Pepe (PEPE) Tokenomics

The token economics of Pepe (PEPE) are characteristic of a meme coin, emphasizing simplicity, a fixed supply, and a community-driven, tax-free approach. The token was launched without a presale and with a renounced contract, aiming for a purely memetic and decentralized identity.

Issuance Mechanism

The PEPE token has a fixed maximum total supply of 420.69 trillion tokens.

• Launch and Supply: PEPE was launched on April 17, 2023, in stealth mode with no presale.
• Zero Taxes: A core feature of the token's design is a no-tax policy on transactions, which aims to attract a wider audience and expand its user base by not imposing transaction fees.
• Burning Mechanism: The project incorporates a token-burning mechanism, which is intended to boost the token's value through a deflationary process by ensuring scarcity. However, as of December 15, 2024, there are no programmatic burn or buyback mechanisms featured or planned; the token contract contains a "burn" function that enables manual token burns.

Allocation Mechanism

The initial allocation of the maximum token supply was distributed into two main categories:

• Note on Allocation Discrepancy: There is a discrepancy in the reported initial allocation percentages. One source states 93.1% was sent to a Uniswap liquidity pool and 6.9% was held in a multi-sig wallet. Another source states 10% (~391.66 trillion PEPE) was sent to the Uniswap v3 liquidity pool, and 90% (~29.03 trillion PEPE) was sent to an address for future listings and liquidity. The latter source also notes that approximately 26.74 trillion PEPE tokens (~6.36% of the total supply) from the reserve allocation were transferred to a multi-sig wallet on May 4, 2023.
• No Sales: The PEPE token was not sold in any public or private sales, nor was it used to raise funds for the project.

Asset Concentration

As of December 15, 2024, the top 10 addresses holding the ERC-20 PEPE on Ethereum control a combined ~172.70 trillion tokens, representing approximately 41.05% of the total token supply. A significant portion of this concentration is held by centralized exchange wallets:

• Binance: Hot Wallet 20: ~60.00 trillion PEPE (~14.26% of the total supply)
• Binance 28: ~30.40 trillion PEPE (~7.23% of the total supply)
• OKX: ~16.33 trillion PEPE (~3.88% of the total supply)
• Crypto.com 6: ~8.65 trillion PEPE (~2.06% of the total supply)

Usage and Incentive Mechanism

PEPE is primarily a meme cryptocurrency designed for entertainment purposes, with the project team claiming it is "completely useless."

• Primary Use: The token's main function is speculative trading and participation in meme culture. The project's website currently features a direct Uniswap swap function for acquiring PEPE tokens as the primary interaction point.
• Past Utility: Previously, holding PEPE tokens granted access to the "Pepe Palace Discord server," but this functionality has since been discontinued as of December 15, 2024.
• Incentives: The project does not feature any staking or liquidity provision mechanisms as of December 15, 2024. A redistribution system is mentioned in some descriptions, which is said to benefit long-term holders, but no specific details on how users earn fees, additional tokens, or compensation were found.
• Governance: There is no active governance process for community members or tokenholders to propose and vote on proposals that influence the project’s development. PEPE does not confer any claims on capital, voting rights, or share of profits in any centralized entity.

Locking Mechanism and Unlocking Time

Locking Mechanism

The PEPE token contract was renounced after the asset was launched, meaning no individuals or entities can alter the token contract. However, the contract initially contained a "blacklist" function, which allows the contract owner to prohibit specific addresses from executing smart contract functions or transferring the token. This function was called once shortly after launch to blacklist an address that purchased approximately 2.52 trillion PEPE (~0.60% of the total supply). Because the contract was renounced after the blacklisting, the address can never be removed from the blacklist.

Unlocking Time

The vast majority of the PEPE supply was unlocked at launch.

• Initial Unlock: The entire maximum supply of 420.69 trillion PEPE was unlocked on April 17, 2023, the day the asset was launched. This represented a 100% impact on the circulating supply at that time.
• Current Status: As of December 15, 2024, approximately ~420.56 trillion ERC-20 PEPE remains unlocked on Ethereum, accounting for ~99.97% of the total token supply. The remaining supply has been bridged to other chains like BNB Smart Chain and Arbitrum.

Multi-Sig Wallet Incident

A portion of the initial allocation (6.9% or ~29.03 trillion PEPE) was held in a multi-sig wallet for future use. On August 26, 2023, it was revealed that three former team members illicitly accessed this multi-sig wallet and stole approximately 16.00 trillion PEPE tokens (valued at about $15.00 million at the time), which were subsequently sold on major exchanges. Following this event, the multi-sig wallet's control was reduced from 5/8 signers to 2/8, with the remaining signer assuring the public that the remaining ~10.00 trillion tokens (~2.00% of the supply) were under safe control.