Trader Turns $2,184 into $6.66 Million with PEPE Long

An unidentified trader achieved a 4,718-fold profit by investing in the meme coin Pepe. The individual purchased 1.5 trillion PEPE for $2,184 and sold 1.02 trillion PEPE for $6.66 million, resulting in a total profit of $10.3 million, according to Lookonchain.

A $PEPE OG sold 150B $PEPE($1.14M) again 5 hours ago.

This OG spent only $2,184 to buy 1.5T $PEPE($43M at the peak) in the early stage.

He sold 1.02T $PEPE for $6.66M, leaving 493B $PEPE($3.64M), with a total profit of $10.3M(4,718x).https://t.co/tyzLr10sGj pic.twitter.com/FD6fFpyqCi

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) March 29, 2025

At its peak on December 9, 2024, the position was valued at $43 million. At that time, PEPE had risen to $0.00002825, but has since fallen to $0.00000684.

After partially securing profits, the long position was reduced to 493 billion PEPE ($3.64 million).

In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Radix founder Dan Hughes noted that meme coins generally do not accumulate external capital — instead, existing capital “flows” from one asset to another.

“Even in the case of TRUMP, most of the incoming liquidity was driven by outflows from other coins. Users sold their portfolios to buy the ‘presidential token’ amid extreme FOMO,” he added.

Meme Coins — A Casino?

CEO of River Financial and Bitcoin maximalist Alex Leishman warned that exchanges listing altcoins doom themselves to an endless cycle of launching meme coins. According to him, if CEX includes ETH and SOL among available assets, it “makes no sense” to ignore coins from these ecosystems.

There are two paths for a crypto exchange/brokerage:

1. Bitcoin-only path — focus on helping people build and preserve long term wealth through hard money. This path leads to an exchange looking more like a “bank” long term.

2. Multi-asset trading platform — add as many coins…

— Alexander Leishman ?? (@Leishman) March 29, 2025

“Once a platform adds a non-Bitcoin token, it signs up for an eternal ‘hamster wheel’ of meme coins,” he pointed out.

The entrepreneur is convinced that such exchanges prioritize short-term speculation over wealth accumulation.

“The casino business model is built on extracting maximum money from clients, while a Bitcoin-only model aims to help people build long-term wealth,” he explained.

Previously, Messari highlighted a decline in meme coin trading volumes on DEX to an annual low.

Bernstein forecasted a liquidity shift from the sector to DeFi and NFTs. Experts believe that the waning hype around “funny coins” will positively impact stablecoins and RWA.

In an exclusive article, ForkLog examined the phenomenon of AI-related meme tokens’ popularity.