Memecoin has been the best performing sector in the cryptocurrency space over the past year. The total market capitalization of Memecoin has now exceeded $100 billion. This makes it larger than DeFi, DePIN, games, and the metaverse combined.
Given how large and diverse this asset class has become, we tried to map it out to identify potential opportunities. We looked at the top performing coins in each quarter this year and confirmed our suspicions: Memecoin dominated every quarter.
👇🏻Here are some of the meme coins that have performed well this year:
Q1: POPCAT, WIF, MOG, MYRO
Second quarter: PONKE, SPX, TURBO, GIGA, WOJAK, BRETT, MOG
Q3: SPX, GIGA, FUD, MUMU
When you try to apply the methodology to memecoin, you quickly notice how important it is to understand metadata. This is true for cryptocurrencies, but even more so for memecoins. Below is an extended timeline that attempts to highlight some of the more important metadata:
📍This article is mainly divided into three parts to talk about meme:
1) Meme and Metaverse
2) Dogecoin is still dominant
3) Innovative tokenization of the zoo meme
1) Meme and the Metaverse 🔻
Before 2021, Dogecoin was the only meme. Then, Shiba Inu was launched, becoming the first real "Dogecoin killer". People naturally wanted to replicate the success of Dogecoin through it. This desire to find the "next..." created a metaverse. The success of Shibacoin triggered a wave of dog and Musk-related memes in 2021, forming the first real Memecoin metaverse.
In 2023, the Pepe frog coin emerged, spawning countless frog and "boys club" related memecoins. Later that year, the emergence of Bonk and Wif solidified Solana's position as the main memecoin chain, eventually leading to the birth of the pump.fun platform. This series of events culminated in the first quarter of 2023, triggering the first widespread Memecoin frenzy and spawning new metaverses that formed almost weekly or even daily. After reaching a local high in March, the market was slightly quiet during the summer.
MustStopMurad's memecoin community and framework for understanding network effects became very popular, leading to a flood of money into "cult coins" like SPX6900. Recently, as Bitcoin finally began to break out, we saw the mania re-emerge, and new metaverses formed around the GOAT of truth_terminal, MOODENG the lovable hippo, and the "deceased" PEANUT. Now, since there are so many metaverses to track, we tried to segment the market according to their categories.
2) Dogecoin is still dominant 🔻
Currently, the Dogecoin category remains the dominant sector in Memecoin, driven primarily by Doge. When we started compiling this data a few weeks ago, the sentient AI category was barely on the radar, and the Martyr category (a nod to the original $Harambe) hadn’t really emerged yet. This clearly shows how quickly this asset class is evolving.
Not surprisingly, Dogecoin’s dominance has been declining since Pepecoin was launched.
This shows the rapid evolution of this asset class. Not surprisingly, Dogecoin’s dominance has been declining since Pepe’s launch. This trend is likely to continue as the new meta narrative continues to take shape and different sectors rise to prominence. By observing the changes in the weights of these categories, some interesting trends can be seen.
3) Innovative tokenization of the zoo meme🔻
Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin gained some attention during 2023, even though there wasn't much new money entering the space at the time. But starting at the end of 2023, with the influx of some new money, we saw crypto culture gradually give way to broader internet culture (e.g. giga, npc, etc.).
As we mentioned before, the rapid rise of goat and peanut has been astounding. It may be too early to move them from the “metaverse” category to a new category, although there are now many AI-related meme coins with nine-digit value.
Some other categories, such as celebrity tokens and political meme coins, also saw some growth earlier this year, but have since petered out.
Over time, it seems likely that memecoins will become a microcosm of the entire cryptocurrency market, with Dogecoin playing a role similar to Bitcoin. There will be some "cult coins" whose communities will never sell off and may survive for a long time, but most memecoins will probably be short-lived, similar to what we saw with NFTs in 2021.
👉🏻That being said, there is clearly huge opportunity in early participation in a new meme/metaverse.
Categories that I expect to continue to grow rapidly are internet culture and artificial intelligence. Internet memes are already so widely recognized and have such rich cultural connotations that they have an inherent advantage over most other categories. And AI memes combine the most exciting technology with the most volatile asset class. They seem likely to continue to dominate the market in the meme space.
In terms of open space, there’s always a chance for new animals — there’s a surprising lack of zoo animals on the market (tigers, giraffes, zebras, etc.) In terms of something completely new, existing fandoms (superheroes, sports, etc.) seem to have a good chance of being tokenized in innovative ways.
🔹Compiled original link: https://x.com/nuss_eli/status/1858577961781522520?s=46
