Meme Coin Market Analytical Report 2024

Introduction

The meme coin industry is booming in 2024 and is one of the leading sectors of the crypto industry in terms of growth since the beginning of the year. Meme coins have come a long way from individual projects to a full-fledged segmentof the crypto market, influencing the development of blockchains, protocols, and ecosystems.

Due to the increased popularity of meme coins, studying the peculiarities of the development of this segment, key stakeholders in the meme coin market and major representatives of the meme coin segment becomes an urgent task for crypto analysts, marketers, investors, and traders.

The SimpleSwap team has prepared a report dedicated to the meme coin segment of the crypto market. This report provides a brief history of the meme coin segment development, analyzes the current state of the meme coin market, analyzes the leading meme coin projects in terms of marketing, on-chain activity and trading volumes. The report also analyzes the main stakeholders of the meme coin segment, from institutional investors to retail traders.

The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive review of the meme coin market, its current state (as of 2024), development features, and the impact of meme coins on the cryptocurrency market and individual blockchain ecosystems.

Main Objectives of the Report

• To provide an overview of the historical development of the meme coin industry in the context of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency market development

• Analyze the current state of the meme coin market, key financial and on-chain metrics

• Analyze the leading meme coin projects in terms of their development, technical features, and trading volumes

• Identify the main stakeholders of the meme coin segment and their interests

• Draw conclusions about the state of the meme coin segment and its impact on the cryptocurrency market

Time Frame of the Study

This report was compiled based on data for Q1-Q2 2024. In some cases, data from previous years has been used.

Methodology

To analyze the meme coin market, we applied quantitative and qualitative analysis using data from open sources: blockchain observers and analytical platforms.

In particular, we analyzed the leading meme coins by such parameters as hash rate, transactional throughput (TPS), transaction costs, number of active addresses, and distribution of funds on wallets. The trading volume profiles of the top meme coins were analyzed with the use of TradingView.

CoinGecko data was used for general analysis of the meme coin market, and a quantitative analysis of meme coins represented on this aggregator was performed to get an overall picture of the meme coin segment.

Such indicators as the number of meme coins on different blockchains, market capitalization, and trading volumewere analyzed.

Project websites, social networks, and other open sources were used for qualitative analysis.

Meme Coins Development Timeline

Meme coins already have a long history of development, which in many ways is intertwined with the development cycles of the cryptocurrency industry, reflecting those processes, narratives and technologies that were popular at a certain stage of cryptocurrency development. Nowadays, meme coins not only reflect popular crypto narratives, but also shape them themselves, influencing entire blockchain ecosystems.

The first original meme coin based on Internet culture was Dogecoin (DOGE). Dogecoin was launched in December 2013 and had its own blockchain with a PoW mechanism. This reflects the state of the cryptocurrency market at that time, when PoW was the leading consensus algorithm, and Ethereum smart contracts for easier token launch had not yet been introduced.

Along with Dogecoin, other meme coins dedicated to celebrities or specific subcultures were released at the time, such as CoinYe (dedicated to Kanye West), MaxCoin (dedicated to Max Kaiser), Pandacoin (fork of Doge, Asian Doge Coin). However, they did not gain much popularity.

The emergence of Ethereum as a leading platform for launching new crypto assets (in the form of tokens, not coins, as was the case with DOGE), the development of the concept of smart contracts and the ERC-20 standard and new ways of launching projects - ICOs, marked a new era in the crypto industry. Meme coins were not very popular during the ICO boom era. 

Several projects were launched, such as Useless Ethereum Token (2017), Dentacoin (2017), Hay (2018, the first token launched on Uniswap). All these projects did not get further development and did not become popular. However, a notable event of that time was the listing of DOGE on Robinhood in 2018, which increased its popularity and recognition among the community.

The year 2021 was a pivotal time for meme coins. The COVID pandemic and the subsequent quantitative easing program in the US, the distribution of helicopter money to the population led to a boom in the financial markets and increased requests for high-risk investment strategies. The cryptocurrency sphere attracted the attention of institutional and retail investors and experienced an unprecedented rise, influx of new investments and “rally” of many crypto assets. Meme coins have been no exception. 

In May 2021, DOGE reached its ATH with a market capitalization of $97B. The trigger for the growth of DOGE was also the active promotion of the project by Elon Musk, who took to Twitter his support of DOGE. On the wave of Dogecoin hype, new meme coins appeared, launched as tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Shiba Inu (SHIB), FLOKI (FLOKI), Dogelon Mars (ELON) were also dedicated to doggo memes and showed impressive growth in 2021.

