Pepe-The-Frog-themed meme coin PEPE surged 42% during Nov. 13’s market cooldown as Coinbase and Robinhood U.S. listed the token amid crypto excitement following Trump’s win.
According to Robinhood’s website, the trading platform’s U.S. division relisted Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), and Ripple (XRP) as it added (PEPE) trading support. It has been four years since the exchange delisted XRP due to litigation between Ripple and the Securities and Exchange Commission at the time.
Regulatory concerns surrounding Cardano and Solana by the SEC also led to their delisting in 2023. Uncertainty regarding whether ADA and SOL qualified as securities was understood to be the main reason for this decision.
Clarity from the SEC on Cardano and Solana was still largely unavailable when Robinhood reversed its delisting decision. However, the political landscape has changed since the firm last halted trading support.
PEPE’s rise on expected crypto clarity
Pro-Bitcoin Republican Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election. Trump’s promises to the crypto industry include ending excessive and stringent regulations on emerging technologies. He committed to dismissing SEC chair Gary Gensler, considered one of crypto’s top opponents at any federal agency.
The President-elect also unveiled Elon Musk as a key figure in his Department of Government Efficiency. Dubbed DOGE, which is strikingly similar to the meme coin Dogecoin (DOGE), some have speculated that crypto-friendly Musk could also spearhead additional crypto advocacy from within Trump’s camp.
Musk is considered a friend of the Dogecoin community and has publicly spoken about the project on several occasions. Furthermore, over 250 pro-crypto politicians snagged Congressional seats, adding to industry-wide hopes of a golden age for crypto.
Meanwhile, meme coins jumped out of the gates buoyed by Trump’s victory as the whole cryptocurrency market saw an aggressive uptick to over $3 trillion. Centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase have recently listed a raft of meme coins. The shift comes as industry participants expert Washington’s policies to support crypto innovation.
Coinbase coincidentally listed the PEPE meme coin as Robinhood did. America’s largest crypto exchange, and the only one with an Ethereum layer-2 called Base, added PEPE for spot trading. Data showed that the news propelled PEPE to a new all-time high while other top crypto memes continued to surge.
