PEPE leaps past MATIC in market cap, registers 79% weekly gains

The meme coin Pepecoin (PEPE) inches closer to the $7 billion market cap after leaping 79% in one week. The movement was enough to surpass Polygon (MATIC) and become the 21st largest crypto by market cap, according to data aggregator CoinGecko.

Moreover, PEPE registered a new all-time high this Monday by reaching $0.00001717. Excluding stablecoins, PEPE becomes the token with the 19th largest market value, joining Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) among the meme coins with the most significant sizes.

PEPE price in the past seven days. Image: CoinGecko

PEPE’s price leap was boosted by the ‘meme coin frenzy’ that took crypto by storm, as tokens based on memes became the most profitable narrative in Q1, as reported by Crypto Briefing.

However, Ethereum-based meme coins got especially propelled since last Monday, when Bloomberg ETF analysts pumped the odds of a spot Ethereum ETF approval in the US from 25% to 75%, which ended in an actual approval.

Turbo (TURBO) is a good example of an Ethereum-based meme coin that shot up during the ETF approval saga. In the past week, the token has risen 429%, and 46.7% in the last 24 hours alone.

The cat-themed token Mog Coin (MOG) also made substantial movements in the last seven days, climbing 162% in the period, and 48% in the past 24 hours. At the time of writing, the meme coin niche is the 11th largest crypto niche by market cap, amounting to over $68 billion.

Notably, smart money traders registered optimism towards PEPE even before the Ethereum ETF approval in the US became clear. In the past 30 days, the frog-themed coin was the Ethereum-based with the highest inflow of smart money, surpassing $436 million, according to on-chain data platform Nansen.