ATH capitalization of SHIB was at $43.6B, and that of ELON at $1.44B. Other doggo-unrelated memes like Constitution DAO (PEOPLE) (the project raised money to buy out the original US Constitution) also appeared, with ATH capitalization of $929M. Almost all meme coins followed a typical price pattern with a pump shortly after launch and a subsequent price dump at 80-90% of ATH.

Most Recent State of Meme Coins Industry

The bear market of 2022-2023 was a challenging time for meme coins, as interest in high-risk assets declined and the altcoin market experienced a severe crisis following the fall of BTC. Under these conditions, meme coins showed negative price dynamics. However, even in the bear market, new meme-related projects appeared, which became “stars” of the bear market and showed significant growth. 

Such projects were Bonk (BONK), one of the first meme coins on the Solan blockchain, Pepe (PEPE), and Milady Meme Coin (LADYS), a meme token project that also launched one of the most successful NFT Milady collections. The vast majority of meme coins were launched on Ethereum, which has become a hub not only for DeFi, but also for speculative assets like meme coins.

Worth noting is the emergence of new token standards, BRC-20 and Ordinals, which enabled the creation of assetson the Bitcoin blockchain. The hype around BRC-20 led to the creation of a huge number of meme tokens and became a notable event in the Spring of 2023. The ORDI token (ORDI) has become a kind of a proxy for Ordinals, although it is essentially a meme coin with no intrinsic value or utility.

The current growth cycle is characterized by the increased value and role of meme coins, which have become not only a kind of indicators of market conditions, but also determine the development of entire blockchains and their ecosystems.

The prime example is Solana, which faced serious issues in 2022-2023 but managed to recover its performance and is experiencing a second wave of popularity since the Fall of 2023. One of the drivers of Solana's growth was meme coins, which influenced its on-chain performance and stimulated explosive growth in trading volumes on decentralized exchanges.

Bonk (BONK) as one of the first meme coins on Solana, has shown explosive growth since November 2023 and reached an ATH capitalization of $2.96B in Spring 2024. In addition to BONK, Solana has become a new hub for meme coin startups on par with Ethereum.

There was a huge number of new meme coins launched on this network, many of which were among the top crypto assets by market capitalization: dogwifhat (WIF) with the market cap of $1.64B, Book of Meme (BOME) with a market cap of $574M, cat in a dogs world (MEW) with a market cap of $323M, Myro ($MYRO) with a market cap of $131M. 

Another new phenomenon was the appearance of political meme coins dedicated to famous politicians and businessmen: MAGA (TRUMP), jeo boden (boden), Doland Tremp (TREMP). Meme coins began to appear on other blockchains, especially Layer 2 ones, because of the low cost of transactions. Such a network was Base, which launched several successful meme coins like Based Brett with a market cap $1.31B, and Degen (DEGEN) with a market cap of $110M.

Overall, meme coins have become an integral part of the cryptocurrency market, being some of the highest risk assets even in the volatile crypto market. Meme coins have a significant impact on the on-chain performance of major blockchains, the trading volumes of exchanges, and the growth of community around the networks on which new meme projects are launched.

Meme Coins Market General Analysis

Meme coins became one of the drivers of cryptocurrency market growth in 2024 and significantly outperformedother market sectors in terms of yield. Below is a table with the yields of the main segments of the crypto market at the beginning of the year.

Yields of various crypto segments from the beginning of the year through August 1

Meme coin segment shows a 436% growth (as of August 1), significantly outperforming other segments: L1 (+27.2%), L2 solutions (-63.8%), ETH DeFi (+66.6%). Buying leading meme coins has become the most profitable investment strategy since the beginning of the year in the cryptocurrency market.

Decentralized exchanges and services related to meme coins have shown impressive growth since the beginning of the year. For example, DEX Radium on Solana shows a 69% increase in trading volumes since the beginning of the year, while Pump.Fan, a meme launch service on Solana, increased its commission revenue from 2.45M SOL in March to 28.7M SOL in July.

Pump.Fan Revenue (Million Dollars). Source: DefiLlama

Studying the meme coin segment appears to be an important task to understand the current crypto industry reality, trends, and potential growth drivers in the market.

