Nate Geraci, the founder of the ETF Institute, attributes the current decline in memecoins to smart money moving into crypto. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Geraci said Wall Street money has made it difficult for scams and celebrity coins to thrive like before.
The comments come in light of the massive decline in the value of memecoins over the last few months. Data from CoinMarketCap shows that the memecoin market cap is down 28% in the previous 30 days, with all these major cap tokens recording double-digit drops in value.
Why memecoins decline is good for crypto
According to Geraci, the memecoin crash is good for long-term crypto adoption. The ETF expert described memecoins as “garbage,” echoing the general criticism of memecoins in the crypto community.
He explained that the inflow of Wall Street money into crypto markets is going to “tangible assets” rather than “garbage” memecoins. In his opinion, this is the primary factor causing memecoins to struggle significantly.
The Wall Street money he refers to is the inflows into spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs). ETFs have enjoyed a massive inflow of funds since listing, and Geraci believes they diverted investors’ attention away from memecoins.
He said:
“Reason memecoin traders getting destroyed is because real “Wall St” money now moving into crypto… Scams, celebrity coins, etc simply aren’t going to fly anymore.”
However, not everyone agrees that the decline in memecoin is connected to ETFs and the arrival of traditional money. One user noted that inflows into BTC only increased Bitcoin dominance. They added the memecoin cycle only peaked between late March and early April, almost three months after the Bitcoin ETFs started trading.
Traders claim memecoins are not dead
Meanwhile, crypto analyst Newsy Johnson has discredited the narratives that memecoin is dead. The online personality claimed that the new narrative against memecoins is an attempt by insiders to shill altcoins and divert capital towards other tokens.
He noted that this is not the first time that someone would claim that memecoins are dead, but the asset class has continued to thrive regardless of that.
While there might be some truth in this, evidence shows that a significant percentage of memecoins have died over the past few months. A recent report by Chainplay showed that 97% of memecoins have collapsed in 2024, with an average of 2000 memecoins dying monthly.
Most dead memecoins are on Base – Chainplay
This is not exactly surprising given the high rate of memecoins creation daily. DEX aggregator data shows that around 50,000 tokens are created daily, sometimes reaching 100,000 during peak periods. Solana network accounts for most newly issued memecoins, but Base, BSC, and Polygon also see a sizable number.
