The Pepe token was the foremost token that enjoyed immense occurrence during the meme coin frenzy successful May this year. However, the token experienced a important driblet arsenic the frenzy faded out. And now, a caller improvement seems to suggest that the squad down it whitethorn person abandoned the project.
$15.6 Million Worth of PEPE Transferred Out
According to on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, the Pepe squad transferred 16 trillion PEPE ($15.6 million) from their multisig wallet to an Externally-owned code (EOA). The wallet past transferred $6.5 million, $8.2 million, $434,000, and $389,000 worthy of PEPE to Binance, OKX, Bybit, and different address, respectively.
The archetypal transportation of $15.6 cardinal raised concerns astir a rug pull due to the fact that the funds formed much than fractional of the 6.9% vested tokens the squad was meant to usage to support liquidity successful the ecosystem.
Furthermore, determination was nary anterior announcement from the squad that specified a determination would beryllium made and the multisig wallet was near with 10.7 trillion PEPE ($10.5 million) pursuing the move.
The rug propulsion concerns were further intensified erstwhile different X (formerly Twitter) user, reacting to the transfer, pointed retired that the Pepe multisig wallet support threshold had been changed to 2 signatures retired of 8.
A multisig wallet is usually considered a safer crypto retention option, particularly for organizations, arsenic 1 atrocious histrion cannot initiate a transaction since aggregate signatures are needed to validate it.
So, determination were bound to beryllium concerns astir the support threshold of the wallet being changed since it could suggest that idiosyncratic connected the squad who had entree to the relationship was trying to rug pull.
Members of the assemblage besides questioned whether determination was a squad oregon if 1 idiosyncratic ran the project, and that was however the support threshold could person easy been changed.
“Ex-team Members” Responsible
According to a tweet released connected August 25, Pepe’s authoritative X (formerly Twitter) relationship confirmed these transactions and the alteration successful the multisig support threshold.
The tweet stated that these activities were carried retired by “3 ex-team members” who logged into the multisig account, stole the 16 trillion PEPE, and sold them connected centralized exchanges.
In a consequent tweet, the relationship confirmed that the 10.6 trillion tokens near successful the multisig wallet had been transferred to different wallet. According to the account, the power of the X (formerly Twitter) relationship and the remaining 10 trillion tokens are “safe and successful power of idiosyncratic who has the champion interests for (sic) everybody and PEPE astatine hand.”
The Pepe community seems to person been reassured by this statement, arsenic the token is presently up 3.22% successful the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Featured representation from Vox, illustration from Tradingview.com