As of this writing, there were 1,541 liquid meme coins on the market with a combined capitalization of $52.17 billionand a daily trading volume of $6.06 billion, indicating that meme coins, despite their seemingly frivolous nature, have become a significant part of the cryptocurrency realm, attracting investors and speculators alike.

A liquid meme coin means that the coin is actively traded on exchanges, has a high trading volume and significant market capitalization, which makes it easy to buy and sell at current market prices without significant exchange rate fluctuations.

Market capitalization, Trading Volumes, and Blockchains

The Top 5 meme coins (DOGE, SHIB, PEPE, WIF, BONK) account for 68.3% of the segment's total capitalization, while the Top 10 account for 80.5%. This indicates a high concentration of capital in the top meme projects, due to which the segment has such a high capitalization. 

It should be noted that high capital concentration is also typical for other segments of the crypto market. So, the Top 5 DeFi projects are responsible for 62.7% of the market capitalization of the entire DeFi segment, the Top 5 Layer 2tokens account for 68.3% of the capitalization of L2 projects.

The number of meme coins listed on CoinGecko is about 1.6K, although the real figure is much higher. For example, more than 2M tokens have been created on the PumpFun meme coin launch platform alone since the beginning of the year.

However, most of these tokens have zero capitalization and trading volume. According to CoinGecko data at the time of writing, 25% of the meme coins on the platform had a daily trading volume of $0-$100, while 34.5% traded with a volume >$1000. Only 10.3% of tokens had a daily volume of more than $1M.

A breakdown of meme coins by daily trading volume. Source: Coingecko

Another peculiarity of the meme coin segment is the low or near-zero market capitalization of the absolute majority of projects, which reflects the extremely high speculative component of this segment. 

As mentioned above, the Top 5 meme coins account for 68% of the segment's capitalization. Most projects (62.9%) have capitalization between $0 - $1000 and only 5% have reached capitalization greater than $10M. Only 7 tokens have a capitalization greater than or equal to $1B.

A breakdown of meme coins by market capitalization. Source: CoinGecko

As of August 2024, amidst the meme coin boom, Solana, with 39 coins,  became the leading blockchain in terms of the number of meme coins in the top 100 by market capitalization. 

Ethereum is in second place with a minimal gap (36 coins). Base takes the 3rd place (6 projects), with BNB Chain (5 projects) taking the 4th place. Another 14 meme coins from the Top 100 are launched on such networks as Bitcoin, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Cardano, Ton, Linea and others.

Top 100 meme coins by blockchains. Source: Coingecko

Among the Top 10 meme coins by capitalization, 4 are launched on Solana, 4 on Ethereum and one each on BNB Chain and Base. Notably, the largest meme coin by capitalization (DOGE) is running on BNB Chain. 

It is worth noting that many meme coins from the Top 10 are supported by multiple blockchains. The most popular pair of networks are Ethereum and BNB Chain. 3 projects from the Top 10 are available on both blockchains. Also some projects from the Top 10 are supported by Base and Arbitrum networks in addition to the main blockchain.

Distribution of Meme Coins Across Blockchains

Meme coins are issued on a variety of blockchain networks, each offering its own unique benefits and opportunities for developers and users.

Base

Base leads in the number of issued meme coins, which may indicate a low entry barrier and the ease of issuing new tokens. The high number of new tokens could attract the attention of developers and investors to the Base (Coinbase) ecosystem, increasing demand for the network's native coin to pay for transactions and create new tokens. This could potentially lead to an increase in the value of Base's native coin.

Solana & Binance Smart Chain

Solana and BSC are ranked as second and third ones, also reflecting their popularity among meme coin developers. This indicates high activity in these networks' ecosystems, which could drive demand for their native tokens (SOL and BNB, respectively), supporting or even increasing their value.

Ethereum

Ethereum with fewer new meme tokens likely reflects a more mature market with more stringent requirements on the quality and functionality of new projects. Regardless, a steady stream of new projects keeps interest in the network and its native coin (ETH) alive.

Dynamics of Meme Coin Pair Generation (per day)

The daily activity of creating new meme coin pairs on various blockchain networks allows for an assessment of which platforms are actively used for the development and deployment of new tokens.

Base

Base shows incredible activity in generating new pairs of meme coins, which may indicate the speculative nature of most of these projects. This number of new tokens could lead to market oversaturation, a decrease in the value of individual tokens, and ultimately volatility in the network's native coin. However, if a significant portion of these projects become successful, this could increase transaction activity on the network, leading to increased demand for the Base native coin.

