Pepe vs Shiba Inu and Why PEPE Swung 1.46 Times as Hard as SHIB

Pepe vs Shiba Inu comes down to swing size, since PEPE's daily moves ran 1.46 times as large as SHIB's over the 365 days to 26 September 2026. The two Ethereum meme tokens mostly rise and fall on the same days, and PEPE went further both ways, amplifying the shared moves and adding swings of its own.

We rebuilt the comparison from Phemex daily closes on the 1000PEPE and 1000SHIB futures contracts. The correlation of daily returns was 0.867 and PEPE's beta to SHIB was 1.27. That bigger swing cut both ways, and PEPE lost 53.45 percent over the window to SHIB's 50.21 percent. Off their closing lows, PEPE rebounded 87.9 percent from 1 July 2026 and SHIB 44.1 percent from 16 July.

What Is the Difference Between Pepe and Shiba Inu?

PEPE is an ERC-20 token whose Ethereum contract went live on 14 April 2023. That contract minted all 420.69 trillion tokens at deployment and has no function to mint more. Its deployer renounced ownership at 21:08 UTC the same day, so no one can call the owner-only functions, which include a blacklist. The token has no network of its own, and the meme is the whole product. Our explainer on what PEPE coin is and how to trade it covers its April 2023 launch and the frog meme behind it.

SHIB is the older of the two, with an Ethereum contract deployed on 31 July 2020 and a set of projects built around it. One of them is Shibarium, which Shiba Inu's documentation describes as "a cost-effective Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, offering low gas fees and fast transaction processing." Our explainer on Shiba Inu as a Dogecoin killer or imitator covers its early days as an Ethereum answer to Dogecoin.

In any Shiba Inu vs Pepe coin comparison, the Pepe in question is this Ethereum token, the one whose price the 1000PEPE contract tracks. The tokens named Pepecoin and Pepe Unchained (PEPU) are different projects with their own contracts, and none of them is the PEPE measured here.

Priced at the 26 September close, SHIB's 589.24 trillion circulating tokens came to $3.49 billion and PEPE's 420.69 trillion to $1.84 billion. That puts SHIB's market value at 1.90 times PEPE's. The circulating figures are CoinGecko's, read on 27 September 2026. CoinGecko's own snapshot at 00:00 UTC on 27 September, which marks the same close, put both caps within 0.04 percent of ours.

Pepe vs Shiba Inu Volatility on 365 Daily Closes

Over the 365 daily returns from 27 September 2025 to 26 September 2026, the standard deviation of PEPE's daily move was 5.41 percent and SHIB's was 3.70 percent. That ratio of 1.46 is the number to size a position around, because it tells you how much more a PEPE position moves on a typical day. In dollar terms, that's a daily swing of about $37 on $1,000 of 1000SHIB futures and about $54 on $1,000 of 1000PEPE.

The two tokens closed in the same direction on 316 of the 365 days, and PEPE's move was the larger one on 241 days. On SHIB's 201 down days, PEPE averaged a 2.98 percent loss against SHIB's 2.44 percent. On SHIB's 163 up days it averaged a 3.52 percent gain against 2.73 percent. That makes PEPE's amplification a little stronger on the way up, at 1.29 times SHIB's average gain and 1.22 times its average loss. PEPE closed 10 percent or more away from the prior close on 23 days, and SHIB did so on 9.

The window's worst day and best day were the same for both tokens, and each landed close to the ratio. On 10 October 2025, 1000PEPE closed 28.06 percent lower and 1000SHIB 19.07 percent lower, a multiple of 1.47. On 21 August 2026 they closed 28.73 percent and 19.66 percent higher, a multiple of 1.46.

The 1.46 is a full-year figure, and it moved around inside the year. Split at the calendar quarter ends, PEPE's daily volatility ran between 1.30 and 1.66 times SHIB's. PEPE was also the more volatile token in 309 of the 336 rolling 30-day windows. The 27 exceptions all ended between 25 July and 20 August 2026. Every one of them includes SHIB's 25 July bar, when SHIB closed 17.05 percent higher and PEPE added 0.86 percent.

Beta shows where the extra swing comes from. PEPE moved 1.27 percent on average for every 1 percent move in SHIB. With a 0.867 correlation, that shared part accounts for about three quarters of PEPE's daily variance. The remaining quarter is PEPE's own movement, and it lifts the ratio of the two volatilities from 1.27 to 1.46.

Method: each return is one Phemex daily close divided by the one before, minus one, on the 1000PEPE and 1000SHIB contracts. The window runs from closes of 0.0093743 for 1000PEPE and 0.011911 for 1000SHIB on 26 September 2025 to 0.0043633 and 0.00593 on 26 September 2026. Volatility is the population standard deviation of those 365 returns, and beta is their covariance divided by SHIB's variance.

