Meme Coins Market Statistics – 2024 Trends

CoinVoiceNov 22, 2024
Meme Coins Market Statistics – 2024 Trends

 by Diana Ploscaru

Meme coins have experienced a remarkable shift, with the latest meme coins market statistics showcasing a significant revival this year. In fact, in 2024, meme coins emerged as the fastest-growing crypto sector, delivering impressive average returns of +1,300%.

This resurgence has even had some crypto traders and analysts speculating about a potential meme coin super cycle. But things could be a little different now compared to the 2021 Dogecoin boom.

Keep reading to learn what the meme coins market statistics show. We’ll go over the most recent developments at a macro level, plus some of the most successful meme coins this cycle.

Final Thoughts

Key Meme Coins Market Statistics to Know

  • The meme coin market cap surpassed $60 billion for the first time since 2021 and stabilized at pre-2023 levels.
  • The meme coins market has been the fastest-growing crypto segment this year, reaching a YTD growth of 449% back in June.
  • The top-performing meme coins delivered average returns of +1300% in early 2024.
  • OG meme coins like DOGE and SHIB have been generating nearly double the returns of BTC, ETH, and BNB.
  • Among the top meme coins, POPCAT grew the most in 2024 (+8,900.77%), followed by BONK (+7,499%), MOG (+4,020.56%), and WIF (+1,365.26%).
  • In 2024, over 2,700 meme coins are listed on CoinMarketCap alone, but just 5% of projects have a cap of over $10 million.
  • DOGE is still the leading meme coin with a market cap of over $20 billion. The only other meme coins with a market cap surpassing 1 billion are SHIB, PEPE, WIF, BONK, POPCAT, and FLOKI.
  • Doge-themed coins make up over half of the total meme coin market cap at over $30 billion. But cat-themed coins saw the fastest growth in 2024, going from $50 million to $1.8 billion.
  • PolitiFi and Celebrity-themed coins are mostly down. PolitiFi market cap shrank from $1 billion to $630 million, and many of the newly released celebrity coins are down by an average of 94%.

The Latest Meme Coins Market Statistics

The meme coins market is no stranger to wild fluctuations, as we’ve seen during the 2021 boom and bust.

In May 2021, the market cap reached an all-time high of $89.95 billion but subsequently tanked to under $20 billion in 2022—now, we’re seeing a revival in the meme coin market in 2024.

According to CoinTelegraph, meme coins were the fastest-growing crypto sector in 2024, with the top-performing coins delivering average returns of +1,300%.

YTD performance of crypto sectors

The YTD performance of different crypto sectors as of June 2024
Source: Cryptonary

In fact, meme coins outperformed every other crypto sector by 10x at the start of 2024. Although RWA and AI have also seen impressive growth since, memes remained the best-performing sector by a huge margin, boasting a YTD growth of 449% back in June.

2024 Sees Peak Interest for Meme Coins

Interest in meme coins is particularly evident on social media. According to Cryptonary, meme coins have been trending on social platforms since December 2023, especially on X.

Based on a sample of over 8 million total interactions, X makes up 75% of all meme coin-related content observed across social media platforms.

This was to be expected, as a large number of meme coin projects announce their presales on X. Not only that, but X is the go-to platform for crypto news and updates for over a third of crypto participants surveyed by CoinGecko.

Social media interest for meme coins in 2024

Number of meme coin-related social media interactions across major social media platforms in 2024
Source: Cryptonary

YouTube was second, accounting for 20.5% of all crypto content observed, likely due to an increasing number of crypto analysis channels and videos on the platform.

According to the same CoinGecko survey data, 23.4% of crypto participants rely on YouTube for most of their crypto news.

Beyond social media, search interest for memecoins in 2024 seems higher than ever before, as recent search trends suggest.

Search interest for memecoins in 2024

Source: Google Trends

Considering that most crypto veterans get their news on X and YouTube, at least part of this surge in search results could come from newcomers to the crypto space.

This suggests the general public’s awareness of meme coins is growing this cycle. Indeed, we’re also seeing increased adoption.

The number of active PEPE wallets doubled throughout March 2024. Other top meme coins like DOGE and WIF likely attracted a sizable number of new crypto investors as well.

Record Number of New Meme Coin Projects in 2024

The growing popularity of alternative blockchains like Solana and BSC and the emergence of token-creating platforms like Pump.fun have fueled an avalanche of new meme coins over the past few years.

Just between April and August 2024, over 500 new meme coins were listed on CoinMarketCap, with a record 138 new additions seen in April alone.

