Next Ethereum memecoin to hit $1: Shiba Inu vs Little Pepe

Little Pepe raises $5.9m in presale, outpacing SHIB’s momentum as it eyes a possible $1 target next cycle.

Shiba Inu is the name everyone knows. It defined what a memecoin could become — billions in market cap, listings on every major exchange, and a community that rivaled Bitcoin in raw online energy. 

But as SHIB holds steady in a maturing phase, Little Pepe is emerging with speed and structure. Little Pepe is still in presale, yet it has already raised over $5.9 million, sold more than 4.7 billion tokens, and secured a listing on CoinMarketCap before its official launch. And only one looks like it’s realistically positioned to hit $1 within the next cycle.

Shiba Inu struggles to reignite momentum

June saw SHIB drop more than 11%, primarily due to fading interest and lukewarm excitement around its Shibarium layer-2 upgrade. While developers hoped the update would renew demand, the reality has been slower. 

Transaction activity softened, and whale inflows dipped. Prices hovered around the $0.00001100 mark as the community waited for signs of life. Some optimism returned in early July. A slight price recovery, combined with a modest increase in burn volume, helped stabilize the situation. 

Analysts have pointed to a possible 30% rebound in the short term, but it still feels like SHIB is in a holding pattern. It has the brand, the following, and the name recognition, but may face a limited upside without stronger utility and a shift in token dynamics.

Traders shift focus: The rise of Little Pepe

While Shiba Inu works to recapture its spark, Little Pepe is doing the opposite. It’s gaining ground quickly, attracting interest with a fast-moving presale and a project structure built for long-term relevance. 

LILPEPE isn’t just another meme token following the same template. It’s being developed as a Layer 2 blockchain that caters specifically to the memecoin economy. That means faster transactions, lower fees, and a clean network for meme-based projects to launch, trade, and grow.

The presale has already surpassed the $5.9 million mark, with the price for Stage 5 set at $0.0014 and a confirmed launch listing at $0.003. That alone gives early buyers a clear gain before the token even begins trading on exchanges. But the appeal isn’t just in the short-term numbers. It’s in the broader structure and clarity of the project itself.

A real meme chain with real plans

Little Pepe has gone a step further than just promising a reasonable entry price. The project’s roadmap is unfolding gradually, and it features a developing meme-focused launchpad with actual functionalities. 

The chain’s staking architecture is in progress with baked-in liquidity plans into the supply. And with a zero-tax model, every trade remains clean and efficient. The phases are named playfully — Pregnancy, Birth, Growth — but behind the light branding is a serious plan. This isn’t a memecoin that hopes to find a use case later. It has one from the start, and everything is being built around it.

Can LILPEPE reach $1 before SHIB?

This is where supply and structure tell the story. Shiba Inu has a supply of hundreds of trillions. Even with burn events and ongoing community efforts, its path to one dollar would require an astronomical market cap, something that isn’t realistic anytime soon. 

Little Pepe, by comparison, has a capped supply in the billions, giving it a legitimate runway to reach high-value territory without stretching logic. It also has an edge in terms of demand. As the native gas and governance token of its own Layer 2 chain, LILPEPE is used every time another meme project launches within its ecosystem. This strategy generates recurring transaction volume and sustainable token utility — two key objectives that SHIB has struggled to achieve consistently.

Final thought: LILPEPE looks like the one to watch

Little Pepe may not have the legacy yet, but it has the structure, momentum, and clarity that serious investors are looking for. It’s already hitting milestones that SHIB took years to reach. And while SHIB may climb in small percentages over time, LILPEPE has a more straightforward, and faster, path to something bigger. If a memecoin is going to reach $1 first, it may not be the one that came first. It might be the one with an in-built ability.

To learn more about Little Pepe, visit the website, Telegram, and X.