delivered monumental wins for Bitcoin hodlers, crypto ETF issuers and memecoin creators, particularly as Bitcoin soared past the $100,000 milestone in December.
But not all was rosy. Scams and hacks cost victims $2.2 billion this year, and failed celebrity memecoin ventures drew the ire of disgruntled investors and their class-action lawyers.
Here are some of crypto's biggest winners and losers of 2024.
Winners — Bitcoin holders
Bitcoin moved above the psychological level of $100,000 on Dec. 5. Catalyzed by the hundreds of pro-crypto candidates who won their seats in Congress and hope for the most pro-crypto US government in histor. Bitcoin climbed higher afterwards peaked at $108,000 on Dec. 17 but has been dropping to close the year.
As of Dec. 27, CryptoQuant data reveals that 87% of Bitcoin holders are still in profit at a price of about $96,000.
Sam Bankman-Fried, Memecoin, Bitcoin ETF, US Elections 2024
Michael Saylor's software company, MicroStrategy, is among the more high profile groups to significantly benefit from its holdings. According to the Saylor tracker, the firm's stash of Bitcoin
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is worth $42 billion as of Dec. 27.
In 2021, El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender and bought about 200 coins. The country has since increased its holdings to 5,942 Bitcoin, worth $576 million at current prices.
Several other firms followed MicroStrategy's lead and adopted Bitcoin as part of their treasuries as well.
On Dec. 23, investment firm Metaplanet of Japan bought another 620 Bitcoin. Its holdings now stand at 1,762 Bitcoin, worth about $169 million. Its stock rose 5% after the purchase was announced, Google Finance reported.
On Nov. 25, YouTube alternative Rumble said it would begin adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet. Its shares rose 12.63% immediately after the announcement to $7.31, Google Finance reported.
US crypto ETFs issuers
On Jan. 10, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the 19b-4 applications from asset managers for US Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Bitcoin ETFs, per K33 Research, exceeded gold funds for the first time on Dec. 16, collectively breaking $129 billion in assets under management (AUM).
Sam Bankman-Fried, Memecoin, Bitcoin ETF, US Elections 2024
The figure included spot Bitcoin ETFs and ETFs tracking Bitcoin's performance using financial derivatives such as futures.
Memecoins
Memecoins pumped again in 2024, becoming some of the year's best performers.
According to data from CoinGecko, memecoin market cap currently stands at $104 billion, led by Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) at $45 billion and $12 billion. So far this year, Solana-based Dogwifhat (WIF) meme token has rallied over 879%. Pepe (PEPE) is also up 1,205%.
Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.fun was responsible for a huge flood of memecoins throughout the year. According to Dune, the platform’s total revenue is over $325 million despite 98.6% of memecoins failing to even launch.
Crypto lawyers
Just like previous years, 2024 has been marked by crypto litigation and ongoing bankruptcies.
The SEC was at the center of a few hundred lawsuits against crypto firms, according to its Nov. 22 annual report showing $8.2 billion in financial remedies for the year ending Sept. 30. Cases declined 26% from the previous year to 583.
Whichever the case, crypto lawyers always managed to come out on top. A Bloomberg Law August report found that law firms working on Chapter 11 crypto bankruptcies alone reportedly requested and received fees totaling $751 million.
Sam Bankman-Fried, Memecoin, Bitcoin ETF, US Elections 2024
In 2023, lawyers, accountants, consultants, analysts and other professionals collected at least $700 million in payments from the bankruptcies of major crypto firms.
Losers — Scam, hack, and exploit victims
Scammers certainly came out in force in 2024. In a Dec. 19 blog, blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis said total losses from scams, hacks, and exploits hit $2.2 billion this year across 303 incidents.
This amounts to an increase of 21% from the loss amount incurred in 2023 at $1.8 billion through 282 incidents. The three major incidents amounting to the thefts made this year add up to $825 million.
In May, hackers suspected by the FBI to be linked with North Korea stole over $300 million from the Japanese crypto exchange DMM through social engineering directed at company employees, making it the biggest heist of 2024.
Months earlier, a decentralized finance and gaming platform called PlayDapp had $290 million in its PLA tokens drained by hackers who later ignored a $1 million bounty to return them.
Composing three is one of India's biggest crypto exchanges, WazirX, which was plundered of $235 million from its vault in June.
Celebrities queuing up for the crypto line
Some celebrities have shilled crypto projects or launched non-fungible tokens (NFT) collections to ride the hype in past cycles, and this cycle has been no different, with some even landing themselves a proposed class action lawsuit over their controversial token launches this year.
Among the newest, Haliey Welch, otherwise known as Hawk Tuah girl, released on Dec. 4 the memecoin Hawk Tuah, or HAWK. The token pumped momentarily to a peak of $490 million in its market capitalization and crashed quickly down to $41.7 million. Allegations of sniper attack and insider sales from wallets have continued on since.
On Dec. 19, investors filed a lawsuit against a number of entities that had helped launch the coin, accusing them of promoting and selling an unregistered securities offering.
After weeks of silence, in a Dec. 20 X post, Welch said she was "fully cooperating" with lawyers.
Bitcoin paper hands and nocoiners
While there were diehard hodlers, there were also those that sold too early or didn't jump in at all.
Germany sold nearly 50,000 Bitcoin seized from movie piracy website, movie2k starting July 12, making a haul of roughly $2.8 billion when Bitcoin was around $57,000— which already garnered plenty of head-shaking from Bitcoiners.
According to CoinGecko, Germany's 50,000 Bitcoin would be worth around $4.7 billion at current prices.
Another recipient of criticism is the US after it sent 19,800 Bitcoin of its stash from shutting down the online Silk Road black market in 2013, which amounts to $1.9 billion, to the crypto exchange Coinbase on Dec. 2.
Sam Bankman-Fried, Memecoin, Bitcoin ETF, US Elections 2024
According to Spot on Chain, the US government still holds about 183,850 Bitcoin worth around $17.7 billion across various known addresses.
Crypto thieves
On 28 March, Sam Bankman-Fried, former chief of FTX, got himself sentenced to 25 years in prison due to being convicted on seven counts of felonies.
The underworld's hackers, however did face the wrath of justice with some of them facing major blows, such as Ilya Lichtenstein who actually robbed Bitcoin from Bitfinex crypto exchange back in 2016.
The U.S. regulators also received lawsuit settlements over $19 billion from the crypto companies in 2024, 78% higher than that in 2023, which only accounted for $10.87 billion paid
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