Pepe surged 35 percent as top memecoins led the market rally.
The price of Pepe increased by more than 35% on the day, seeing the kriptovalyutnogo market start to 2026. There were also big gains for Bonk, Floki and SPX6900, which shows the renewed strength of memecoin. Speculative enthusiasm is driving price movements for top coins, Bitcoin and Ethereum.
As of writing, Pepe ranks as the top 100 performing memecoin by market capitalization.
The frog-themed token recorded an impressive 35% gain in the last 24 hours, to $0.0000005667, the day's highest trade.
In particular, Pepe's price rally was accompanied by an increase in trading activity.
According to CoinMarketCap, the Ethereum-based memecoin boasts a 24-hour volume of more than $1.4 billion, with its scale up a staggering 650% in the past 24 hours.
As bulls moved up, short flows increased the upward pressure. CoinGlass data shows more than $10 million in liquidity for the token.
Of this, more than 9.1 million dollars is in hidden places.
Why is the price of pepe increasing?
The optimism surrounding Pepe comes amid bold predictions from James Wynn, a well-known trader on the HyperLiquid platform.
Wynn predicts that memecoin's market capitalization will reach an astounding $69 billion by the end of 2026.
“On day 1 of $PEPE at a market cap of $600k I called him to go multi-billion. Ultimate faith and trust – and it paid off big,” he posted on X.
Now, I'm calling $PEPE to go from $1.7bn to $69bn+ by 2026.
It's a bold move that could see it increase 40 times from its current figure of around $1.7 billion.
As he puts it, Pepe Shiba Inu has the potential to mirror or surpass what it did in the previous cycle.
Pepe's market value has grown to more than $2.3 billion since Wynn's prediction.
If this comes true, it means that the token's price has surpassed the all-time high of $0.00002825 reached in December 2024.
Wynn says a combination of technical, emotional and overall bullish incentives has put Pepe ahead of a new MemCoin resurgence.
He noted:
“If this bull market doesn't end, which I don't think, in my mind we'll see $PEPE in front of the memes and the currency leading to T1 memes and real basic altcoins.
In his view, if Shiba Inu can grow to $41 billion, PEPE has the potential to go higher.
The highest memecoin Dogecoin's price has risen to 88 billion dollars, and when the price is parabolic, and Pepe can easily make 69 billion dollars.
Bonk, Floki and SPX6900 are among the top memecoin users
While Pepe dominated the headlines, other established memecoins contributed to the sector's strong opening for 2026.
Floki (FLOKI), aided by ongoing ecosystem developments, surged 19% in the previous day.
Like Pepe, this one comes with a high trade-off.
Another high earner is BONK, a Solana-based community token.
Renewed interest BONK trading has increased 15% in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the SPX6900 ( SPX ), known for its ridiculousness in financial markets, rose 16 percent.
Pudgy Penguin, Shiba Inu and Dogecoin are also boasting double-digit gains, as the memecoin category as a whole witnesses a bright start to the year.
