PEPE vs Pepecoin: three frogs, one name, zero overlap

PEPE vs Pepecoin in 30 seconds

If you searched “pepe vs pepecoin”, you have probably noticed that crypto has more than one frog. The short version: Pepe (PEPE) is the big one. It is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, launched in April 2023, with 420.69 trillion tokens and a market cap of about $1.7 billion on 13 October 2026 (CoinGecko). Pepecoin (PEP) is a much smaller, separate blockchain launched in January 2024. It has its own coins, its own miners and its own wallets.

Then there is a third frog. PepeCoin (PEPECOIN) is an older project from 2016 that some exchanges once listed as MEMETIC. It later moved onto Ethereum, and it is the one connected to BasedAI. Most of the confusion online comes from people mixing up these three. Some blog posts even credit the wrong one with the BasedAI integration.

None of these projects is affiliated with the others, and none of them is affiliated with Matt Furie, who drew the original frog. The rest of this page explains what Pepecoin is, how mining and nodes work, where each coin trades, and how to avoid sending money to the wrong one.

The difference between PEPE and Pepecoin, explained

The core difference is architecture. PEPE is a smart contract on someone else’s blockchain. Ethereum validators process its transfers, you pay gas in ETH, and nothing about PEPE can change because its contract owner was renounced. Every PEPE that will ever exist was minted on 14 April 2023. You can read the details on our what is PEPE page.

Pepecoin is a blockchain of its own. It runs its own nodes, has its own block explorer and pays its own miners, who are rewarded with freshly created PEP in every block. Supply grows over time, much as Dogecoin’s does. That makes PEP closer in spirit to Dogecoin than to PEPE (our PEPE vs DOGE vs SHIB comparison covers how those two differ). It is a mineable “people’s coin” with a frog on it, not a token you trade on Uniswap.

The practical result is that the two are not interchangeable anywhere. A PEPE deposit address on Ethereum cannot receive PEP, and a PEP address cannot receive PEPE. Coins sent across that line are usually lost. If you want the full guide to storing PEPE, see our PEPE wallets guide.

What is Pepecoin (PEP)?

Pepecoin (PEP) is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency. Its own code repository on GitHub describes it as “a fork of Dogecoin”. It inherits Dogecoin’s design: Scrypt mining, fast blocks, and no hard cap on supply. The official site is pepecoin.org.

The genesis block in the code carries a timestamp of 23 January 2024 at 02:00 UTC. The community usually gives 30 January 2024 as its public launch date. By 13 October 2026 about 102.67 billion PEP were in circulation, and CoinGecko valued the network at around $9 million. That makes it a tiny project next to PEPE’s $1.7 billion.

Two details tend to surprise newcomers. First, the “Pepecoin network” name on CoinGecko (ID pepecoin-network) is how aggregators keep it apart from the 2016 PepeCoin. Second, PEP had the same all-time high date as PEPE, 9 December 2024. That says more about the meme cycle than about any link between them. PEP’s peak was $0.00182, and on 13 October 2026 it traded about 95% below that.

How to mine Pepecoin (and why you can’t mine PEPE)

Searches for “pepe coin mining” come from a mix-up. You cannot mine PEPE. It is an Ethereum token with a fixed supply, and Ethereum itself stopped using mining in 2022. Any app that claims to “mine PEPE” on your phone is at best a game and at worst a scam. Several presale projects use the word “node” or “mining” in their marketing too, and we cover them on the Pepe clones page.

Pepecoin mining, on the other hand, is real. PEP uses the Scrypt algorithm, the same one used by Litecoin and Dogecoin, so it runs on the same ASIC hardware. From block 42,000 onwards the chain accepts auxiliary proof-of-work (AuxPoW). That means miners can merge-mine PEP alongside Litecoin and Dogecoin without losing hashpower on those chains. Mining pools such as ViaBTC have published guides on how to mine Pepecoin.

In practice there are three ways in. If you already run Scrypt ASICs for Litecoin or Dogecoin, you can point them at a pool that supports PEP merge-mining and earn it as a bonus. If you don’t, you can still mine on your own node, but CPUs and GPUs are hopeless against ASICs on Scrypt. Most people who just want some PEP buy it instead. As always, check your electricity costs before you start. Mining rewards are paid in a coin worth fractions of a cent, and pool payout thresholds vary.

