PEPE's Wild Week: Whales Bought $51 Million, a Suspected Hacker Sold $32 Million — and Traders Still Came Back

30/10/2026 8 min read

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PEPE has just lived through the two faces of memecoin markets in a single week — and both faces were whales. On one side, wallets linked to TRON founder Justin Sun accumulated about $51.25 million of PEPE, roughly 2.82 percent of the entire supply, mostly through two withdrawals from Poloniex on October 17 and October 26, according to Arkham Intelligence data reported on October 27. On the other side, on-chain analyst Ai 姨 linked a 12.33 percent PEPE drop to a sale of 7.77 trillion tokens from a Binance hot wallet, exchanged for 14,049 ether worth more than $31.9 million at an average price of about $0.0000041 per PEPE, with the wallet's entire PEPE balance sold and the sale attributed to a suspected hacker. Between those two whale stories, PEPE did what memecoins do when attention and leverage collide: it rallied, it crashed, and then it bounced within hours. Understanding which of those moves was signal and which was noise is the whole trade.

Start with the rally, because its numbers are unusually clean for a memecoin. On October 29, PEPE traded at $0.0000055055, up 6.10 percent over 24 hours and 12.05 percent over seven days, with daily trading volume of $818.2 million and a market capitalisation of approximately $2.13 billion, according to Coin Edition's October 29 round-up. CoinGecko's October 29 snapshot told the same story from a slightly different angle: PEPE at about $0.00000507, a $2.13 billion market capitalisation, and roughly $823 million in 24-hour volume — more than Dogecoin's roughly $472 million in the same window, despite Dogecoin's much larger market value of about $12.2 billion (Shiba Inu sat at about $2.85 billion). Derivatives joined in: PEPE open interest climbed to $400.08 million on October 29, a sign of renewed participation rather than a quiet drift. And the relative performance is the headline that travelled furthest: PEPE outperformed Dogecoin and Shiba Inu over the past month, with one October 29 report noting PEPE up about 20 percent over the month while Dogecoin and Shiba Inu lost 11 to 14 percent. For a token with no protocol upgrade and no product revenue event verified in October, according to crypto.news, that outperformance was driven by attention, positioning and whale flows — not by a new feature.

The whale accumulation behind it deserves precision, because "Justin Sun bought PEPE" is doing a lot of work in this story. Arkham Intelligence reported on October 27 that Sun-linked wallets held about 11.85 trillion PEPE, roughly 2.82 percent of supply, worth $51.25 million, with most of it arriving through the two Poloniex withdrawals. Separately, Santiment data cited by CryptoRank showed 4.77 trillion PEPE leaving exchanges on October 16, and dormant whales moved 2.27 trillion PEPE valued near $10.19 million. None of that is a guarantee of anything: a large holder can also become a large seller, and concentration cuts both ways. But in a market where the entire investment case is attention plus liquidity, a named billionaire-linked stack equal to nearly 3 percent of supply is a genuine catalyst — it gives traders a reason to look, and derivatives traders a reason to position. The second catalyst is more speculative still: Canary Capital filed an S-1 for a spot PEPE ETF on April 8, 2026 and amended it on October 2 (some sources put the amendment at October 28), naming BitGo Bank & Trust as custodian and targeting a Cboe BZX listing — but the registration statement had not been declared effective, and the fund had not been approved by the SEC, as of late October 2026. An unapproved ETF filing is a story about possible future demand, not present demand, and PEPE traders who confuse the two tend to learn the difference quickly.

They learned it again within hours. The suspected-hacker sale — 7.77 trillion PEPE for more than $31.9 million in ether — drove the 12.33 percent drop flagged by TokenPost on October 30, and a separate PEPE transfer attributed to Sun Ge involved 11.8 trillion tokens moved since October 17, with an unrealised profit that had narrowed from $18.55 million the previous night to $4.45 million. Those are two different reported flows and should not be conflated, but together they illustrate the same risk: in a token where a handful of wallets hold trillions of units, any single large exit reprices the whole market in minutes. Then came the bounce that makes memecoin markets so hard to read: TokenPost's Binance spot data put PEPE at $0.00000461 at 9:33 p.m. ET on Thursday, October 29, up 4.30 percent in the preceding hour from $0.00000442, with liquidations across Binance, Bybit and OKX totalling $30,000 in longs and $70,000 in shorts in that hour. A token can fall double digits on a whale sale and recover 4 percent in an hour on short-covering, and both moves can be true without either one being a trend.

