While leading cryptocurrencies Bitcoin ($BTC) and Ethereum ($ETH) keep rising, the memecoin market has been on a quieter note after surging earlier this year, with meme-inspired cryptocurrency Shiba Inu ($SHIB) and $PEPE facing downward pressure as large holders, colloquially known as whales, start taking profits.
According to on-chain analysis service Spot On Chain, pseudonymous memecoin whales have been transferring large amounts of both SHIB and PEPE to major centralized exchange to realize their gains, with one whale realizing over $6 million in gains by depositing over 200 SHIB onto Gemini and Crypto.com.
The whale has been trading the meme-inspired cryptocurrency after buying 15.2 trillion tokens four years ago for 10 ETH. The whale is estimated to have a profit of around $129 million with 2.6 trillion tokens left on their wallet.
Another cryptocurrency whale was spotted by the service selling 1.9 trillion PEPE tokens to realize an estimated gain of around $3.3 million. These sales came at a time in which the price of SHIP dropped by around 8% over the past week, while PEPE saw its price drop around 8.7% in intraday trading.
While the recent price drops suggest profit-taking by whales could exert further downward pressure, the market’s quick recovery today hints at resilience in the meme coin sector.
Whether SHIB, PEPE, and other meme coins can fully rebound remains to be seen, but the continued interest from investors suggests these digital assets are not without their supporters.
As CryptoGlobe reported, a mysterious SHIB whale has recently moved their staggering 4.25 trillion token stash worth around $46.4 million to a new cryptocurrency wallet in a move that was detected by whale transaction monitors, but doesn’t suggest they’re selling the funds.
Featured image via Pixabay.
