Last night, the PEPE memecoin teams suddenly changed the number of signatures required to carry out transactions on the project’s wallet. At the same time, millions of dollars worth of PEPE tokens were sent to centralised exchanges (CEX). Should we fear a rug pull
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Rug pull on PEPE memecoin ?
The price of the PEPE memecoin fell by more than 20% after the multi-sig wallet of the teams in charge of the project changed the number of signatures required to carry out transactions. And that’s not all: at the same time, the same wallet transferred 16 trillion PEPE tokens to various exchanges in the process, the equivalent of around $16.8 million.
Any reason why the PEPE multisig wallet changed the threshold to just 2/8 signatures? Seems weird, this isn’t standard right?
Also, seems that some has been sent to exchanges pic.twitter.com/1DVZIOvef8
– CryptoNoddy (@Crypto_Noddy) August 24, 2023
As some observers have noted on the X platform, the multisig of the PEPE wallet now requires only 2 out of 8 signatures, compared with 5 out of 8 previously. This is a highly unusual change, which considerably reduces the security of the wallet in question, as it is now much simpler to move funds.
To carry out a transaction from a multi-signature account, it is necessary for several entities to give their approval to carry out a transaction, which increases the security of a wallet. If you are unfamiliar with the principle of a multi-signature wallet, we invite you to read our article on the subject.
Late in the night of 24 August, the multisig transferred 16 trillion PEPE tokens to the address 0xa34B091932D9c9ffcFF254c9Aa1B4210C81F2EA0, a brand new address that had only been used three hours before for the first time to receive a deposit of $163 worth of ETH from Binance.
Transfer of PEPE multisig wallet to new address
At the same time, the new address transferred the funds to various centralised exchanges (CEX):
- $7.1 million to Binance ;
- $9 million to OKX;
- $471,900 to Bybit;
- $424,000 to KuCoin.
Transfers from the new address to the various CEX
Ultimately, it’s hard to say what to make of these rather suspicious movements, especially as the PEPE teams have not communicated on this subject on X. In fact, their last publication on the platform dates back to 13 August, which isn’t exactly reassuring given the situation.
On the other hand, the trillions of PEPE tokens we are talking about here represent ‘only’ 3.8% of the total supply. As a result, although the memecoin price fell by just over 20% following the news (and has since risen again), we are still a long way from the classic rugpull where the team leaves with the entire fund and the token in question is worthless.
That said, with the number of signatures required to use the multisig wallet having been dangerously reduced, it’s not impossible that other similar movements will be seen in the near future.
