The Pepe token was the foremost token that enjoyed immense success during the meme coin frenzy in May this year. However, the token experienced a significant drop as the frenzy faded out. And now, a recent development seems to suggest that the team behind it may have abandoned the project.

$15.6 Million Worth of PEPE Transferred Out

According to on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, the Pepe team transferred 16 trillion PEPE ($15.6 million) from their multisig wallet to an Externally-owned address (EOA). The wallet then transferred $6.5 million, $8.2 million, $434,000, and $389,000 worth of PEPE to Binance, OKX, Bybit, and another address, respectively. 

The initial transfer of $15.6 million raised concerns about a rug pull because the funds formed more than half of the 6.9% vested tokens the team was meant to use to maintain liquidity in the ecosystem. 

Furthermore, there was no prior announcement from the team that such a decision would be made and the multisig wallet was left with 10.7 trillion PEPE ($10.5 million) following the move.

The rug pull concerns were further intensified when another X (formerly Twitter) user, reacting to the transfer, pointed out that the Pepe multisig wallet approval threshold had been changed to 2 signatures out of 8. 

A multisig wallet is usually considered a safer crypto storage option, especially for organizations, as one bad actor cannot initiate a transaction since multiple signatures are needed to validate it. 

So, there were bound to be concerns about the approval threshold of the wallet being changed since it could suggest that someone on the team who had access to the account was trying to rug pull. 

Members of the community also questioned whether there was a team or if one person ran the project, and that was how the approval threshold could have easily been changed.

“Ex-team Members” Responsible

According to a tweet released on August 25, Pepe’s official X (formerly Twitter) account confirmed these transactions and the change in the multisig approval threshold. 

The tweet stated that these activities were carried out by “3 ex-team members” who logged into the multisig account, stole the 16 trillion PEPE, and sold them on centralized exchanges.

In a subsequent tweet, the account confirmed that the 10.6 trillion tokens left in the multisig wallet had been transferred to another wallet. According to the account, the control of the X (formerly Twitter) account and the remaining 10 trillion tokens are “safe and in control of someone who has the best interests for (sic) everybody and PEPE at hand.”

The Pepe community seems to have been reassured by this statement, as the token is currently up 3.22% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.