Pepecoin launches on Robinhood amid claims 36% of supply burned

PEPE, the Ethereum-based memecoin that turned a decades-old internet frog into a tradeable financial asset, has been listed on Robinhood’s US trading platform. The listing gives millions of retail investors one-click access to a token that started as a joke in April 2023 and quickly became one of crypto’s most actively traded memecoins.

What the Robinhood listing actually means

Robinhood added PEPE to its US crypto trading platform on November 13, 2024. The move followed an earlier rollout on Robinhood Crypto Europe back in February 2024, making the US launch a calculated expansion rather than a sudden decision.

PEPE launched in mid-April 2023 as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum with a fixed total supply of 420.69 trillion tokens. At launch, 93.1% of that supply was placed directly into a liquidity pool. The token carries no built-in transaction tax, which differentiates it from many other memecoins that siphon a percentage of every trade into developer wallets or redistribution pools.

Robinhood’s decision to list PEPE fits into the brokerage’s broader strategy of featuring meme tokens on its platform. The timing is notable, coming amid shifting regulatory sentiments following the 2024 US elections.

The burn mechanics behind the 36% figure

PEPE doesn’t have an automatic burn mechanism baked into its smart contract. Instead, the project relies on manual burns, where tokens are deliberately sent to a dead wallet address from which they can never be recovered.

The most notable single burn event occurred in October 2023, when 6.9 trillion tokens were eliminated from the project’s multisig wallet. That event alone removed approximately 1.6% of the total supply.

Why retail access matters for memecoins

Buying PEPE through Uniswap requires an Ethereum wallet, gas fees, and at least a passing familiarity with token contract addresses. Buying PEPE on Robinhood requires a phone and a bank account.

PEPE’s listing follows this playbook. The token experienced price gains following the Robinhood announcement, driven by increased retail participation and the speculative energy that accompanies any new listing on a high-traffic platform.

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