In the memecoin market, a bold forecast has resurfaced that Pepe (PEPE) could overtake Shiba Inu (SHIB). A cryptocurrency expert cited Pepe's steep recent rise and mentioned the possibility that a so-called memecoin “flippening” could become reality. Flippening is a term for a hypothetical scenario in which one cryptocurrency's market capitalisation surpasses another's.

The Crypto Basic, a blockchain outlet, reported on Jan. 5 that after the cryptocurrency market went through a sharp correction in 2025, the memecoin segment has regained momentum in 2026. Pepe in particular has surged more than 60 percent over the past week, drawing market attention. By contrast, Shiba Inu rose about 22 percent over the same period, showing a relatively weaker trend.

An anonymous cryptocurrency analyst known as Y00thereum said based on this trend that Pepe could overtake Shiba Inu in market capitalisation as early as around April 20. According to a screenshot he shared, Shiba Inu's market capitalisation at the time was about $5.32 billion, while Pepe remained around $2.92 billion.

Under the analysis, for Pepe to reach Shiba Inu's market capitalisation, its token price would need to rise about 1.8 times to around $0.00001266. In that case, Pepe's market capitalisation is estimated to exceed about $5.3 billion.

Both tokens fell in a subsequent market pullback. Shiba Inu's market capitalisation now stands at about $5.11 billion, with its token price around $0.000008665. Pepe is trading at about $0.0000069 with a market capitalisation of about $2.9 billion. On that basis, Pepe would need an additional rise of about 76.5 percent to catch up with Shiba Inu. Y00thereum said he expects this scenario could be realised before April 20, 2026.

This is not the first time claims that Pepe could overtake Shiba Inu have surfaced. In 2024, Max Schwartzman, CEO of BecauseBitcoin, forecast that in the 2024 to 2025 market cycle, Pepe would surpass Shiba Inu and emerge as a core asset in the memecoin market. Another well-known Pepe backer, Pepetoshi Nakamoto, also warned that Shiba Inu's No. 2 spot was under threat, but those predictions did not materialise.

In fact, Shiba Inu has consistently held the position of the world's No. 2 memecoin by market capitalisation since late 2021. In early 2025, a Trump-themed memecoin briefly overtook Shiba Inu shortly after its launch, but Shiba Inu later reclaimed the ranking and held its ground.

Whether Pepe's sharp rise will end as another short-term rally or become a turning point that reshapes the memecoin market remains up to the market's judgement.