Solana & Binance Smart Chain

Solana and BSC are also performing strongly, indicating that these networks continue to be popular among developers. This could help increase activity on these networks and support demand for their native coins, potentially supporting or increasing their value.

Ethereum

Ethereum remains one of the leading blockchains, but its rates of generating new token pairs are lower, which may suggest a more mature market and higher transaction costs. At the same time, it maintains the stability of the network and its native coin.

Daily Trading Volume on Blockchains

The trading volume shows the real liquidity of meme coins and traders' interest in them on various platforms.

Solana

Solana with the highest daily trading volume of $354.9 million demonstrates its attractiveness to traders. This indicates high liquidity and significant interest in meme coins on this platform. This factor may contribute to sustained demand for the Solana native coin (SOL), which has a positive impact on its value.

Binance Smart Chain & Ethereum

BSC and Ethereum also have high trading volumes, reflecting their importance in the cryptocurrency industry and supporting demand for their native tokens (BNB and ETH, respectively). Ethereum, despite having highertransaction costs, continues to attract significant trading volume, emphasizing its importance in the market.

Base

Base, despite the large number of new tokens and pair generation, has a relatively low trading volume. This may indicate that many of the tokens created have not yet attracted the attention of traders or reached maturity. In the future, if the activity and trading volume on this platform increases, it may have a positive impact on the value of the native Base coin.

Top 10 Meme Coins

As noted above, the meme coin segment is characterized by a high concentration of capital in the leading projects. So, the Top 10 meme coins are responsible for 80% of the total capitalization of the segment, while the Top 5 account for about 70% of the total capitalization. 

Projects ranked 6th to 10th in terms of market capitalization already account for only 10% of the segment's total capitalization. This confirms the thesis of a super high concentration of capital in the top meme coins even among the Top 10 assets. In fact, the Top 10 meme coins create the meme market, having the highest trading volumes and creating high capitalization of the segment. 

Among the Top 10 meme coins there are both relatively old projects that have become pioneers of the industry and new projects that broke into the top in 2023-2024. It is worth noting that in 2024 Solana has significantly increased its representation among meme coins and now as many as 4 projects represent this blockchain in the Top 10.

Top 10 meme coins by market capitalization. Source: CoinGecko, CryptoRank

Dogecoin

Dogecoin (DOGE) is the largest meme coin by market capitalization, surpassing its closest competitor by almost two times. As one of the first successful meme projects to gain widespread acceptance from the crypto community and influencers, Dogecoin essentially monopolized the meme market before other competitors emerged. 

Dogecoin has traditionally been the most popular meme coin to trade (but is currently slightly behind PEPE in terms of daily trading volume). The value and popularity of the first meme coin is also reflected in the high TwitterScore of 254, the highest score among meme coins. 

Dogecoin has almost 4M followers on X including famous crypto developers and influencers, such as Vitalik Buterin, Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Anatoly Yakovenko, and many others. Elon Musk once actively supported DOGE on his X account, becoming a shiller of the project. 

Shiba Inu & FLOKI

Shiba Inu (SHIB) and FLOKI (FLOKI) were imitators of DOGE and emerged amidst the unprecedented success of the first meme coin. Both tokens became dog meme coins, just like DOGE. SHIB and FLOKI quickly became popular and are ones of the most successful meme coin projects, however, they never managed to beat DOGE in terms of popularity and market capitalization.

Shiba Inu and FLOKI decided not to stop at the stage of purposeless meme coins and developed their own ecosystems, adding value and utility to their tokens. So, Shiba Inu successfully launched its own DEX, NFT collectionand even an L2 blockchain, Shibarium. In addition to SHIB, other tokens that have appeared in the ecosystem are BONE (DAO management token) and LEASH (community reward token). 

FLOKI launched Valhalla, its own meta universe with play-to-earn and NFT mechanics. In addition, Floki's ecosystem includes TokenFi, an asset tokenization platform, FLOKI's staking service, NFT collections, and an educational platform.

Overall, we can conclude that SHIB and FLOKI are good examples of the transformation of a project from a typical meme coin without value and technology to a project offering real products to users and utilities for its token.

Bonk

Bonk (BONK) is another project worth paying attention to. Bonk was launched in December, 2022 and used the BONK community airdrop Solana to attract attention to the project. This strategy was very successful and Bonk was able to show significant growth despite the bear market of 2022-2023. 

