Pepeto’s $10.27M Presale Borrows the Shiba Inu Playbook

Pepeto, an Ethereum-based meme coin, has raised more than $10.27 million through its presale, according to a press release distributed via Globe Newswire on June 16, 2026. The marketing leans on Shiba Inu, the 2020-2021 meme cycle that produced a 17,000,000% peak-to-trough gain before losing most of it, per Yahoo Finance.

The press release is the latest in a string of self-published Pepeto announcements, each citing a higher funding figure and each tied to a different market anchor: a Cardano price prediction, an XRP ETF narrative, Lee’s $12,000 call on Ethereum, the US-Iran peace deal. The numbers in those releases are not independently audited. The Shiba Inu comparison the marketing rests on is more uneven than the headline figure suggests. The full record of the 2020-2021 cycle sits in the data Yahoo has already published.

The Pepeto Presale’s Funding Run

The June 16 release ran across the Globe Newswire distribution network, the same wire service that has carried four earlier Pepeto releases since May. The release is labeled as sponsored content, with a footer noting that “Markets Insider and Business Insider Editorial Teams were not involved in the creation of this post.” It is the latest in a series of self-published Pepeto announcements over the past two months, each citing a higher funding total and each pegged to a different market headline.

Earlier releases show the same pattern of escalating totals. A May 3, 2026 Globe Newswire release said Pepeto had crossed $9.78 million, with the release tied to a Cardano price prediction. By May 9, the figure had moved to $9.92 million, holding there through a May 18 Markets Insider piece before climbing to $10.13 million on June 8. The presale end date tracker with live funding data places the project at roughly 97% of its $10,599,519 hard cap, with the live dashboard showing $10,257,747.86 raised.

The numbers rise in lockstep with the press release cadence. The wallet addresses and the smart contract being funded are not publicly broken out in any of the releases. None of the releases provide an on-chain breakdown of who has sent how much.

The SolidProof audit is a real artifact. A Pepeto contract entry on the SolidProof TrustNet directory lists the token on Ethereum mainnet, with an audit report dated October 9, 2024. The audit covers the token contract, not the exchange products, which are not yet on-chain.

Tom Lee’s $12,000 Target, in Context

Tom Lee, the Fundstrat co-founder who chairs the board of the Ethereum treasury company Bitmine Immersion Technologies, has been making a $12,000 call on Ethereum in multiple settings. U.Today coverage of Lee’s outlook cited his $12,000 target conditional on Bitcoin hitting $250,000 and the ETH/BTC ratio returning to its eight-year average. A published case for Ethereum reaching $12,000 to $22,000 repeats the same $12,000 number with a $22,000 stretch case at 2021 ratio highs. Lee has framed Ethereum as the “future of finance” and pointed to tokenization, AI-driven payments, and proof-of-humanity systems as the structural drivers.

The target is a forecast, not a realized price. It is also unchanged as Ethereum has spent most of 2026 well below $2,200. Per Binance’s published price prediction page, ETH traded around $1,792 on June 15, 2026, putting the upside to Lee’s target at roughly 6.7x.

Forecasts are forecasts. Lee’s earlier calls have not all held: he previously predicted that ETH would not fall below $4,000, a level that did not hold as prices moved lower into 2026. Bitmine, the company Lee chairs, reported holding 5,278,462 ETH on May 17, 2026, per Bitmine’s May 17 corporate release on its $12.6 billion in crypto and cash holdings. The release notes that Lee’s board role does not direct individual investment decisions, but Bitmine is a publicly traded proxy for the same bullish thesis.

The Shiba Inu Returns, Actually

The Pepeto press release says Shiba Inu posted a 49,000,000% return over its 2020-2021 run, citing Yahoo Finance. Yahoo’s own coverage of the period gives a different number. A piece in the five-year Shiba Inu outlook from Yahoo Finance states that Shiba Inu “gained more than 17,000,000%” during 2020 and 2021, a figure about a third of the one quoted in the Pepeto marketing.

The same piece notes that as of June 20, Shiba Inu traded at $0.000011 per token, “down 87% from the all-time high in 2021 and 45% on the year.” Shiba Inu reached a peak market capitalization near $40 billion in October 2021, then lost the bulk of that value over the bear market that followed. The token has held on through subsequent bull runs but never re-attained the high. The 17,000,000% number describes the move from near-zero to the 2021 peak. It does not describe what a typical wallet that bought early actually kept.

