Memecoins
Memecoins Surpass Bitcoin: Is the Spotlight Changing?
- Memecoins have been the talk of the town during this bull run and have performed well since late February.
- There is an attraction to these tokens that solve nothing but still attract thousands of investors.
Coins have captured the imagination and attention of the public during this bull run, at least until now. Crypto analyst João Wedson highlighted this recently in a post on (formerly Twitter).
In terms of percentage price change, memecoins have recently taken over.
Does this mean memecoins are taking attention away from Bitcoin? Will public attention and capital inflows into meme markets have a significant impact on Bitcoin demand?
Most memecoins are here one moment, gone the next
The recent trend of memecoins skyrocketing in the Solana ecosystem is a good example of how easy it is to create tokens and capture a small fraction of the public’s attention, even if not only for a brief moment.
Source: João Wedson on X
However, from a market capitalization perspective, memecoins are only a tiny fraction of the size of Bitcoin. Since the May 1 drop, Bitcoin has added $233 billion to its market capitalization.
In comparison, at press time, the combined total market capitalization of the top ten memecoins stood at $57.26 billion.
Source: Feeling
The chart above shows that Bitcoin’s social volume (cyan) was 3,135 on May 26, compared to 350 (yellow) for PEPE.
This is just one memecoin, not the entire sector, but the difference is still huge considering PEPE gained 75% last week and is one of the most discussed memes online.
Therefore, social media engagement was still in favor of Bitcoin. Additionally, Bitcoin’s derivatives and spot market are likely too large for memecoins to be meaningfully mined.
The appeal of memecoins
The number of cryptocurrencies on the market has increased significantly from year to year. As of January 2021, around 4,154 tokens were on the market. As of March 2024, that number has risen to 13,217, and counting.
Most of these tokens are based on vaporware, products promised to the public but never actually created. This huge dilution among altcoins is very different from the last two cycles.
OG crypto traders talk about tokens randomly popping up during a bull run and making triple-digit percentage gains within days.
The problem now is that with so many tokens having suffered at least one bear market, the crypto space is too saturated to see them all rise during a bull run.
In this regard, memecoins are upfront and honest about their intentions. They bring a community together through jokes and vibes, promise no products, expect no potential ROI, and enjoyment during the journey to those gains.
Win or lose as a team of bag holders.
Read that of Pepe [PEPE] Price prediction 2024-25
People who don’t have the time or know-how to sort through dozens or even hundreds of crypto tokens are naturally attracted to these down-to-earth meme tokens and are willing to bet at least a small amount on them.
That’s not to say that there aren’t tokens with good development teams looking to solve a defined problem, but they are harder for the public to find. Perhaps this is why memecoins are outperforming other sectors so far.