When you hear "Pepecoin," you probably think of PEPE - the meme coin that exploded in 2023, hit $5 billion in market value, and showed up on Robinhood and Binance. But there’s another coin out there called Pepecoin (PEP), and it’s not the same thing. In fact, it’s older, less known, and barely trading compared to its famous cousin. If you’re trying to buy Pepecoin and end up with PEP instead, you’re not alone. Thousands of people make this mistake every month.

Pepecoin (PEP) Is Not PEPE

Let’s clear this up right away: Pepecoin (PEP) and PEPE are two completely different cryptocurrencies. PEPE is an ERC-20 token built on Ethereum. That means it runs on one of the most secure, widely used blockchains in the world. It’s easy to buy, trade, and store. PEP, on the other hand, is its own standalone blockchain - not built on Ethereum, not built on Solana, not built on anything else. It’s a solo project with its own rules, its own network, and its own problems.

PEP was created years before PEPE ever existed. Some sources suggest it launched as early as 2018 or 2019. But while PEPE exploded in popularity in April 2023, PEP stayed quiet. It didn’t get media coverage. It didn’t trend on Twitter. It didn’t get listed on major exchanges. Today, PEP’s market cap sits around $15 million. PEPE’s? Over $2.6 billion. That’s not a small difference - it’s a canyon.

How Pepecoin (PEP) Works

PEP runs on a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain, which means it’s mined - just like Bitcoin. You need specialized hardware, like ASIC miners, to earn new PEP coins. This is very different from PEPE, which doesn’t get mined at all. PEPE’s supply was set at launch, and new tokens aren’t created. PEP, however, has ongoing mining rewards, though nobody’s really mining it anymore.

The network is slow. It handles about 7 to 10 transactions per second. Compare that to Ethereum, which handles 30-50 TPS, or even Solana, which handles thousands. PEP’s blockchain gets congested if more than 15 transactions happen at once. That makes it useless for everyday payments or DeFi apps.

Security is another issue. Because so few people are mining PEP, the network’s total hash power is tiny. That makes it vulnerable to a 51% attack - where someone could take control of the network and reverse transactions. CoinDesk’s security report in August 2023 flagged PEP as one of the riskiest coins in the meme space for this exact reason.

Where You Can Buy PEP (And Why It’s Hard)

You won’t find PEP on Coinbase, Binance, or Robinhood. It’s only listed on a handful of smaller exchanges - MEXC, CoinEx, and HitBTC are the main ones. That’s it. If you want to buy PEP, here’s what you have to do:

1. Buy USDT or BTC on a major exchange like Binance.
2. Transfer it to MEXC.
3. Trade it for PEP.
4. Withdraw it to a Komodo Wallet - the only wallet that officially supports PEP.

This process takes 45 to 60 minutes. For PEPE, you can buy it in under 60 seconds on Robinhood. No transfers. No wallet setup. Just tap and go.

And even if you manage to buy PEP, selling it is harder. MEXC has over 30 one-star reviews from people saying they couldn’t sell their PEP. The spreads - the gap between buy and sell prices - are often over 15%. That means if you buy PEP at $0.0004, you might only get $0.00034 when you try to sell. You lose 15% before the market even moves.

Why Nobody Uses PEP

There are about 8,500 active PEP wallet addresses. That’s it. PEPE has over 2.1 million. Reddit threads like "Does anyone actually use Pepecoin (PEP) anymore?" get hundreds of replies - almost all of them saying, "I didn’t even know it existed," or "I bought the wrong one by accident."

Wallet compatibility is a nightmare. Trust Wallet, MetaMask, Phantom - none of them support PEP. You can’t store it in the apps most crypto users already have. You need to download Komodo Wallet, which is clunky, outdated, and has no mobile version. That’s a dealbreaker for anyone under 40.

Community support? PEP’s Telegram group has 1,247 members. PEPE’s Discord server has 186,000. That’s not a typo. PEPE has over 150 times more people talking about it.

Even the official website, pepecoin.org, is broken. Links don’t work. The design looks like it’s from 2017. Meanwhile, PEPE has detailed documentation on CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and even its own official site.

Is PEP Still Being Developed?

Not really. GitHub shows zero code commits on PEP’s repository in the last 18 months. That means no updates, no fixes, no new features. The last roadmap update was in 2021. There’s no team, no announcements, no press releases.

Experts agree: PEP is dead. Delphi Digital, CoinDesk, Messari, and The Block all say the same thing - PEP is a relic. It’s a technical dead end. It doesn’t solve any problems. It doesn’t offer anything new. It’s just a fork of Litecoin with a Pepe the Frog logo slapped on it.

One analyst summed it up: "PEP is what happens when a meme coin idea gets stuck in 2019. PEPE is what happens when a meme coin idea goes viral in 2023 and rides the wave of Ethereum’s ecosystem."

Why PEPE Dominates - And Why PEP Can’t Catch Up

PEPE benefits from being on Ethereum. That means it works with DeFi apps, NFT marketplaces, wallets, and exchanges. It’s part of a living ecosystem. PEP? It’s alone. No DeFi. No NFTs. No staking. No liquidity pools. Just a blockchain nobody uses.

PEPE also burns tokens with every transaction - reducing supply over time. That’s a deflationary model that attracts investors. PEP has no burn mechanism. No innovation. Just static supply.

And then there’s liquidity. PEPE trades over $1.2 billion in 24 hours. PEP? Under $300,000. That’s a 4,000% difference. If you need to sell a large amount of crypto, liquidity matters. With PEP, you can’t sell without crashing the price.

Should You Buy Pepecoin (PEP)?

Almost certainly not.

If you’re looking for a meme coin with growth potential, PEP is the wrong choice. It has no team, no roadmap, no community, no utility, and no liquidity. Its only claim to fame is being the "original" - but in crypto, being first doesn’t matter if no one uses it.

If you’re curious about history, sure - you can buy a few PEP coins just to see what it is. But treat it like a museum piece, not an investment. You’re not betting on its future. You’re paying to own a footnote.

And if you’re trying to buy PEPE? Double-check the ticker. PEPE is on Ethereum. PEP is on its own blockchain. They look almost the same. One will make you money. The other will make you frustrated.

What Happens to PEP Next?

Most exchanges plan to delist low-volume coins by early 2024. Three of the seven exchanges listing PEP have already signaled they’ll remove it. If that happens, PEP will become nearly impossible to trade. The price will drop to near zero. The wallets will stop supporting it. The community will vanish.

There’s no rescue plan. No new team. No funding. No announcement. PEP is being left behind by the market - and it’s not coming back.

So if you see someone promoting PEP as "the original Pepecoin" - tell them it’s like claiming your 1998 Nokia phone is the "original smartphone." It was first, sure. But nobody uses it anymore.