This article was paid for* The Moo Deng mania appears to be faltering with the Solana meme coin down nearly 30% from its all-time high. This is despite Tier-1 CEX Bybit announcing the launch of MOODENGUSDT Perpetual Contract on its Futures platform on Tuesday. #MOODENGUSDT Perpetual Contract is now Live on #Bybit with @MooDengSOL!Trade with up to 12.5x Leverage. Available on Bybit Trading Bot – Futures Grid, Futures Martingale and Futures Combo. Trade $MOODENG: https://t.co/EN6hLBs7qI#BybitTrading #BybitContracts pic.twitter.com/Gi1PACXmlC— Bybit (@Bybit_Official) October 1, 2024 Some analysts believe that the Moo Deng token price correction could simply be profit-taking from whales after a meteoric rally.  However, it is facing stiff competition from other new meme coins like Degen (DEGEN) and the TRUMP coin. Even low-cap gems like Pepe Unchained (PEPU) are in high demand, with a growing number of investors calling PEPU one of the best meme coins to buy now.  Is Moo Deng Coin Going To Zero? The craze for Moo Deng – the baby hippopotamus living in Thailand – isn’t going out of fashion anytime soon.  The volume of search terms “Moo Deng”, “Moo Deng live”, “Moo Deng stream” and “hippo” remain extremely high, data from Google Trends reveals. Popular late-night show Saturday Night Live also featured a comedy skit about the baby hippopotamus.  leave moo deng alone! #SNLPremiere pic.twitter.com/ABtoN9pQkr— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) September 29, 2024 Some analysts are bullish on Moo Deng’s appeal among mainstream investors. However, the SNL curse appears to have struck the Solana meme coin.  Just as the Dogecoin price plummeted after its Saturday Night Live feature, the Moo Deng token price is down by 31% from its all-time high.  MOODENG’s market capitalization is down to below $230 million after peaking at $338 million last week.  The meme coin has rallied nearly 30% from Tuesday’s low of $0.17. However, it has railed to flip the $0.26 resistance and appears to be retracing the move.  Part of the correction is likely due to the broad-based decline in crypto prices on Tuesday. Contrary to the Uptober projections, the Bitcoin price slid to $60,300 and could be headed to sub-$60k levels.  However, Moo Deng faces an outsized retracement as whales could continue to take profits, especially with the broader market uncertainty. For instance, Arkham Intelligence reveals that a smart money trader – who invested just $800 into MOODENG – is now sitting at an unrealized profit of nearly $6 million.  His unrealized PnL is already down susbtantially after peaking at $10 billion last week. Such whales could look to offload their holdings, which could lead to a steeper price correction in the Moo Deng meme coin. UPDATE: This guy turned $800 into $10 Million & is now down $5 millionTrader Db3P bought $800 of MOO DENG in its first week and rode it up to highs of $10.2M on Saturday, when Moo Deng was featured on Saturday Night Live.He is down $5.0M since then, holding $5.2M of MOO DENG… https://t.co/11aKOP09HY pic.twitter.com/TOd9Wp2Y98— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) September 30, 2024 However, some smart money investors also believe this to be an excellent buy-the-dip opportunity. Indeed, a whale invested $5.2 million worth of MOODENG after its price crash.  This guy now bought total of $5.2M $Moodeng pic.twitter.com/GOlM0p985M— Kakashi (@kkashi_yt) October 1, 2024 A few analysts also believe that the Moo Deng coin could go to $1 billion after creating a local bottom, especially with the rise in global liquidity which is a decidedly bullish scenario for risk-assets like meme coins.  However, the project is facing stiff competition from new meme coins.  Are These New Meme Coins Better Alternatives? Several new meme tokens are faring much better than the Moo Deng coin. For instance, Degen (DEGEN) is up by nearly 127% today and another base meme coin Basenji is also in the green. Meanwhile, the TRUMP coin is up by nearly 60% over the past week as the US Presidential election draws near.  Pepe Unchained (PEPU) – a new low-cap meme coin – is nearing the $17 million mark in its ICO, establishing itself as one of the hottest presales of 2024.  The project recently gave a glimpse of the Pepe Unchained L2 Testnet, which includes a Layer-2 chain, block explorer, a custom DEX and developer grants for new meme coins. This is creating quite a buzz on social media, considering it is extremely rare for new meme coins to offer such attractive utility.  Pepe Unchained L2 Sneak Peek!What we're building is not just a new chain, but an entire ecosystem.Pepe Unchained L2Block ExplorerDEXBridgeAdvanced AnalyticsBuilder GrantsPepe Unchained is coming. And it's going to shake up the crypto space. pic.twitter.com/ZVnvgO6MGF— Pepe Unchained (@pepe_unchained) September 26, 2024 Indeed, Pepe Unchained’s scaling solution could emerge as a competitor to pump.fun, owing to the extremely low trading costs and instant transactions on the chain.  With PEPU at the centre of this ecosystem, it is no surprise that the new meme coin is in high demand. Some prominent traders like ClayBro believe that Pepe Unchained could potentially offer up to 100x returns.  Visit Pepe Unchained Presale *Cryptonomist did not write the article or test the platform.

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