Though there have been a great many meme-coins created since the birth of cryptocurrency, until now there were only two that could make any claim to be the top dog [pun very much intended]. But it seems that Shiba Inu and Dogecoin’s days as ‘in-joke of choice’ for the crypto-bro community on Twitter may be numbered.

There’s a new challenger for the title, and its name is Pepe.

Launched just two weeks ago, the “most memeable memecoin in existence,” according to its website, has been breaking records and winning hearts. Those who got in at the very start saw gains of over 21,000% and their initial hundred-dollar investments netting millions.

And despite the notoriously short-term nature of meme-coins, so far Pepe seems to only be getting more popular (and valuable). As of yesterday, Pepe coin had crossed several more arbitrary milestones: it hit a market cap of $0.5 billion, entered the Top 100 coins on CoinGecko, and became the third biggest meme-coin on the market.

In terms of market cap it still has a long way to go to catch either Shiba Inu ($5.8 billion) or Dogecoin ($10.9 billion), of course. But for now, it is at least moving in the right direction, whereas the aforementioned dog-themed memes both posted losses of over 10% in April.

In fact, while Pepe has been steadily shaving zeroes from the right-hand side of its decimal point, Shiba Inu fell below key support and added a zero this week, despite a desperate effort by users to prop up the price via increased burn activity.

Such is the market of the meme-coin. When something is priced at $0.000000001, as Pepe was at launch, then it doesn’t seem a huge stretch to believe that it can reach $0.00000001, resulting in a seemingly achievable 900% gain. Hodlers are betting on zeroes to the right of the decimal point, making (and losing) fortunes on a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a cent.

It remains to be seen whether Pepe can continue to ride this wave into the pantheons of meme-coin longevity, or will turn out to be a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon which fades from the public consciousness just as fast.

Meanwhile, crypto speculators are already looking for ‘the next Pepe’, with one potential candidate being touted as fellow-frog-themed meme-coin, Bob. Bob is the token associated with AI Twitter bot, @ExplainThisBob, which has already been shown some love by Doge-King Elon Musk.

Meme-lords chasing the zeroes, as always.