The project became the largest and most successful meme coin in the Solana ecosystem for a long time. In late 2023, BONK experienced a "second birth" on the back of the token's listing on Coinbase and growing interest in Solana's blockchain. 

In November 2023, BONK's price rose more than 400%. The active trading of BONK on decentralized exchanges was the beginning of the stunning growth of Solana's on-chain performance and a real meme coin boom on this blockchain, which remains one of the main trends of the crypto market in 2024. Bonk can rightfully be called a veteran of the meme coin segment on Solana and one of the most successful projects launched on the blockchain.

Meme Coins on Solana and Base

Meme coins on Solana and Base show impressive growth in 2024. The meme coin craze that has been sweeping the crypto community since late 2023 has become a trend that is affecting entire blockchains and their ecosystems. 

For example, the Solana and Base blockchains are experiencing a boom in on-chain activity in 2024 due to the massive launch and trading of meme coins on these networks. 

In July Solana for the first time overtook Ethereum in terms of trading volume on decentralized exchanges. A significant part of this volume is related specifically to meme coin trading. 

Solana-based Meme Coins

In addition to BONK, the most successful projects on Solana, which were among the Top 10 meme coins by capitalization, include dogwifhat (WIF), BOOK OF MEME (BOME), and cat in a dogs world (MEW). 

Dogwifhat

The most successful project in terms of capitalization was dogwifhat (WIF), which at its peak had a capitalization of $4.5B and ranks 3rd among all meme coins by this indicator. 

WIF was launched in November 2023, and the basis for the meme was a picture of a dog in a knitted cap, which quickly gained popularity on the Internet. The success of WIF was also linked to basketball player and NBA star LeBron James, who attended a press conference wearing a similar knitted cap. 

Book Of Meme & Cat in a Dogs World

BOOK OF MEME (BOME) and cat in a dogs world (MEW) are the newest of Solana's meme coins in the Top 10. Both projects were launched in March 2024 at the peak of crypto market growth and Solana's popularity. 

The combination of these factors allowed the projects to very quickly become successful and reach an impressive trading volume along with market capitalization. For example, BOME reached a capitalization of $1B within 48 hoursafter the token launch and almost immediately received listings on major exchanges: Binance, HTX, Bybit, MEXC, and others. 

MEW became the first cat meme coin to be in the top 10 meme coins by this indicator with an ATH market cap of $823M. The project was supported by BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes.

Meme Coins on Base Blockchain

Among the top meme coins on the Base blockchain, the most successful so far has been Based Brett (BRETT). BRETT is the mascot of the Base network and refers to the popular Boys' Club comic book character Matt Furie. 

Brett has become the most popular meme coin on the Base network and the first representative of this blockchain in the Top 10. The ATH market cap of BRETT was $1.92B. 

Another representative of Base in the Top 10 is MOG Coin (MOG), although the token was originally launched on the Ethereum blockchain, so it cannot be considered a native token on Base. 

MOG is positioned as the first cultural meme coin on the Internet. The token was launched in the summer of 2023, but did not gain much popularity at the time. The wave of hype caught up with MOG in 2024, and ATH was reached in July 2024 along with a capitalization of $880M.

Pepe

Pepe (PEPE) stands out among the top meme coins. The project was launched in April 2023 in a bear market, but managed to become one of the leading meme coins and enter the Top 50 crypto projects by capitalization. 

Like most meme coins, PEPE has no intrinsic value and does not bring new technologies to the crypto industry. However, thanks to the immense popularity of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon and comic book character created by Matt Furie, PEPE was able to achieve unprecedented popularity and is currently in the top 3 meme coins by market capitalization.

Main Stakeholders of Meme Coin Industry

A peculiarity of the meme coin industry is the small role of institutional investors in the development of projects. Venture funds and angel investors usually invest in promising technologies and tokens that have utility in the future. Meme coins do not offer any new technologies and innovations to the industry, so they are not of interest to large venture capital.

Also, launching meme coin does not require large capital investments, such as in the development of a new blockchain, DeFi, or GameFi protocol. Since meme coins do not carry technology, there is no need for research and development of new concepts, mechanisms and token utility.

