Pepe Unchained Reports MEXC Delisting and Development Delays, Sets Deadline for Unclaimed Compensation

Pepe Unchained disclosed mounting problems in a three-post X thread on September 17, announcing that MEXC was delisting PEPU and that developers had missed that week’s deliverables. The team also set an October 19 deadline for holders to claim 500 million PEPU in outstanding L2 compensation before the tokens are redirected to other project uses.

The delisting comes despite the team’s continued market-making efforts to support trading activity. “We know this is disappointing news, and we don’t want to sugarcoat it,” the project wrote, adding that it will continue supporting the chain and ecosystem.

Eligible holders must claim their compensation allocations before the deadline. Any tokens left unclaimed will no longer be available to their original recipients and will instead fund project growth and community initiatives.

The team attributed the missed development work to unforeseen delays without identifying the affected deliverables. It said developers had promised deliveries would begin the following week, with progress to be shared after the team received and verified the work.

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.