And as of October, CoinMarketCap has over 3,000 meme coins listed. But this is just scratching the surface on meme coin projects, considering Pump.fun helped launch 1.7+ million meme coins to date.

Though this trend proves the high interest in meme coin projects right now, it’s also contributing to a dispersed market dealing with increasing liquidity fragmentation.

With meme coins typically capitalizing on attention and community support, the ever-growing number of meme coins could mean higher competition and lower potential for upcoming projects – many of which already have an average life cycle of just five days.

According to a recent report from BDC, a Web3 consulting provider, 89% of meme coin projects have a market cap between $0–$1,000, and 43% have 0 trading volume.

Not only that, but only 5% of meme coins have a market cap of over $10 million in 2024. This data was based on a sample of 2,000 projects.

In other words, it seems market competition is at an all-time high, and a vast majority of meme coins are doomed to fail.

Market Recovery and Speculations on a Potential Supercycle

As seen on CoinMarketCap, the meme coin market shot up rapidly in Q1 2024, and the market cap surpassed $60 billion again this year.

The meme coins market cap throughout 2021–2024

Source: CoinMarketCap

Although it has been going down since the end of Q2, the market cap remains higher now than in 2022–2023. This October, the meme coin market size is stable at around $50 billion after showing signs of short-term recovery.

So, we’re seeing promise for ongoing positive trends. According to prominent crypto trader Altcoin Sherpa, a new meme coin supercycle is still likely this year, although it won’t resemble the 2021 cycle when DOGE and SHIB first exploded.

This would be mainly because of the much larger number of meme coins on the market since 2021. Sherpa suggests that, instead of a few coins seeing massive gains, we might have more mid-cap coins performing well this cycle.

Performance of OG & New Meme Coins in 2024

Although OG meme coins like DOGE and SHIB still underperform their 2021 majors by a large margin, Cryptonary 2024 analysis shows they’ve been generating nearly double the returns of major coins like BTC, ETH, and BNB this cycle.

According to the same findings, OG meme coins remain mostly stable, while second and third-gen meme coins could reach new all-time highs by the end of 2024.

Indeed, although the market is still fluctuating due to ongoing price corrections across multiple tokens, some of the top new meme coins, like PEPE, POPCAT, and BONK, showed impressive resilience throughout Q2 and Q3.

Price of POPCAT throughout 2024

POPCAT stayed resilient throughout April to September 2024
Source: CoinMarketCap

Despite the overall bearish sentiment over the past few months, we still have very high performers. For example, as of October 25th, POPCAT is up +8,900.77% this year.

Leading Blockchains in the Meme Coin Market

Overall, Solana has the most meme coins, including a few top performers.

Solana seems to be the most popular blockchain for meme coins in the past few years, likely due to its speedy transactions, ease of use, and lower fees.

Today, most of the new and rapidly growing meme coins like WIF and BONK are based on Solana, not to mention the countless projects launched through Solana’s Pump.fun platform.

According to data from DEX aggregator outlined by BDC, an average of 40,000–50,000 new tokens pop up every day across the top blockchains, and Solana accounts for nearly half of new meme coin projects.

The BNB chain is Solana’s closest competitor, although it averages a mere 5.4k new tokens a day.

Blockchains by number of new meme coin projects

Blockchains with the most new crypto tokens recorded as of March 2024
Source: BDC

However, the BNB chain recently announced an initiative to support meme coin innovation, by helping users in launching, migrating, and supporting the liquidity of new tokens. Considering this, we might soon see even more BNB projects.

Base is also within the top 5 for the most new projects, averaging 1.7k additions a day. Considering the Base chain has been making waves recently, particularly with the booming popularity of BRETT, it could soon become a serious competitor to BSC and Solana.

Although the top blockchain by market cap, Ethereum, averages 1.6k new coins a day. However, it remains very active in the meme coin space, with 95% of all multichain memecoins supporting Ethereum.

Moreover, roughly 40% of multichain memecoins work on Ethereum + BNB. Last but not least, the popularity of Ethereum-native tokens like SHIB, PEPE, and FLOKI just goes to prove the chain remains a giant in the meme coin market.

The Latest Meme Coins Trends

Since Q1 2024, we’ve already seen an ever-growing number of promising Solana meme coins and the emergence of a few noteworthy Base chain meme coins projects.

Among these, a few meme coin categories have been particularly popular this cycle:

Dog & Cat-Themed Coins

Doge-themed coins remain the most popular meme coin category.