Just about anyone can launch their own meme coin. Meme coin launch platforms such as Pump.Fun, SunPump make launching meme coins easier and more automated. The costs of launching a meme coin make up the funds for the initial liquidity and marketing campaign. Marketing in general plays one of the key roles in the launch of meme coins, as it is the success or failure of the project that depends on a successful marketing campaign.

Thus, it can be stated that venture capital is not a key stakeholder in meme coins, as funds are not interested in investing in “empty” projects without technology and utility tokens. Nevertheless, at least 2 meme coins from the Top 10 managed to attract investments in their projects.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) raised $12M in April 2024 from Animoca Brands, Shima Capital, P2 Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Morningstar Ventures and others. The investment was received for the development of a new privacy-focused L3 blockchain based on the existing L2 Shibarium, also developed by the Shiba Inu team.

Shiba Inu investment round. Source: CryptoRank

FLOKI (FLOKI) raised $1.25M in December 2023 from market maker DWV Labs, which bought $1.25M worth of $FLOKI tokens from the project's treasury to support the FLOKI ecosystem. In addition, FLOKI held an IEO on the Gate.io platform in 2021. FLOKI raised $91.6K.

FLOKI investment round. Source: CryptoRank

It should be noted that investments in meme coin projects are not aimed at developing or launching meme coins themselves. In the case of Shiba Inu, the investment was received for the development of L3 blockchain based on Shibarium technologies already used by the team. In the case of FLOKI, the purchase of DWV Labs tokens may be part of a market making strategy as a result of the partnership between FLOKI and DWV Labs.

Influencers and the Cabal

Influencers and the so-called Cabal play a big role in the meme coin industry. Influencers participate in the marketing campaigns of meme coins, promoting them to their audience and thus increasing the virality of the project. Since successful marketing and making a community around a meme coin is one of the key success factors for a meme coin project, working with ifluencers is an important part of a meme coin launch strategy.

Attracting top influencers with large audiences can significantly increase a project's chances of success. Influencers, in turn, have the opportunity to get insider information about the launch of promising projects, developer contacts, and the opportunity to get in at the very beginning of the token's growth, stimulating its further growth by advertising among their audience.

Cabal in the meme coin space is an organized group of people who coordinate their actions to make money from meme coins. These people may agree on simultaneous token purchases/sales, marketing strategies, or launch their own meme coins. Coordination of efforts takes place in private Telegram groups. The number of participants in such cabal chats varies from 5 to 100 on average.

Meme Coin Launchpads

Meme coin launchpads became very popular amid the meme coin craze in early 2024 and are still showing impressive commission revenues. The most popular meme coin launchpad has been Pump.Fun, launched on Solana.

Pump.Fun

Pump.Fun offers a service for launching meme coins without programming or blockchain development skills. Anyone can launch a meme coin in minutes. Users can trade the tokens launched on Pump.Fun within the platform. When the token reaches a capitalization of $69K, it is automatically listed on DEX Raydium and some liquidity is burned.

In total, almost 2M meme coins have been launched on Pump.Fun since January 2024.

Number of tokens launched on Pump.Fun. Source: dune.com

Pump.Fun's cumulative revenue since launch has exceeded $100M.

Pump.Fun Revenue. Source: dune.com

SunPump

SunPump, an analog of Pump.Fun on the Tron blockchain, has become another successful platform for launching meme coins. SunPump copies the functionality of Pump.Fun for launching and trading meme coins on Tron.

The hype around the new meme blockchain and the active promotion of Tron as a new blockchain for meme coins by Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, contributed to the rapid growth of SunPump's popularity. In a short period of time, 71.5K meme coins have been launched on the platform and the total revenue is $29.2M $TRX ($4.6M).

SunPump interface. Source: SunPump

Retail Traders

Retail traders make up the absolute majority of meme coin market participants.

Since meme coins are traded on decentralized exchanges, their listing is not regulated and projects do not undergo Due Diligence before listing on an exchange. Any token can be listed on DEX, in case the liquidity is provided for trading.

Token owners can implement various strategies to deceive buyers, from the inability to sell the purchased tokens, to the concentration of supply in the hands of several individuals for the subsequent sale to retail traders for the purpose of cashout. Retail traders are the most unprotected group in the meme coin industry. They face constant fraud in trading meme coins and often become exit liquidity for meme coin developers, influencers, and insiders, as well as Cabal groups.

With the growing popularity of Pump.Fun and its counterparts, the number of meme coins on the market began to grow rapidly, which led to the final transformation of the meme coin market into a crypto casino, where the chances of “winning”, that is, buying a meme coin that will show growth, are lower than in a regular casino.