Why Did PEPE Lose More and Rebound Harder Than SHIB?

The larger swing cost PEPE more on the way down. From its highest close of the window, 0.0102157 on 2 October 2025, 1000PEPE fell 77.27 percent to 0.0023225 on 1 July 2026. 1000SHIB's deepest fall was 67.99 percent, from 0.012854 on 6 October 2025 to 0.004114 on 16 July 2026.

The rebound favoured PEPE by a wider margin. From those lows to the 26 September close, PEPE gained 87.9 percent and SHIB 44.1 percent. Over the 30 daily bars to 26 September, PEPE added 12.10 percent to SHIB's 9.35 percent. The seven bars to the same close went SHIB's way, 7.54 percent against 5.94 percent. So did the 26 September bar itself, with PEPE down 2.76 percent and SHIB down 0.40 percent.

The same test on the previous 365 days, from 26 September 2024 to 26 September 2025, gives a ratio of 1.45. The direction was different, though. PEPE ended that year down 1.42 percent and SHIB down 36.04 percent, so the token with the bigger swing held up far better. That year PEPE's beta to SHIB was only 1.07 with a 0.739 correlation, so most of its extra swing came from moves of its own. The size of PEPE's swing repeated from one year to the next, and the sign of its outcome didn't.

SHIB's record against the original dog token is a separate story, and our 2025 Dogecoin vs Shiba Inu comparison sets those two side by side.

Shiba Inu vs Pepe on Phemex and Which One Fits Your Trade

Phemex quotes both as 1,000-token contracts, so you divide by 1,000 for the per-token price. The 26 September close was 0.0043633 for 1000PEPE and 0.00593 for 1000SHIB, which works out to $0.0000043633 per PEPE and $0.00000593 per SHIB. Both contracts go up to 50x and settle funding every 8 hours at 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00 UTC, according to Phemex product data read on 27 September 2026.

Which is better, PEPE or Shiba Inu, comes down to the job you give the position. SHIB wins for a trader who wants the meme trade with the smaller daily swing, and PEPE wins for one who wants more movement per dollar. The ratio also hands you the conversion, since a PEPE position 68 percent the size of a SHIB position carried the same daily volatility over this window.

Traders who hold both contracts get a third option. Over this window, a long 1000PEPE position paired with a short 1000SHIB position 1.27 times its size carried a daily swing of about 2.70 percent of the PEPE leg. That 2.70 percent is PEPE's own movement, the share of its swing that SHIB doesn't explain. The hedge ratio drifts, though, as the 1.07 beta of the year before shows.

SHIB also has something PEPE lacks, a Layer 2 network in its ecosystem, and our 2022 guide to what Shibarium is sets out the pre-launch plan. For a holder who wants the token tied to a working network, that tips the choice to SHIB.

The specific risk is the one-day gap at high leverage. On closes alone, the 28.06 percent drop of 10 October 2025 was bigger than the whole margin of any 1000PEPE long above about 3.6x. SHIB's 19.07 percent drop that day did the same to 1000SHIB longs above about 5.2x. A liquidation fires before the margin is fully spent, so the real thresholds that day were lower still.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Pepecoin the same token as PEPE?

No, PEPE is the Ethereum token at contract 0x6982508145454Ce325dDbE47a25d4ec3d2311933. CoinGecko's search returned five separate tokens named PepeCoin or Pepecoin on 27 September 2026, and two of them use the PEPE ticker on Solana. Check the contract before you trade anything called Pepe.

How far are PEPE and SHIB below their all-time highs?

CoinGecko's intraday all-time high for SHIB is $0.00008616 from 27 October 2021, and the 26 September 2026 close was 93.1 percent below it. PEPE's is $0.00002803 from 9 December 2024, and its close was 84.4 percent below that.

When did Phemex list the two contracts?

Phemex product data gives 12:00 UTC on 23 December 2022 as the listing time for the 1000SHIB contract and 10:00 UTC on 6 May 2023 for 1000PEPE. That second date came three weeks after the PEPE token contract went live on Ethereum.

Bottom Line

PEPE's average day over the window beat SHIB's, a loss of 0.066 percent against 0.123 percent, and PEPE still finished further down. Compounding takes a toll of roughly half the daily variance, which came to 0.147 percent a day for PEPE and 0.069 percent for SHIB. Over 365 days that toll outweighed PEPE's better average. In Pepe vs Shiba Inu, the extra swing costs you something every day and pays you only when the trend runs your way.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.