The world-famous doge meme shows how animal-related memes can garner outstanding community support in crypto.

The success of OG coins, DOGE, and SHIB, is a testament to this. And in 2024, the trend still stands. DOGE and SHIB are still the most valuable coins to date.

However, this year also saw a few other top dog-themed meme coins such as WIF, FLOKI, and BONK rise to prominence.

According to Cryptonary, dog-themed coins made up over half of the total meme coin market, with an estimated market cap of $36 billion and 2.5x returns as of March 2024.

Top meme coin categories in 2024

The growth of different meme coin categories in 2024
Source: Cryptonary

However, cat coins have been making huge gains. This category saw the fastest growth throughout Q4 2023 and Q1 2024.

By March 2024, the market cap for cat-themed coins rose from $50 million to $1.8 billion, delivering 10x returns to investors.

Considering the solid success of newly-released coins like POPCAT and MOG, the hype seems far from over. We’ll likely see more cat-themed tokens hit the meme coin market in the future.

PolitiFi Meme Coins

Since the US election campaign is still a hot topic, PolitiFi has been among the most active meme coin categories. But things appear to be cooling down.

According to Cryptonary’s analysis, the PolitiFi meme category had exceeded $1 billion earlier this year, with some of its major meme coins delivering 27,000% returns at their peak.

Many coins have pulled back significantly since then. As of October, the PolitiFi market cap is down to $634 million across 133 tokens listed on CoinMarketCap.

It’s worth noting that a large share of the PolitiFi coins also have self-reported market caps, so the real numbers could differ drastically.

ConstitutionDAO is currently the biggest project, with a market cap that surpasses $400 million. On the other hand, many PolitiFi coins are down 80–90% since their ATH.

Overall, PolitiFi coins are highly volatile (more so than other meme coins), and few manage to maintain long-lasting community support.

Celebrity-Themed Meme Coins

Celebrity meme coins have been in the spotlight recently, although they’ve also garnered heavy criticism.

Basing a meme coin on a celebrity is almost guaranteed to generate hype, but most projects have been short-lived.

Furthermore, celebrity meme coins are often seen as cash grabs and potential scams, with the coin creators using other investors as exit liquidity.

For example, according to Cryptonary, TrumpCoin ($DJT), a celebrity coin released in June 2024, has one single wallet controlling 67% of the token supply.

Cases like these inevitably lead to a rug pull, with the coin unlikely to recover. Indeed, this October, the price of $DJT is down 97.72% since it’s ATH.

A PolitiFi and celebrity-themed coin down 97%

Celebrity-themed coins are often short-lived

This concerning trend of questionable projects even compelled Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to speak against the celebrity coin craze, drawing attention to how many such projects provide very little value to investors.

And the failure of $DJT isn’t unique. In July 2024, CryptoPotato highlighted how all the newly released celebrity coins on Solana were down by an average of 94% from their peak values since June.

Even the best-performing coins suffered losses of over 70%. Today, recent celebrity coins like JENNER and LILPUMP are still way below their ATH prices.

However, a few projects still remain active thanks to ongoing social media discussion. Most notably, Iggy Azalea’s coin MOTHER is still up 192.8% in 2024, although down since its ATH.

Like PolitiFi coins, though, celebrity-themed meme coins appear short-lived despite the hype.

What Are the Top Meme Coins Right Now?

Although the majority of meme coins have failed, a good few have stood the test of time. And some new meme coins have also become well-established thanks to solid community support in the past few months.

Here are the top meme coins ranked by market cap as of October 2024. Note that CoinMarketCap lists NOT and SPX as memecoins, but we won’t be including this alongside traditional memecoins in this toplist.

10. Mog Coin (MOG)

Launched on Ethereum in July 2023, initially as a joke based on a 4chan meme, Mog Coin is now among the top meme coins listed on Coin Market Cap. It’s also the second cat-themed meme coin in the top 10.

The coin only started picking up in March 2024 but quickly reached its ATH one year after launch. Currently, MOG is up +4,020.56% this year and boasts a market cap of $725 million.

9. Brett (Based) (BRETT)

BRETT is one of the few top meme coins released on the Base blockchain and the second-most popular Pepe-inspired coin in 2024. It hit the market in March 2024 and was off to a rough start in the first half of the year.

However, it started trending back up in mid-May and hit an ATH of $0.193 in early June. The coin is up +148.9% this year, with a market cap of $955 million.

8. Cat in a dogs world (MEW)

MEW is one of the new cat coins to explode in popularity during this cycle.

