Pepe surges 22%, leading Bitcoin, Dogecoin, XRP

The meme coin is back. Pepe rallied 22% in 24 hours as a $919 million wave of short liquidations supercharged Bitcoin's run toward $87,000.

Pepe (PEPE) surged 22.2% over the past 24 hours to trade at $0.0000049, making the frog-themed token the best performer among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market value, according to CoinGecko data.

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The rally extends Pepe's weekly gain past 40% and lifts its market value back above $2 billion. More than $1 billion in tokens changed hands over the past day.

Even after the rally, the token trades more than 80% below its all-time high of $0.00002803, set on Dec. 9, 2024.

The move comes as Bitcoin climbed 7.2% to $86,965, closing in on $87,000. Ethereum added 5.9% to $2,788 and Solana rose 7.5% to $118.60. XRP rose 3.3% to $1.14.

Today's winners and losers

Pepe led a broad meme coin rally on Monday. Dogwifhat (WIF) jumped 17.7%, Dogecoin gained 13.8% to trade just under $0.10, and smaller tokens Mubarak and Useless rose 29% and 24% respectively.

Outside the meme basket, Bittensor (TAO) advanced 16.3% and Sui climbed 15.2%, rounding out the five biggest gainers among major coins.

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The losers board was quiet by comparison. Akedo (AKE) fell 7.6%, the worst drop among the top 100, while Zcash slipped 3.5%. Near Protocol and Ethena each gave up about 2.5%.

Why Pepe is pumping

There is no single catalyst behind Pepe's move. No new exchange listing or protocol news has surfaced, and market watchers tracking the token this week have floated several explanations without proving any of them.

Meme coins tend to amplify Bitcoin's biggest moves in both directions, and Monday's rally handed traders exactly that setup. Pepe's 22% gain is roughly triple Bitcoin's advance, in line with how the sector behaves during past squeezes.

Shorts get run over

The fuel is a massive short squeeze. Traders betting against crypto lost $919 million to forced liquidations over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass, out of $1.09 billion in total liquidations. That figure jumped nearly 248% from the prior day, with long positions accounting for just $167 million.

Some 139,841 traders were liquidated in total. The largest single order was a $20.86 million Bitcoin position wiped out on Hyperliquid.

Bitcoin shorts made up $558 million of the damage, and Ethereum shorts added another $202 million. The squeeze accelerated after Bitcoin cleared $85,000 on Monday for the first time since January.

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