PEPE Leads Meme Coin Rally as Ether Nears $4K

Pepecoin (PEPE), shiba inu (SHIB) and dogecoin (DOGE) jumped as much as 26% in the past 24 hours as ether (ETH) inched towards $4,000, a level it previously saw in December 2021.

PEPE jumped 26% on renewed optimism, while DOGE and SHIB reversed Thursday’s losses to rise 10%. The meme coin category tracked on CoinGecko showed an 8.6% sector growth on average, as CoinDesk 20, a broad-based index of various tokens, rose 2.53%.

As reported, traders have used meme coins as a proxy bet on Ethereum’s growth since late February.

“As bitcoin and ether rise, a spillover effect is caused where coins deployed on ethereum and solana also surge - including meme coins,” shared Slater Heil, co-founder and COO of DeFi platform Blueberry Protocol, in a message to CoinDesk.

“Investors will take advantage of bullish conditions as much as possible, and meme coins are one way for them to do so. In the short-mid term, I expect a transition back to ‘fundamentally driven’ altcoins,” Heil cautioned.

Bullish demand for ether started to increase in mid-January amid expectations that it would be the next major token after bitcoin (BTC) to get a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S.

Coinbase premiums for Ethereum ecosystem tokens were higher than usual in the past week, suggesting recent demand was led by U.S. investors, as per CryptoQuant.