Why Is PEPE Rising? Justin Sun-Linked Wallets and the $633M Volume Surge

PEPE is climbing again, and the trading activity is real: at my October 28 market check, CoinGecko showed the Ethereum memecoin up 12.4% over 24 hours on roughly $633 million in reported spot-market turnover. A claim about wallets attributed to Justin Sun has added fuel to the conversation. What it does not prove is that Sun personally bought $51 million of PEPE—or that the entire memecoin market is rotating together.

Data note — October 28, 2026: Research cutoff approximately 14:00 UTC. Price, return, volume, and peer comparisons below are rolling USD market-data readings collected in the same research pass, not synchronized exchange trade prints. Arkham’s wallet valuation dates to its October 27 announcement, so it must not be treated as a live October 28 portfolio value. Figures may have moved by publication.

What PEPE’s price and volume actually show

The clearest way to read this rally is to keep one provider’s price, return and turnover together. Here is the CoinGecko PEPE market snapshot I used, with a separate CoinMarketCap cross-check:

I would not describe this as “$633 million flowing into PEPE.” Every completed trade involves a buyer and a seller, and volume counts transactions, not unique new capital. Even a sharp rise in market capitalization does not mean an equivalent sum was deposited into the token.

The price action nevertheless stands out. PEPE’s near-12% advance came with sharply higher reported spot turnover, rather than price moving on a quiet tape. That is evidence of more trading activity. It is not, on its own, evidence that activity is organic, evenly distributed across exchanges or likely to persist. To judge those points, I would want order-book depth, venue-level trading quality and sustained spot participation—not just the headline volume figure. Readers comparing market sources can use the CryptoLinks market-data and exchange-statistics directory and our crypto price-tracker reviews.

One PEPE token, two supply figures

There is another detail that deserves attention. This article concerns the Ethereum PEPE token at contract address 0x6982508145454ce325ddbe47a25d4ec3d2311933, not another frog-themed token or a derivatives contract. The official PEPE site cites an original supply of 420.69 trillion. CoinGecko currently lists approximately 420.69 trillion as total and circulating supply, while CoinMarketCap lists 413,772,350,098,141 as its total, maximum and circulating figure. That is a difference of about 6.92 trillion tokens between the two provider totals.

Different treatment of burned or otherwise excluded balances can affect reported circulating supply, but I could not reconcile this particular difference to a verified provider methodology during the research check. It matters for the wallet story: 11.85 trillion ÷ 420.69 trillion is about 2.82%, whereas the same amount divided by CoinMarketCap’s 413.77 trillion is about 2.86%. The widely repeated 2.82% is therefore arithmetically consistent with a roughly 420.69-trillion denominator; it should not be casually attached to every provider’s supply figure.

What the Justin Sun-linked wallet report actually establishes

On October 27, Arkham Intelligence said in a post on X that wallets it classifies as “official and predicted” addresses linked to TRON founder Justin Sun collectively held PEPE valued at about $51.25 million, described as approximately 2.82% of supply. The post is reproduced in Crypto Times’ account of the findings and in crypto.news’ October 27 reporting.

My reading of that wording is narrower than some of the headlines. An official label and a predicted label do not carry the same evidentiary weight. Blockchain records can establish that an address received or held tokens. They do not, by themselves, identify the legal or beneficial owner behind an address, tell us whether it is personal or corporate capital, or distinguish an investment from custody on someone’s behalf. The underlying Arkham address cluster could not be independently audited from the public pages accessible for this draft.

Arkham also characterized the position as the largest identified individual PEPE holding, outside major exchange wallets. That is an attribution-based comparison, not a census of all beneficial owners. An exchange wallet may represent thousands of customers; one person may control multiple addresses; and unnamed owners may remain unidentified. I would present the ranking as Arkham’s assessment, not an established fact about every PEPE holder.

What the reported transfers show—and what they don’t

Contemporaneous reports attribute the following withdrawal chronology to Arkham’s analysis:

The distinction I would focus on is holdings versus purchases. The $48.76 million describes the estimated dollar value when those tokens were transferred; the $51.25 million describes an attributed holding at a later reporting snapshot. Neither is a receipt showing what the ultimate owner paid. The difference is not a verified trading profit, and the same tokens must not be counted again simply because they moved through more than one address or exchange.

Crypto.news further reports that Arkham traced activity through Binance, Poloniex and HTX and identified about $77 million in stablecoin transfers to Poloniex from other attributed wallets between October 15 and 25. Those stablecoin movements are not proof that the funds were spent buying PEPE. Nor does moving PEPE out of an exchange prove when it was acquired or whether it was bought there.

I could not independently confirm the full destination addresses and Ethereum transaction hashes for the two cited withdrawals through the accessible explorer and Arkham interfaces. Until that is resolved, the chronology above is reported analytics, not a transaction-by-transaction reconstruction performed by CryptoLinks. Our on-chain analytics tools directory explains where readers can investigate address labels, exchange flows and token transfers themselves.

