In the 2021-2022 bull market cycle, the Shiba Inu meme coin made waves in a way that changed the face of meme coins forever. This followed Dogecoin’s initial surge of 36,000% and Shiba Inu’s surge of over 1,000,000%. Naturally, this led to the search for a meme coin that would replicate the Shiba Inu movement and so far the verdict has been that it will be the PEPE meme coin. One analyst looks into this in detail and explains why PEPE could pull off a similar feat.

Why PEPE is the Shiba Inu of this cycle

Cryptocurrency analyst Rexha took to Platform X (formerly Twitter) to discuss the current meme coin market and what investors can expect from it. Starting with the SAFEMOON chart and the Solana busy traders chart, they show the similarity between the two. For context, SAFEMOON was one of the 2021 meme coins that saw a huge spike in sales, but ultimately turned out to be a scam.

Rexha pointed out that investors are often looking for the next substantial thing, which was seen in 2021 after Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are flocking to the Ethereum blockchain. Traders then switched to “cheaper” blockchains in an attempt to chase the next entrant, leading to multiple scams that culminated in SAFEMOON on the BNB chain, according to the analyst.

Eventually, when fraud became too much and many traders were used as a source of exit liquidity, attention returned to meme coins, which started the run. It was like that at the time Dogecoin and Shiba Inuwhen investors realized it was a “safer” bet.

This time, however, it is not Dogecoin and Shiba Inu that start and lead the meme coin season. According to the analyst, it was instead PEPE that inflated Ethereum’s lockup.

Rexha explains that the move to the Solana blockchain was the result of traders trying to chase up-to-date runners on the “cheap and fast” chain. However, with the emergence of projects like PumpFun sucking significant amounts of liquidity from the market, Solana’s “trenches” have largely died out.

As the trend once again begins its full cycle, the cryptocurrency analyst expects investors to return to the meme coin that started it all, namely PEPE here. Rexha calls it a “return to quality” on the Ethereum blockchain, predicting that the second launch of PEPE will be similar to the second launch of Shiba Inu.

The analyst also warns that with PEPE’s second launch, investors will be lured back with the hope of another launch on other blockchains such as PumpFun “V2”. However, this is expected to be a “final extraction” event, so investors need to be careful when interacting with meme coins.

Featured image from Dall.E, chart from TradingView.com