Memecoins never had it so good.
The 29% surge in Bitcoin’s price since Donald Trump’s election victory may feel old hat by now. But memecoins are out of control.
The market value of scores of the jokey offerings have exploded 127% in the last seven days, to $126 billion, according to CoinGecko.
Among the most widely held memcoins, Dogecoin is up 104%, Shiba Inu has climbed 33%, and Pepe has jumped 120%.
Decent returns
Retail traders love the zetgeisty nature of memecoins.
Peter Kris, CEO of cross-chain decentralised exchange Gasp, told DL News that retail investors are increasingly losing interest in so-called utility cryptocurrencies.
“When opportunities to make decent returns or income are taken away, as we’ve recently seen with the majority of utility tokens, people are more likely to look for a ‘big win’ and take a high risk for the potential of a high reward,” Kris said.
“Stories of investors turning $1,000 into $1 million on the latest dog coin fuel this sentiment and solidify memecoins’ growth.”
Pepe, the third-biggest memecoin at $8.9 billion in market value, is up 67% in the last 24 hours. That trading bump comes after Coinbase and Robinhood listed the token on Wednesday.
Even a planned listing announcement is enough to spike a memecoin’s price in the current market climate. Coinbase plans to list dogwifhat and the token is already up 34% in the last 24 hours.
PayPal and Coinbase recorded dwindling crypto trading activity last quarter.
Newbies hit the market
Newer entrants are also attracting attention from investors.
PNUT, a memecoin inspired by “Peanut the Squirrel” has soared to $1.9 billion. It was created only two weeks ago.
Solana has been the biggest beneficiary of this year’s memecoin craze among blockchain networks.
Solana-based meme tokens account for almost a fifth of the market value of memecoins, CoinGecko data shows.
Crypto market movers
Bitcoin is down 3.7% over the past 24 hours to trade at $88,912.
Ethereum is down 4.5% to trade at $3,138.
What we are reading
Coinbase CEO implies Polymarket raid is politically motivated, then backtracks ‘until all the facts are in’ ― DL News
Ether ETFs Are Finally in the Black for the First Time Since Launch ― Unchained
Are you at risk of getting scammed? ― Milk Road
BlackRock and Securitize’s $522 Million BUIDL Fund Goes Multi-Chain ― Unchained
What BlackRock’s expansion of its $517m BUIDL fund means for its five selected blockchains — DL News
Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. To share tips or information about stories, please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.
