Security Breach Detected
The official website for the Pepe memecoin has been compromised in a front-end attack. Cybersecurity firm Blockaid detected the breach early and issued an alert to the community, informing them that the site had been injected with malicious code from the Inferno Drainer toolkit. The Inferno Drainer kit is a suite of scam tools typically employed by threat actors, including phishing website templates, wallet drainers, and social engineering tools. The malware used in this attack is known to redirect visitors to phishing pages, which are designed to steal critical details such as wallet credentials, approve unauthorized transactions, and drain assets like tokens, NFTs, and other holdings. Blockaid stated, "Blockaid’s system has identified a front-end attack on Pepe. The site contains a code of inferno drainer."
Pepe's Price and Market Performance
The price of PEPE did not react immediately to the hack. Over the last 24 hours, the memecoin is up by approximately 0.87%. However, on a longer-term basis, it is down by more than 77% over the last 12 months.
This incident underscores the ongoing need for vigilance among crypto users, as it is the primary defense against phishing scams and other cybersecurity threats. Users have been strongly advised to avoid the affected site until the issue is fully resolved.
According to Blockaid, hackers utilizing Inferno Drainer increased by almost three times last year, despite the team behind it claiming they would cease operations in 2023. Oz Tamir, a former Blockaid engineer, stated in August 2024, "At the beginning of the year, we saw about 800 new malicious Inferno Drainer DApps per week. Now, that number has tripled to 2,400 per week." Since then, the Inferno Drainer group and its associated tools have been linked to numerous social engineering scams, social media exploits, and malware-related crypto thefts, including the hack of the BNB X page in October.
Challenges in the Memecoin Sector
The cryptocurrency market has experienced significant volatility recently, with the memecoin sector taking a substantial hit. This has driven the category to its lowest valuation in 2025, dropping to a combined market capitalization of $39.4 billion, according to data aggregator CoinMarketCap.
Toward the end of November, the sector lost over $5 billion in a single 24-hour period, declining from $44 billion despite a 40% increase in trading volume. This is a considerable drop from the sector's peak in January, when the memecoin market cap collectively reached a high of $116.7 billion.
Experts suggest that this sharp sell-off reflects a broader decline across the digital asset market. Data from CoinGecko supports this observation, showing the total crypto market cap falling from $3.77 trillion on November 1 to $2.96 trillion on November 21, resulting in an $800 billion loss in just three weeks. Even United States President Donald Trump’s official memecoin experienced minor dips as other prominent memes saw double-digit declines in November.
There are signs of a potential rebound, with trading volume slowly climbing back up and the top ten memecoins showing adequate recoveries. Cryptopolitan analysts predict that Dogecoin is expected to touch the $0.396556–$0.504708 level by 2026. December is also anticipated to be a favorable month for memecoins, particularly if Bitcoin consolidates and altcoins experience rotation. However, experts advise caution, as memecoins are inherently volatile regardless of the month.