Pepe Price Plummets 13% – Is the Meme Coin Hype Over?

Pepe (PEPE) has dropped 13.02% over the past week and 12.33% in the last 24 hours. At press time, the meme coin trades at $0.000006135 and is trading at a daily trading volume of $1.22 billion. 

At the same time, the ongoing downtrend has been fed by broader market weakness caused by recent macro events. In the fear that spreads across both traditional and crypto markets, investors have pulled out high risk assets such as meme coins. The sharp decline in PEPE’s price reflects reduced buying interest during this sell-off.

Technical Analysis Shows Weak Momentum Despite Brief Rebound

On the PEPE/USDT 1-hour chart, price action shows a short-term recovery from oversold levels. The token has been sitting slightly above the lower Bollinger Band. There is a short bounce setup in this but the price is still under the 20 period moving average and is still below the moving average which indicates that the downward pressure is still there.

Source: TradingView

In addition, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is at 39.39. Though recovered from oversold territory, it is still below the neutral 50 line. Weak buying momentum is indicated by this reading. Above 50 that would suggest short term sentiment is changing, but it is not.

The MACD also shows early signs of a possible bullish crossover. The MACD line is approaching the signal line from below, and histogram bars are turning lighter. If the crossover confirms, it may provide temporary support for price recovery. For now, however, momentum remains limited.

Derivatives Data Signals Mixed Sentiment Among Traders

The derivatives market for PEPE shows a strong uptick in volume, which has grown by over 186% in 24 hours to $1.65 billion. This spike is evident but open interest has fallen by 17.66% to $194.15 million, as per Coinglass data. The implication is that many traders are either closing up their positions or have been diced due to price volatility.

Source: Coinglass

The long/short ratio is near neutral at 0.9778, pointing to balanced sentiment overall. On OKX, however, the ratio is 2.79, showing more traders are opening long positions. While that may suggest optimism, it also means bulls are exposed if the downtrend continues.

Over the past 24 hours, $5.70 million worth of positions were liquidated. Of that, long positions made up $4.85 million. Short traders lost $851,000. This shows that while some traders anticipated a bounce, many were caught off guard as the sell-off deepened.

Broader Market Turmoil After U.S. Tariff Changes Adds Pressure

The crypto sell-off follows news of aggressive tariff changes introduced by President Trump. A new 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico has taken effect, with tariffs on Chinese imports also raised to 20%. These measures have triggered immediate responses from trading partners.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stated, 

“Although uncertainty is still high, it’s now evident that the tariff hikes are turning out to be much larger than initially anticipated.”

Consequently, traditional markets reacted sharply. The S&P 500 fell by 4.8% on Thursday and lost another 6% on Friday. With nearly $900 million in liquidations across crypto and close to 300,000 traders affected, the wave of fear has extended to digital assets like PEPE.