Memecoins have dominated the minds in the Cryptocurrency space this year, with nearly one-third of investor interest focused on highly speculative Tokens, according to a study from CoinGecko.
"The most popular Cryptocurrency story of 2024 is the story of memecoins," Lim Yu Qian, a research analyst at the Cryptocurrency data platform CoinGecko, wrote in a report on December 23.
Lim stated that research on traffic to CoinGecko's Token categories from January 1 to December 21 showed that memecoins and related categories attracted nearly 31% of investor interest during this period.
"In other words, nearly one-third of the attention in the Cryptocurrency topic this year was placed on speculative opportunities rather than fundamental factors," she wrote.
Memecoins have witnessed significant gains — and losses — this year amid a broader growth wave in the Cryptocurrency market, which has seen Bitcoin (BTC) prices rise by 123% since the beginning of the year. These Tokens are highly speculative, sometimes fraudulent, and price fluctuations are often short-term, but some savvy traders have made substantial profits from them.
CoinGecko noted that "the main story about memecoins" accounted for nearly 15% of attention — an increase of more than six percentage points compared to 2023, when it ranked third in attraction — while an additional four memecoin trends were among the "top 20 Cryptocurrency stories."
Solana's memecoin ranked 4th with nearly 8% of attention, and memecoins on Coinbase's Base blockchain ranked 11th with over 2% of attention.
Meanwhile, AI-related memecoins and cat-themed memecoins accounted for about 1.5% to 1.2% of attention, ranking 15th and 16th respectively.
Top Cryptocurrency categories by traffic share from January 1 to December 21. Source: CoinGecko
The current market capitalization of memecoins stands at $113.2 billion, led by Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) with $49.3 billion and $13.8 billion respectively, according to data from CoinGecko.
AI dropped from the top spot in 2023 but still recorded interest
Interest in AI-related Cryptocurrency Tokens is the second story after memecoins, down from the top position last year.
However, AI Tokens saw a slight increase in interest from 2023, attracting nearly 13% of attention compared to over 11% the previous year.
"The overall AI story and 5 other AI-related stories" accounted for about 15.5% of interest market share this year, with 1.17% of visitors to CoinGecko interested in AI agents — machines capable of automatically performing tasks on behalf of users or other systems.
The potential of AI agents was clearly demonstrated when an AI account running on X "Truth Terminal" promoted the little-known memecoin GOAT, causing the Token's value to soar to $1.3 billion.
AI Tokens still only represent a small fraction of the $44.8 billion Cryptocurrency Token market, led by Near Protocol (NEAR) and Internet Computer (ICP).
The top seven largest AI coins by market capitalization. Source: CoinGecko
