Memecoins styled after US election candidates, which once traded at market values in the hundreds of millions of dollars, are now failing to capture attention.
Tokens named after Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris have, along with the broader crypto market, plummeted.
Attention has since shifted back to crowd-pleasers — cute, often comical, pictures of animals.
The trend comes as Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, assures followers, fans, and potential investors that his family will launch a new crypto project — one that he suggests will have more staying power than memes.
Investors hoping to ride former President Trump’s ups and downs in the attention economy have been burned before.
Neiro token hits $300m
Multiple memecoins depicting a Shiba Inu called Neiro have soared.
At the top of the pack is a Neiro token on the Ethereum blockchain. After launching on July 31, it hit a market value of almost $300 million earlier this week.
Memecoins are tokens without function or use that trade solely on popularity and sentiment. This year, memecoin trading exploded on Solana after the dogwifhat token soared to a $4.5 billion market value.
There’s no guarantee that the recently attracted attention will hold. Few memecoins are able to capture attention for longer than a few weeks.
Investors get burned
The market shift comes as several memecoins claiming to be associated with US presidential candidate Donald Trump burned investors in recent weeks.
In June, former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli touted the memecoin DJT as being created together with Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump.
Campaign insiders told DL News at the time that there was no family connection to DJT. The token plummeted 92% on Tuesday amid accusations of insider selling.
Then on Wednesday, a token called Restore the Republic, which was rumoured to be connected to Donald Trump Jr.’s crypto project, ballooned to $155 million market value.
It crashed 95% on Thursday after the former president’s son warned of “fake tokens claiming to be part of the Trump project.”
Who is Neiro?
Neiro is the newly adopted dog of Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato.
Sato previously owned another Shiba Inu called Kabosu, whose picture was used for Dogecoin — the original memecoin. Kabosu passed away in May. Sato said in an X post that she does not endorse any Neiro token.
Neiro’s popularity has buoyed several more animal-themed memecoins. Among them is a token styled after another of Sato’s pets — a cat named Ginnan.
Another is a token named after a three-month-old Shiba Inu called Fuku, who appeared alongside Neiro in one of Sato’s blog posts.
Dozens more animal-themed tokens have hit multi-million-dollar market values over the past week.
Political memecoins fall
The worst performer among established political memecoins is Boden, a humourous token styled after President Joe Biden.
After hitting a $650 million market value in April, it now trades at a value of about $6.5 million.
Tokens on the other side of the political spectrum haven’t fared much better.
MAGA, a token styled after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, is down 80% from its June peak market value of $775 million.
Even newer memecoins, such as KAMA, which plays on Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, have also failed to hold their ground.
KAMA is down 50% over the past fortnight.
Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.