By Alex Ioannou
Publication Date: 2026-05-20 14:34:00
The meme coin graveyard is full of projects that had their moment and never got another one. Perplexity AI looked at both PEPE and SHIB sitting near multi-month lows and predicts neither of them is finished yet.
PEPE at 3x to 12x. SHIB at 2x to 4x. Both by end-2026.
Perplexity does not pretend these are fundamental plays. The bull case for both is built on the same engine that has always powered meme coins: sentiment, momentum, and liquidity. For PEPE the specific triggers are meme-market momentum returning, new exchange listings expanding the buyer base, and broad crypto risk-on flows pulling speculative capital into high-beta assets.
The AI’s conservative target of $0.00002 to $0.00006 represents a revisit of prior speculative highs, which is not a new all-time high call, it is a mean reversion call back to levels PEPE has already traded at.
For SHIB the thesis leans slightly more on fundamentals: continued Shibarium utility rollout, sustained burn rates reducing circulating supply, and renewed retail and institutional attention combining with tokenomics improvements to drive a 2 to 4x from current levels.
SHIB has something PEPE does not, which is an actual development roadmap, and Perplexity gives that distinction weight in the prediction.
The bear case for both is blunt and honest. These are highly sentiment-driven assets. Macro risk aversion, regulatory crackdowns, or large whale sell-offs continuing…