Pepecoin nodes and wallets

Because PEP is its own blockchain, it relies on a network of full nodes. These are computers that store the whole chain and check every block. As a Dogecoin fork, its reference node software lives in the pepecoinppc/pepecoin repository. Running a node means downloading that client, syncing the chain and leaving it online. You don’t earn coins for it like a miner does. You run one to verify your own transactions and help the network stay decentralised. The same client also works as a basic desktop wallet.

For everyday storage, Tangem lists Pepecoin (PEP) among its supported coins. Community members report that Komodo Wallet added PEP in a beta version, but we could not confirm that from Komodo itself. What will not work is MetaMask, Trust Wallet’s Ethereum account or any other EVM wallet. Those hold PEPE, not PEP.

1. Pick the right chain

   For PEP, use a wallet that lists Pepecoin as its own network, not an ERC-20 token.

2. Get the address from the wallet

   Copy the receive address from the wallet or node itself. Never take one from a chat or a DM.

3. Send a small test first

   Withdraw a small amount from the exchange and wait for it to confirm before you move the rest.

4. Back up your seed or wallet file

   Write it down offline. Nobody can recover it for you.

Where Pepecoin (PEP) trades

The clearest milestone for PEP came on 11 February 2026, when Kraken opened PEP trading. The announcement is dated the next day and, amusingly, misspells the name as “Pepcoin”. Kraken notes that geographic restrictions may apply, so check your country before you count on it.

A 2025 project press release also names MEXC, CoinEx, XT.com, AscendEX and Biconomy as venues. We could not confirm those listings from the exchanges’ own announcements, so treat them as unverified. Liquidity is thin compared with PEPE. With a market cap near $9 million, even modest orders can move the price, and spreads can be wide.

PEPE is a different story. It trades on almost every global exchange, from Binance and OKX to Coinbase, Robinhood and Bitvavo, often against USD, EUR, USDT and local currencies. Our PEPE exchanges comparison lists them, and the how to buy PEPE guide covers the steps. One quirk to watch: on an exchange that lists both coins, the PEP and PEPE tickers sit one letter apart in the search box.

Here for the Ethereum frog?PEPE trades against BTC, USD and USDT on major exchanges. Check that the ticker says PEPE, not PEP.

Swap for PEPE

PepeCoin 2016, MEMETIC and the BasedAI connection

The third frog is the oldest. PepeCoin, ticker PEPECOIN, says it launched in March 2016 as its own proof-of-work chain. During the 2016 US election, when the frog meme became politically loaded, some exchanges renamed its ticker MEMETIC, and you will still see that name on some price pages, such as Coinbase’s. The project later migrated to an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. We could not pin down the exact migration date. Its supply is capped at 133,769,420 coins, with about 101 million circulating on 13 October 2026.

This is the frog behind the “BasedAI Pepecoin” searches. In October 2024 the project announced, via a sponsored press release, that holders could burn PEPECOIN in exchange for “Brain” credits on the BasedAI network. That belongs to PepeCoin (pepecoin.io), not to Pepecoin (PEP) at pepecoin.org, and not to PEPE either. Several articles get this wrong, so if a post ties BasedAI to the mineable chain, it has mixed up its frogs.

The 2016 coin had its own spike: an all-time high of $7.51 on 10 April 2024, according to CoinGecko. On 13 October 2026 it traded around $0.14, with a market cap near $14.5 million. That is larger than PEP but more than a hundred times smaller than PEPE.

How not to buy the wrong frog

Most mistakes happen in the search box of an exchange or a DEX. You type “pepe”, the first result looks right, and you tap buy. Here is the routine we use. It works for PEPE, PEP and PEPECOIN alike.

• Check the ticker character by character: PEPE, PEP and PEPECOIN are three different assets.
• For PEPE, the Ethereum contract must be 0x6982508145454Ce325dDbE47a25d4ec3d2311933.
• For PEP, the network must be Pepecoin itself. PEP is a native coin, not an ERC-20 token.
• Compare market cap on CoinGecko: about $1.7B for PEPE, about $9M for PEP, about $14.5M for PEPECOIN.
• Ignore “Pepecoin on Solana” style tokens. None of the three projects is native to Solana.
• Send a small test transaction before any large withdrawal.

If you are still unsure which coin a market represents, open the asset’s info panel on the exchange. Reputable venues show the network and the contract address or chain name. When the network field says Ethereum and the contract matches the one above, it is PEPE. If it says Pepecoin, it is PEP. Anything else deserves extra scepticism. For more copycats and their warning signs, browse our list of Pepe-named tokens, and read up on PEPE tokenomics if you want to see why the Ethereum frog’s supply is fixed.