By market cap, Shiba Inu is the bigger memecoin. On October 11, 2026, CoinGecko put SHIB at about $3.23B and PEPE at about $1.76B, so SHIB was nearly twice the size.
Over the previous 30 days, the large wallets Deep Blue Alpha tracks moved $59.37M of PEPE and $19.79M of SHIB. Three times as many whale dollars went to the smaller token.
Scaled by size, the gap widens. Whale moves in PEPE equaled 3.38% of its market cap over the month. For SHIB the figure was 0.61%. Whatever large Ethereum wallets were doing in memecoins between September 11 and October 10, most of it happened in PEPE.
That is the headline. The more useful part of this comparison is underneath it: both tokens leaned the same way, but they got there in very different shapes, and the shape decides how much weight each number can carry.
The side-by-side numbers
| Metric | PEPE | SHIB |
|---|---|---|
| Whale $ moved (30D) | $59.37M | $19.79M |
| Withdrawn from exchanges | $44.02M | $13.83M |
| Deposited to exchanges | $15.25M | $5.96M |
| Net leaving exchanges | $28.78M | $7.87M |
| Withdrawal share | 74.3% | 69.9% |
| Wallets | 70 | 47 |
| Whale moves | 337 | 236 |
| DEX share of whale $ | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| Market cap (Oct 11) | $1.76B | $3.23B |
The DEX row decides the vocabulary for everything else. Swaps were 0.2% of PEPE whale dollars and 0.0% of SHIB's. PEPE's DEX portion was $81.2K of DEX swap buys and $23.9K of DEX swap sells; the rest of both tokens' flow was coins moving onto and off exchanges. So the accurate description is "whales pulled PEPE off exchanges," not "whales bought PEPE."
The convention for direction: coins leaving exchanges are the accumulation-side read, coins arriving are the distribution-side read. On that convention, both tokens leaned toward accumulation, PEPE at 74.3% and SHIB at 69.9%. Close ratios, very different totals.
How the dollars were built: big moves versus many moves
Splitting each token's month by move size shows where the dollars came from.
| Move size | PEPE moves | PEPE $ | SHIB moves | SHIB $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $100K | 262 | $5.98M (10.1%) | 201 | $4.42M (22.3%) |
| $100K–$1M | 64 | $19.49M (32.8%) | 32 | $6.96M (35.1%) |
| $1M and up | 11 | $33.91M (57.1%) | 3 | $8.41M (42.5%) |
In PEPE, 11 moves of $1M or more carried 57.1% of the month, averaging about $3.08M each. In SHIB, just three moves of $1M or more carried 42.5%.
The flip side is the small moves. Most whale moves in both tokens were under $100K (262 of PEPE's 337, 201 of SHIB's 236), and they carried a minority of the dollars. SHIB's small moves mattered more proportionally, at 22.3% of its dollars against 10.1% for PEPE. In plain terms, PEPE's month was a few very large transfers on top of a busy base; SHIB's was a smaller base with three transfers that dwarfed it.
The method lesson: the move count and the dollar total measure different things. If a source quotes only dollars, it is describing the big moves. If it quotes only counts, it is describing the small ones.
How much a handful of wallets drove
| Wallet concentration | PEPE | SHIB |
|---|---|---|
| Wallets active | 70 | 47 |
| Largest wallet's share of $ | 22.5% | 23.7% |
| Top 5 wallets' share | 60.8% | 69.6% |
| Top 10 wallets' share | 80.4% | 91.3% |
| Wallets net withdrawing | 52 | 29 |
| Wallets net depositing | 13 | 17 |
In SHIB, ten wallets moved 91.3% of the month's whale dollars. The other 37 wallets together moved under a tenth. PEPE was broader, but its top ten still carried 80.4%.
The wallet lean adds a second view of direction that dollars alone miss. In PEPE, 52 wallets finished the window net withdrawing and 13 net depositing, a clear majority on the accumulation side by headcount as well as by dollars. In SHIB the headcount was closer: 29 net withdrawing against 17 net depositing. SHIB's 69.9% dollar withdrawal share leaned harder than its wallet count did, which is what happens when a few large withdrawals sit on top of a more evenly split crowd.
SHIB's largest wallet is a striking case. Its whole 30-day SHIB total was a single move: a $4.68M withdrawal on October 5, 23.7% of every tracked SHIB whale dollar in the window. Take that one move out and SHIB's net leaving exchanges would have been about $3.19M rather than $7.87M.
The largest single moves
| Token | Date (UTC) | Type | Size | Share of token's 30D whale $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PEPE | Sep 21 | Deposit to exchange | $8.79M | 14.8% |
| PEPE | Oct 2 | Withdrawal from exchange | $4.41M | 7.4% |
| PEPE | Oct 3 | Withdrawal from exchange | $4.26M | 7.2% |
| SHIB | Oct 5 | Withdrawal from exchange | $4.68M | 23.7% |
| SHIB | Oct 2 | Withdrawal from exchange | $2.30M | 11.6% |
| SHIB | Oct 2 | Withdrawal from exchange | $1.43M | 7.2% |
SHIB's three largest moves were 42.5% of its month, all pointing the same way. PEPE's three largest were 29.4%, and they pointed in opposite directions: the single biggest PEPE move of the month was a deposit, yet the month still finished firmly net leaving exchanges.
A rule of thumb that holds up across tokens: once one move is a fifth or more of a window's total, the headline is mostly that move. SHIB crossed that line this month. PEPE did not.