The technical picture frames the same tension. PEPE traded near $0.00000507 on October 29, roughly 82 percent below its December 9, 2024 peak of $0.00002803, with a fully circulating supply of 420.69 trillion tokens. It had set a September 22 high of $0.00000533, fallen 31 percent to $0.00000365 on October 8, touched an intraday high of $0.00000511 on October 23 but closed that day at $0.00000456. Coin Edition noted the price breaking above the $0.00000476 Fibonacci retracement level during the October 29 rally. Published 2026 forecasts for PEPE range from $0.0000015111 to $0.00001424 — a spread so wide it is effectively an admission that nobody can price this token on fundamentals, only on flows and attention. That is not a criticism of PEPE specifically; it is the definition of a memecoin. The question for the next week is therefore narrow and practical: does PEPE hold above the $0.00000476 level it just reclaimed, does open interest stay near $400 million or unwind, and does the Canary ETF filing move from "filed and amended" to anything more concrete? If the answers are yes, yes and no, PEPE is a momentum trade with a whale tailwind and no institutional catalyst. If open interest unwinds and the $0.00000365 October low comes back into view, the whale accumulation story will read very differently in hindsight — as distribution into strength, not conviction.

FAQ:

What happened to PEPE this week? Whale accumulation and a suspected-hacker sale collided: Sun-linked wallets built about a $51.25 million position, while a 7.77 trillion-token sale worth over $31.9 million drove a 12.33 percent drop, followed by a 4.30 percent hourly bounce.

How big was the whale accumulation? About 11.85 trillion PEPE, roughly 2.82 percent of supply, worth $51.25 million, mostly via two Poloniex withdrawals on October 17 and October 26, per Arkham Intelligence (October 27).

What were PEPE's October 29 numbers? $0.0000055055, up 6.10 percent in 24 hours and 12.05 percent in seven days, $818.2 million daily volume, about $2.13 billion market capitalisation, and $400.08 million open interest (Coin Edition); CoinGecko's snapshot showed about $823 million 24-hour volume, versus about $472 million for Dogecoin.

What about the PEPE ETF? Canary Capital filed an S-1 on April 8, 2026 (amended October 2; some sources say October 28), with BitGo as custodian and a Cboe BZX listing target — but it had not been declared effective or approved by the SEC as of late October 2026.

What was the hacker-linked sale? 7.77 trillion PEPE sold from a Binance hot wallet for 14,049 ether (over $31.9 million) at about $0.0000041 per token, linked by analyst Ai 姨 to a 12.33 percent drop; a separate Sun Ge transfer of 11.8 trillion tokens since October 17 saw unrealised profit narrow from $18.55 million to $4.45 million.

Did PEPE bounce? Yes — Binance spot data put PEPE at $0.00000461 at 9:33 p.m. ET October 29, up 4.30 percent in the hour from $0.00000442, with $30,000 long and $70,000 short liquidations across Binance, Bybit and OKX in that hour.

What are the key levels? December 2024 peak $0.00002803 (PEPE is about 82 percent below it); September 22 high $0.00000533; October 8 low $0.00000365; October 23 intraday $0.00000511, close $0.00000456; October 29 break above the $0.00000476 Fibonacci level; published 2026 forecasts range $0.0000015111–$0.00001424.

Is this the same as the earlier memecoin-bounce blog? No. That blog covered a general memecoin bounce. This blog is specifically about PEPE's October 29–30 whale flows: the $51 million Sun-linked accumulation, the $32 million suspected-hacker sale, the ETF filing status, and the hourly bounce.