Pepe Unchained Acknowledges 'Challenging Period' as MEXC Delists PEPU and Developers Miss Deliverables

Pepe Unchained said it is “navigating a challenging period” in a three-post X thread on September 17, disclosing MEXC’s decision to delist PEPU despite continued market-making efforts. The team also acknowledged missed development deliverables and set an October 19 deadline for holders to claim outstanding L2 compensation.

“We know this is disappointing news, and we don’t want to sugarcoat it,” the team wrote about the delisting. It said its focus was to navigate the conditions responsibly while continuing to support the chain and ecosystem.

The team said 500 million PEPU remained unclaimed under its L2 compensation program. Eligible holders must claim their allocations before October 19. After that date, the tokens will no longer be available to their original recipients and will instead fund project growth and community initiatives.

Developers also failed to provide that week’s deliverables because of unforeseen delays, the team said, without identifying the affected work. It said it had received assurances that deliveries would begin the following week and would share progress after receiving and verifying them.

MEXC Placed PEPU Under a Delisting Warning in August

MEXC had already flagged PEPU in its August ST warning notice. An ST designation is a risk warning applied to tokens facing possible delisting. The exchange listed August 11 as PEPU’s warning date and September 17 as its estimated delisting date.

MEXC did not specify why PEPU was selected for removal. The notice said deposits and trading would stop after delisting, while withdrawals would remain available for 30 days. It urged holders to withdraw their assets within that period.

Compensation Follows a Chain Migration That Doubled PEPU’s Supply

Pepe Unchained launched in December 2024 after a successful presale that raised $73 million, according to the team. Five months later, the team announced a chain migration and replacement token, citing the withdrawal of support for custom gas tokens on its Optimism-based infrastructure. The feature allowed users to pay transaction fees in PEPU.

The project moved to an Arbitrum-powered chain and offered holders a 1:1 token swap. But total supply doubled from 8 billion to 16 billion PEPU, with the team saying the additional tokens would support expanded staking rewards.

At the time, the team said it sold PEPU to obtain funds from the old token’s locked liquidity pool. It said those funds were used to establish a liquidity pool for the new PEPU token, which it then locked.

The L2 compensation program subsequently covered holdings in selected tokens from the previous ecosystem. The team calculated allocations in PEPU using an April 24, 2025 snapshot and chose phased distributions instead of directly restoring the affected liquidity pools.

Its later claim instructions said allocations would unlock over six months. Compensation is paid in PEPU, leaving recipients exposed to changes in the token’s price while they wait to claim.