The press release also cites three specific returns: a $650 entry that became $1.7 million, an $8,000 entry that became $9 million, and a $55 entry that became $5.66 million. None of these anecdotes can be verified against a public on-chain record, and the press releases that name them do not link to the wallet addresses.

Yahoo’s coverage of the Shiba Inu cycle does not name any individual wallet. The story of meme-coin millionaires is real, since SHIB did produce a small set of early winners. The specific dollar figures in marketing material are not sourced to anything a reader can independently check.

What Pepeto Is Actually Building

The products named in the Pepeto press releases are: a zero-fee decentralized exchange called PepetoSwap, a cross-chain bridge called Pepeto Bridge, and a dedicated exchange called Pepeto Exchange. Per the project’s SolidProof audit listing, the audited contract is a token contract on Ethereum mainnet, not a deployed exchange. The press release describes the exchange as “live,” though the audit covers only the token contract, and the exchange products are not yet on-chain as of the June 16, 2026 release. The press release cites a Binance listing target as part of its marketing material.

The team has been tied to a “Pepe coin cofounder” connection across multiple promotional releases, including a Globe Newswire release from May. Kavout’s analysis notes the team is “linked to the $7 billion PEPE token.” That claim is consistent with the broader marketing, but, like the rest of the campaign, it comes from self-published material.

The SolidProof audit is verifiable, dated October 9, 2024, and lists no critical vulnerabilities on the token contract. The exchange products are not yet on-chain, so the audit does not cover them.

• PepetoSwap: zero-fee decentralized exchange for meme tokens
• Pepeto Bridge: cross-chain connectivity between Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana
• Pepeto Exchange: dedicated listing platform for meme coins
• Pepeto token: ERC-20 on Ethereum, audited by SolidProof and Coinsult
• Staking: 170% APY cited in the June 16 release

The Marketing Pattern

Pepeto’s press release cadence is itself a data point. Over six weeks, the project has distributed at least four press releases through Globe Newswire, each tied to a different anchor story: a Cardano price prediction, an XRP ETF narrative, Lee’s $12,000 call on Ethereum, and the US-Iran peace deal that pushed risk assets higher. Each release cites a higher funding figure. Each release also carries the same disclaimer noting that the editorial teams of Markets Insider and Business Insider were not involved.

The pattern is not unique to Pepeto. Other 2026 presale campaigns have used the same formula, attaching a different market anchor and a rising funding figure to each release. The disclaimers on those releases are the same: they tell the reader the content is sponsored, not editorial.

What an Investor Is Actually Buying

A reader who acts on a Pepeto press release is buying an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token at a price in the seven-zero range, before any open-market listing, on the stated promise of a future exchange debut, a zero-fee DEX, a cross-chain bridge, and a dedicated meme-coin exchange. The token has a SolidProof audit; the audit does not cover the exchange products, since those are not yet on-chain.

The team’s stated ties to the original Pepe coin development are an unverifiable claim made by self-published marketing. The Tom Lee $12,000 call that recurs in the press releases is a third-party forecast, not a Pepeto product feature, and the model that produces it depends on Bitcoin reaching a level it has not yet hit. The Ethereum price Lee cites in his model is closer to $2,000 than to $12,000 as of mid-June 2026, and the gap is the entire bet. The presale has collected real money, much of it small, and the marketing has worked to the extent that it usually does.

The Shiba Inu record that powers the comparison is more uneven than the headline figure suggests. The 17,000,000% gain in 2020 and 2021 was followed by an 87% decline from the all-time high, per Yahoo. The June 16 press release cites the gain; the decline from the all-time high is absent from its headline figures.

• Presale phase: Active as of June 16, 2026
• Token price: $0.0000001877 (Pepeto press release)
• Staking APY: 170% (Pepeto press release)
• Auditor: SolidProof (audit dated October 9, 2024)
• Token contract: ERC-20 on Ethereum mainnet

Disclaimer: This article covers promotional material and price predictions. Crypto presales carry substantial risk, including the loss of principal. Price targets named here are forecasts by their stated sources, not guarantees. Readers should consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decision. Figures are accurate as of publication.