It was launched on Solana on March 26th 2024, and it skyrocketed to a 24h trading volume of $337 million in just 8 days. As of October 25th, the coin is up +465.5% since launching, and 1 MEW is currently worth $0.01.

MEW recently reached a new ATH on October 10th, when it hit a 24h volume of $531 million. Today, this meme coin’s market cap is approaching 1 billion (currently sitting at $945.25 million).

7. FLOKI (FLOKI)

FLOKI is one of the older meme coins, though it’s recently undergone a revival. This coin was inspired by Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu dog, ‘Floki,’ and was released in mid-2021 on Ethereum and BNB.

In 4 months, the coin reached its ATH at the time but started on a downward spiral soon after. In 2024, news about FLOKI’s utility as an asset in the upcoming Valhalla NFT game likely fueled its new bullish run. To date, the coin is up +477.32% this year.

In June 2024, FLOKI reached a new ATH of $0.0003462, though the price is down -58.6% as of October 25th. The coin’s market cap is $1.38 billion, which puts FLOKI among the few meme tokens to surpass the 1B milestone.

6. Popcat (POPCAT)

POPCAT is among the stars of this meme coin supercycle. It was released on Solana in December 2023 and had been trending down until early 2024.

However, it started a bullish run in March, and reached its first ATH price of $0.97 in July. The coin fluctuated throughout much of Q3 2024 until it started going up again in early September.

Today, POPCAT is worth $1.44, and the coin is up +8,900.77% this year. POPCAT also boasts a market cap of $1.42 billion—not bad for a meme coin that hit the market less than 12 months ago.

5. Bonk (BONK)

BONK is among the many doge-based coins released last year and has actually been on an upward trajectory since October 2023.

It’s also among the few meme coin projects with extensive cross-platform interoperability, being transferable on Ethereum, BNB, Solana, Polygon, and five other chains.

In March 2024, the coin reached its ATH of $0.00004704, although it has been fluctuating since. Overall, the coin is up +7,499% this year.

The current price is $0.0000222, and the market cap is $1.65 billion.

4. Dogwifhat (WIF)

WIF is another new doge-themed meme coin released on Solana in mid-December 2023. It started trading in March 2024 and soon became the first top meme token to cross the $1 mark.

This news further fueled WIF’s growth, leading to an ATH of $4.85 on March 31st. At one point, WIF also flipped PEPE in market cap, but the coin has been fluctuating since.

The current price is $2.46 after a rapid growth of +1,365.26%, and the market cap sits at $2.46 billion.

3. Pepe (PEPE)

PEPE was released on Ethereum in April 2023, and its value has climbed 16,788.92% to date. The coin didn’t see noteworthy growth until March 2024, though.

In 2024, the PEPE price went up by +913.17%. This growing interest could partly be thanks to the coin’s Certik audit release in December 2023, which gave PEPE a 91% code security score.

Currently, the market cap is $4 billion. But it’s worth mentioning that PEPE also has a circulating supply of 420 trillion coins, the highest across all top meme coins.

Currently, PEPE’s price is $0.000009.

2. Shiba Inu (SHIB)

SHIB started as an Ethereum project meant to replicate DOGE’s success, which seems to have worked well.

The coin is up +1322470.90% to date, with a market cap of $10.4 billion. It’s also ranked the 13th biggest coin on CoinMarketCap across nearly 10k cryptocurrencies.

SHIB saw its biggest bump and ATH in 2021 during the first meme coin wave but it went down again throughout 2022-2023.

In 2024, SHIB is up +140% once again, but the price is $0.00001765 (-80.08% since its ATH).

1. Dogecoin (DOGE)

DOGE is the first and most resilient meme coin on the market, even after over a decade. It was released on BNB in December 2013, but widespread adoption took longer than in this cycle.

DOGE only peaked in April to May 2021, when it reached its ATH of $0.7376 before the meme coin market shrunk again in 2022.

In 2024, DOGE was the first meme coin to pick back up again, starting in early February. In March, DOGE had already reached its highest level since December 2021, having broken the $0.2 mark again.

Although the price has been trending down since, the coin is still up +110% this year, and DOGE has, by far, the highest market cap of all meme coins at $20.22 billion.

What Other Meme Coins Have Grown a Lot in 2024?

So far this year, POPCAT, BONK, MOG, and WIF have seen the fastest growth of all top meme coins.