Did the wallet report cause the rally—or amplify attention?

I see three separate observations: PEPE’s measured jump in price and turnover; its increased visibility in crypto coverage and CoinGecko’s meme-category trending entries; and Arkham’s fresh publication of an attributed wallet position. All three matter. What I cannot establish from the accessible data is a clean causal sequence showing that the report alone started the move.

The chronology itself argues against that shortcut. Arkham’s public post appeared October 27, whereas the reported withdrawals took place on October 17 and 26. The earlier transfer predates the public announcement by ten days. That makes the report a plausible attention catalyst, not proof of a newly executed $51 million buy on October 27 or 28. Without a timestamp-aligned price, social-mentions and trade-flow series, I cannot reliably say whether attention led the entire rally or followed the first leg of it.

Is PEPE leading a broader memecoin rotation?

I compared PEPE with four established meme assets—DOGE and SHIB for larger legacy names, plus BONK and WIF for Solana exposure—and BTC and ETH as broader-market controls. Using the same CoinGecko research pass and rolling 24-hour return convention gives a useful breadth check:

Source: CoinGecko’s individual PEPE, DOGE, SHIB, BONK, WIF, BTC and ETH pages. These are near-contemporaneous rolling readings, not a synchronized exchange-wide historical dataset.

At the category level, CoinGecko’s meme-token market page showed an approximately 2.7% 24-hour rise in sector market capitalization at the check. That supports modest wider memecoin strength, but PEPE is clearly the standout in this predefined sample. My conclusion is PEPE-specific outperformance inside a mildly stronger meme segment, not proof that capital is rotating directly out of BTC, ETH or another sector into PEPE.

CryptoLinks covered a much broader DOGE-and-PEPE-led move in our September memecoin-rotation analysis. The same principle applies now: a lasting sector rotation needs breadth and persistence, not just one frog-themed leader for one rolling day. Readers looking for context on the assets themselves can start with the CryptoLinks top meme coins section.

What could sustain—or reverse—the PEPE move?

Leverage is worth watching, although it does not establish a short squeeze. In the CoinGecko snapshot, its PEPE statistics showed approximately $941.7 million of perpetual open interest, an 8-hour funding reading of +0.0174%, and perpetual turnover at about 4.3 times reported spot turnover. These are provider-level aggregate readings subject to exchange and contract coverage. Open interest counts outstanding derivatives exposure, not net inflows, and its dollar value can rise with the token’s price even without an equal increase in contract units. I did not obtain the matching liquidation record needed to declare a squeeze.

There are two plausible paths. In a sustained-participation scenario, spot turnover remains elevated after the headline fades, a wider set of liquid trading venues participates, funding stays controlled and several meme assets begin outperforming BTC over multiple sessions. In a fragile-momentum scenario, repeated recirculation of the whale story does more work than new spot demand, while leverage stays crowded, market depth proves thin or the rally narrows to PEPE alone. Neither outcome is established yet.

Concentration also cuts both ways. A cluster attributed to one prominent figure can draw attention, but it is no commitment to buy more, and $51.25 million in a dashboard is not a guaranteed cash amount realizable by immediately selling those tokens. Equally, a future transfer into an exchange would be a reason to investigate—not proof that a sale occurred. The CryptoLinks derivatives-exchange section is a useful starting point for understanding how leverage and venue choice change risk.

The evidence, without the leap

What I would watch next

First, I would compare another 24–48 hours of spot volume and venue participation with the initial spike. Second, I would check token-denominated open interest, funding and actual liquidation data rather than infer fresh positioning from dollar open interest alone. Third, I would look for updated Arkham labels and independently inspectable Ethereum transfer hashes, while avoiding double-counting any tokens that pass through the same attributed cluster. Finally, I would rerun the same DOGE, SHIB, BONK, WIF, BTC and ETH basket over aligned 24-hour and seven-day periods to see whether the strength is spreading.

One unverified headline does not need to become a trading signal. The project’s official description is explicitly meme-first, and PEPE does not offer the revenue or earnings framework used to value a conventional operating business. Attention, liquidity and positioning can reprice it quickly in either direction.

Bottom line

PEPE is rising because trading interest and speculative attention have intensified, while Arkham’s Sun-linked wallet report supplies a timely narrative—not a proven purchase receipt. The observed $633 million turnover is substantial, but it is not net inflow. The 2.82% figure depends on attribution and supply definitions. Other memecoins have gained too, yet today’s evidence is stronger for PEPE-specific leadership than for a verified, durable sector rotation.

For ongoing coverage, visit CryptoLinks News or return to the CryptoLinks homepage for market-data resources, token guides and independent crypto website reviews.

Disclosure: This article is market reporting and analysis, not personalized investment advice. Market quotations and wallet classifications can change. No sponsored claim or trading recommendation is implied.