Meme coins ranked among the most popular crypto narratives of 2024, creating a divide between crypto tokens. Bitcoin stands out among top crypto tokens with 125% year-to-date gains, and the meme coin category, or the “other tokens”, hit a key milestone, crossing a market capitalization of $100 billion.
Dogecoin
$doge-3.41%Dogecoin, Shiba Inu
$shib-2.12%Shiba Inu and Pepe
$pepe -1.81%Pepe, the top three meme coins, have erased between 11% and 13% of their value in the past week. Bitcoin consolidates close to $95,000, nearly 12% below its all-time high of $108,353.
Bitcoin vs meme coins, most popular narrative of 2024
Meme coins captured the attention of most crypto traders and emerged as a popular narrative this year. A CoinGecko report updated on Monday notes that the meme coin narrative captured a combined 30.67% of global investor interest.
The report highlights that almost a third of crypto narrative interest this year was focused on speculative gains from meme coins. Traders placed a lower emphasis on fundamentals and turned their attention and capital towards dog and cat-related meme coins, pop culture references and internet personality-themed meme tokens.
Meme coins have enjoyed a 6% year-on-year increase in interest from crypto market participants. While Bitcoin garnered institutional attention and capital allocation following the approval of Spot BTC ETFs in the US, four meme coin-based trends ranked among the top 20 narratives in crypto.
Solana
sol-2.85%Solana, Base, Artificial intelligence and cat-themed meme coins garnered between 14% and 8% of interest among crypto narratives.
With meme coins cementing their place as a trending token category and trending this cycle, catalysts like institutional allocation and ETF approval could pave the way for further gains for holders
Base, Solana, XRP memes dominate over blue-chip memes in speculative gains
In the first week of December, XRP-based meme coins yielded gains for holders amidst rising relevance and demand for the XRP Ledger and its native token XRP. Similarly, Solana and Base-based meme coins have secured a rank in the top 20 cryptocurrency narratives of the year, dominating the popularity of blue-chip meme coins.
Dogecoin, SHIB and PEPE are typically considered blue-chip memes, with a market capitalization between $7 and $46 billion, as seen on CoinGecko. The top 3 tokens in the meme coin category observed a spike in active addresses and activity from traders within the first two weeks of December.