POPCAT is up +8,900.77%, followed by BONK (+7,499%), MOG (+4,020.56%), and WIF (+1,365.26%). But other new meme coins have seen similar growth:

  • Doge Eat Doge (OMNOM) – According to CoinMarketCap data, this has been one of the fastest-growing meme coins so far. It was only released on August 20th and is up +11,467.77%. Keep in mind the total token supply is 1 quadrillion, though, and the market cap is $19 million.
  • Solama (SOLAMA) – It’s one of the many new meme coins on Solana released in January 2024, but one of the few that stood out. Currently, the coin is up +4,097.22% and has a market cap of $11.45 million.
  • Hoppy (HOPPY) – This coin has also been making waves since its release on Ethereum in April 2024. The price is up +6,293.17%, and HOPPY currently has a market cap of $103 million. It’s also among the few new meme coins to have a CertiK audit.

What Influences Meme Coin Trends?

Several factors work to either drive or hinder meme coin trends, like adoption levels and price movements. Here are the main ones:

✔️High ROI Potential

Established cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH make a safe investment for many thanks to their high stability.
However, the high price and relatively lower growth compared to meme coins mean investors must put in a lot of money to see substantial returns.

This is perhaps the biggest allure behind meme coins. The entry price is low, especially for new meme coins on presale.

The potential for returns is very high, and the prices can skyrocket only months after a meme coin hits the market.

The resounding success of POPCAT says it all. The coin has only been out since last December and the price has gone up +8,900.77% this year. In other words, a $2,500 investment in December could have brought returns of over $220,000 to date.

✔️Social Sentiment

Social sentiment is the main driver of meme coin demand and the biggest deciding factor in a meme coin’s price trajectory.

Simply put, more hype means more community engagement and higher token valuation. The revival of Doge Coins starting in 2023 is perhaps the best example.

Roughly 15 minutes after Elon Musk tweeted a picture of his dog Floki, Dogecoin’s market cap increased by $500 million. FLOKI also soared, registering a price increase of almost 50% in an hour.

Elon Musk tweets about his dog, Floki (2023)

The tweet in question that started it

This highlights the significant influence of social media discourse and popular support on meme coin trends. Enough hype around a coin can lead to substantial market shifts in a very short period of time.

✔️Utility Developments

A common criticism of meme coins is that they’re purely speculative assets with no real utility. And because hype fades fast, many meme coins risk being short-lived.

But this isn’t always true. Some meme coins are already integrated into broader ecosystems. For example, certain meme coins like FLOKI can serve as assets in crypto games, bringing unique in-game purchases, rewards, or staking opportunities.

Similar utility developments across other crypto sectors, such as gaming, AI, and DeFi, could provide real-world use cases and help maintain an active community, extending the lifespan and relevance of these coins beyond initial hype cycles.

In fact, we’re already seeing growing integration of meme tokens in crypto gaming, with new Shiba Inu-inspired play-to-earn meme tokens on the rise.

❌Security & Safety Concerns

Meme coins are controversial for multiple reasons.

For starters, their highly volatile nature is almost a given, especially if the tokens lack real-world utility. This has many comparing meme coin investments to gambling.

Combine this already volatile market with the prevalence of pump-and-dump schemes, and the risk of losing your investment seems to outweigh the chance of making substantial short-term gains.

Example of a pump and dump scheme

An example of a pump and dump scheme seen in a PolitiFi meme coin

Unsurprisingly, many investors might avoid meme coins because of this. But beyond that, the meme coin market is rife with many other crypto scams.

Although all cryptocurrencies have a crypto-asset ID (UCID), bad actors could still use the same tickers and symbols to impersonate established coins, hoping to trick unsuspecting investors into buying their coins.

Meme coin impersonation scam

A tale of two seemingly identical PEPE coins

And because smart contracts are, unfortunately, easy to exploit, investing into such scam coins means your crypto might be stolen, or your investment will be locked.

Final Thoughts

The latest meme coin market statistics reveal a significant resurgence in 2024. The market cap surged to $60 billion for the first time since 2021, stabilizing itself at pre-2023 levels and outperforming other crypto sectors.

Social media engagement is also at an all-time high, indicating an overall bullish market sentiment. Thanks to this, new meme coins like POPCAT have delivered over +8,000% in returns this year.

The success of new meme coins this season even sparked speculation about a potential supercycle. However, the influx of thousands of new meme coins has led to increased market fragmentation, with many projects likely to fail.

Despite the meme coin market showing promising growth, it’s more important than ever to be well-informed before investing in new projects, given the current market dynamics.

References

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Source:techreport

Author

This article is for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as investment or other advice.

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