Pepe developer accuses former team members of $15 million theft

The only remaining developer of the Pepe (PEPE) meme token рассказал that behind the theft of 16 trillion coins (~$15 million) are three former members of the project’s team.

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On August 25, on-chain researchers noted that multisignature wallet PEPE reduced the number of required confirmations from 5 to 2 and transferred part of the assets to decentralized exchanges OKX, Binance, KuCoin and Bybit.

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“Since its creation, PEPE has, unfortunately, suffered from internal strife, as part of the team are saboteurs driven by big egos and greed. Conflicts occurred frequently, and most of those who participated in creating the coin began distancing themselves a week after launch,” the developer said.

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The project representative apologized for the incident and noted that now only he controls the token’s smart contracts. According to him, PEPE will be fully decentralized in the coming months.

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The stolen coins amount to about 4% of the total supply, and about 10 trillion PEPE remain in the multisig wallet. These tokens will be moved to a new address where they will be safely stored until there is a need for their use or burning,” the programmer explained.

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The developer also assured that the project’s assets and its X account (formerly Twitter) are safe.

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Against the backdrop of the alleged fraud, the price of PEPE fell by almost 20%. At the time of writing, the coin was still trading at $0.00000087.

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In April, PEPE rose tenfold, turning some holders of the asset into millionaires.

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In May, users deposited $46 million onto exchanges in the meme token. Experts warned at the time about the risks of a dump for the coin.