Decentral Block Post

The circumstances behind the mysterious $16 million withdrawal from the Pepecoin (PEPE) project’s multisig wallet have seemingly been revealed, with the finger being pointed at three ex-team members who went rogue.

On Aug. 24, the price of PEPE plunged by roughly 15% amid fears of a potential rug-pull after the community spotted that $16 million worth of PEPE was withdrawn from the Pepe multisig wallet and sent to several exchanges.

Clearing up the matter in an Aug. 25 post on X (Twitter), one of the anonymous founding members behind Pepecoin provided a community announcement from the @pepecoineth account, detailing what they claim had happened.

According to the statement, three team members abruptly stole the funds from the multisig and then abandoned the project completely, leaving it in full control to the sole remaining member.

“The multi-sig was set up to require 3/4 signers present for an approval. Yesterday these 3 ex-team members came back behind my back, logged onto the multi-sig, stole 16 Trillion/ 60% of the 26 trillion multi-sig tokens, and sent them to exchanges to sell.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke today and in his Jackson Hole speech he cautioned that inflation remains too high and that the central bank remains open to raising rates further if needed. The remarks by Powell strengthen the narrative that interest rates are likely to remain higher for longer. 

However, a positive sign is that after a brief sell-off, the United States equities markets have recovered from their intraday lows. With the event having passed without any major price movement, traders are back to guessing as to what could move the markets next.

Pantera Capital believes that Bitcoin’s (BTC) price action will continue to follow its previous halving cycles. If that happens, Bitcoin could rise to $35,000 by April 2024 when the next halving is expected to occur. After that, Bitcoin could rally sharply and climb to $148,000.

Will bears maintain their selling pressure and pull the price below the respective supports in Bitcoin and altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin once again turned down from the overhead resistance at $26,833 on Aug. 23, indicating that the bears continue to sell on rallies. That has kept the price stuck inside the range between $26,833 and $24,800.

Judge Martin Glenn shot down efforts to have a special shareholders class declared in the Celsius Network bankruptcy case in a court document filed on Aug. 25. The judge also declined to settle whether or not the CEL token was a security. 

In a motion filed on July 25 and heard before the United States Bankruptcy Court Southern District New York on Aug. 14, investor Otis Davis asked the court to create a legal class for investors to be considered separate from Celsius Network employees and customers.

Davis also requested that the court sanction the legal team representing the Unsecured Creditors Committee (UCC) over alleged failure to disclose required information.

The filing further asked the court to declare CEL “not a security” in light of the recent findings in the SEC vs Ripple where, according to Davis, Judge Analisa Torres determined that XRP was not a security.

Related: Breaking: Judge rules XRP is not a security in SEC's case against Ripple