The weeks that made each month
| Week (UTC) | PEPE $ moved | PEPE withdrawal share | SHIB $ moved | SHIB withdrawal share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 13–19 | $4.76M | 85.0% | $2.29M | 53.0% |
| Sep 20–26 | $27.07M | 55.8% | $2.12M | 55.2% |
| Sep 27–Oct 3 | $19.78M | 91.3% | $8.00M | 62.6% |
| Oct 4–10 | $7.36M | 92.0% | $6.54M | 87.4% |
(September 11–12, the first two days of the window, are left out of the weekly view; they held under 5% of either token's dollars.)
PEPE's busiest week, September 20 to 26, was also its most balanced, because it contained the month's largest single memecoin move: an $8.79M PEPE deposit to an exchange on September 21 by a shortened wallet, 0x1d4896…0270. That day alone moved $13.77M of PEPE, 23.2% of the month, and finished $4.70M net onto exchanges.
What followed is the cleanest run in the data. From September 22 through October 8, PEPE finished every one of 17 consecutive days with more coins leaving exchanges than arriving. Over that stretch $29.41M net left exchanges, more than the full month's $28.78M.
SHIB's month was quiet for three weeks and then compressed into two days. October 2 and October 5 together moved $9.16M of SHIB, 46.3% of the month. By contrast, SHIB moved $24.8K across October 9 and 10 combined.
Busy days and empty ones
The daily data adds one more contrast. PEPE moved less than $500K on 15 of its 30 days; SHIB did so on 21. SHIB's median day was about $393.8K and PEPE's about $582.7K. For most of the month, both tokens saw little tracked whale activity on any given day, and the 30-day totals were built on a small number of heavy days: PEPE's three busiest days held 52.0% of its month and SHIB's 53.2%.
That pattern argues against reading a single day's whale flow in either token as typical. A quiet day is the norm; a heavy day is usually one or two wallets.
What the market-cap scaling does and does not mean
Dividing whale dollars by market cap (3.38% for PEPE, 0.61% for SHIB) is the fairest way to compare a $1.76B token with a $3.23B one. It answers one narrow question: relative to its size, which token tracked large wallets moved more of.
It does not say which token has more whales overall, because the tracker sees only its own list. It does not say whales hold more PEPE than SHIB. And it does not adjust for how each token is distributed across exchanges, which affects how often holders need to move coins at all. Used for what it is, it is the single best one-number comparison in this pair. Stretched further, it misleads.
Price alongside, not as an explanation
CoinGecko data for the 30 days to October 11 showed PEPE up 25.2% and SHIB up 3.7%. Over the final seven days PEPE was down 1.9% and SHIB down 3.8%. Both remained far below their all-time highs, PEPE 85.1% below and SHIB 93.6% below.
It is tempting to line those numbers up with the flow and draw a story. The data does not support one. Both tokens leaned toward coins leaving exchanges, and their price changes over the same window were very different. Exchange flow records where large holders moved coins. It does not record why, and over a single month it does not reliably track price.
How the numbers were measured
Every whale figure here is whale-scoped: only wallets on Deep Blue Alpha's tracked list, about 21,880 Ethereum addresses at the time of the pull, are counted. "Whale $ moved" adds exchange withdrawals, exchange deposits and DEX swaps in both directions, valued at the time of each move. Exchange-flow rows are kept for 30 days, so September 11 to October 10, 2026 is the full window available, and all dates are UTC. Market caps and price changes come from CoinGecko at October 11, 2026, 18:30 UTC. Wallets appear only in shortened form and are not attributed to any person or entity.
How to check one of these moves yourself
- Open PEPE or SHIB on Deep Blue Alpha and find a large move, noting the date and shortened wallet.
- On Etherscan, search the full wallet address and open Token Transfers (ERC-20). Filter by the token's contract address.
- Find the transfer on that date. If it came from a wallet Etherscan labels as an exchange, it is a withdrawal; if it went to one, it is a deposit.
- Confirm only one side is an exchange. Two exchange wallets on both ends is an internal shuffle and tells you nothing about a holder.
- If the transaction instead routes through a DEX router or pool with two tokens changing hands, it is a swap, and only then do purchase or sale words apply.
What this comparison cannot tell you
It cannot tell you who the wallets belong to; they are shortened and not attributed. It cannot separate a holder taking coins into cold storage from one moving them to a lending protocol. It only sees tracked wallets on Ethereum. And it says nothing about which token is the better holding. Moving a token is not proof of holding it, and a wallet that pulled PEPE off an exchange may have sent it somewhere else a week later.
Takeaway
PEPE drew far more whale activity than SHIB in this window, on dollars, wallets, moves and market-cap-adjusted terms, and both leaned toward coins leaving exchanges. The more durable lesson is about shape. PEPE's lean was a 17-day run spread across dozens of wallets after one large deposit. SHIB's was a small base plus two days in early October and one wallet that made a single $4.68M move. Before comparing two tokens' whale totals, compare how each total was built.
The full comparison, including the largest moves and the wallet overlap between the two, is at PEPE vs SHIB: Whale Flow Compared. Both tokens sit in context on the Top 50 Ethereum memecoins ranking and on the live memecoin whale board.
Data: Deep Blue Alpha tracked-wallet data, whale-scoped, September 11 – October 10, 2026 (UTC), Ethereum only. Market data from CoinGecko, October 11, 2026, 18:30 UTC.
Deep Blue Alpha is an Ethereum whale intelligence platform tracking 20,000+ whale wallets in real time. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. NFA/DYOR.
Track whale activity for free at deepbluealpha.io
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