Of the 344068 tokens launched on Pump.Fun by August 1, 2024 the required capitalization for listing on Raydiumreached 4438 or 1.29%. The chance of winning in a casino when betting on red/black is 47%.

To succeed on the meme coin market, traders need to possess a number of skills specific to trading on this market. These include the ability to work with decentralized exchanges, wallets, trading bots, research skills and selecting promising coins using special tools such as DexScreener.

It is also necessary to be able to work with on-chain analytics to track the actions of smart money, whales, and insiders. A useful skill would be studying Twitter (X) and quickly track insiders' subscriptions to new projects.

But even with all of the above mentioned skills, a trader will not have guaranteed success in the market. However, understanding the basic mechanisms of the meme coin market and trading rules can help you avoid significant losses and increase your chances of success.

Meme Coin Industry: Key Insights

The meme coin market has a different set of stakeholders from the “traditional” crypto market. The role of institutional players is significantly lower here, and we do not see the so-called VC tokens, a significant part of the supply of which is in the hands of VC capital.

Nevertheless, some meme projects attract investments from institutional players. Such investments are usually aimed at developing project ecosystems and developing solutions that bring utility to the meme project.

Influencers and insiders play a prominent role in the meme coin market. Influencers participate in meme marketing campaigns, attracting audiences by expanding the virality of projects. Insiders take advantage of classified information to buy and sell meme coins at the most favorable prices, adding to the deposit.

In 2024, new stakeholders of the meme coin market appeared, meme coin launchpads. Platforms for easy launching and trading meme coins, such as Pump.Fun and SunPump, have become new hubs for meme coin creation, which is reflected in the impressive growth of their revenues. However, the number of successful projects launched on these platforms is decreasing, which is reflected in the profitability of most meme coin traders.

Retail traders are the largest and most vulnerable group on the meme coin market. They often fall victim to scams, rug pools, and are simply the exit liquidity for insiders and influencers. With the exponential increase in the number of launched meme coins, it becomes extremely difficult to succeed in this market. To do so, one needs to have a clear understanding of meme launching and trading mechanisms and follow the chosen strategy.

Leading Meme Coins: Technical Features

Methodology

The following criteria were used to evaluate and analyze the leading meme coins.

• Technical Characteristics

Key network parameters were analyzed, including hash rate, transactional throughput (TPS), transaction cost, and number of active addresses. These metrics measure network performance, resilience and popularity among users.

• Distribution of Addresses by Holdings, in USD

The concentration of tokens among different addresses was analyzed. Evaluating the distribution of funds on wallets is important for understanding the asset ownership structure, which helps to identify the degree of network centralization and possible volatility risks.

• Popularity and Usage

The number of active addresses and wallets is taken into account, reflecting the level of community engagementand token usage activity.

Data was collected from publicly available sources, including blockchain browsers and analytics platforms, and checked for relevance.

Dogecoin (DOGE)

Dogecoin is a pioneer among meme coins, created in 2013. It was originally a Litecoin fork, which explains its technical characteristics.

• Hashrate

About 680 Th/s. This figure demonstrates the significant power and resilience of the network supported by the miners.

• Transactional Throughput (TPS)

Dogecoin processes approximately 33 TPS, making it relatively fast among older cryptocurrencies.

• Transaction Cost

One of the lowest in the industry, around $0.1 - $0.2, making Dogecoin popular for microtransactions and small transfers.

• Number of Active Addresses

Over 4.6 million, indicating high popularity and active usage.

• Number of Wallets

The estimated number of wallets can also be counted in millions, which confirms a wide user base.

• Addresses by Holdings in USD

The distribution of funds by addresses shows an even distribution between small and medium-sized addresses.

Dogecoin remains one of the most popular meme coins due to its long history and the support of an active community, including famous personalities like Elon Musk.

Volume Profile Analysis

In terms of the volume profile, the asset is currently trading in the price area where the most interest of market participants is concentrated. This area is an accumulation zone.

Shiba Inu (SHIB)

Shiba Inu is one of the most popular meme coins based on the Ethereum blockchain. It has become known as the "Dogecoin killer" and has a large and active fan base.

• Hashrate

Not applicable, as SHIB is an ERC-20 token running on Ethereum.

• Transactional Throughput (TPS)

Like other Ethereum-based tokens, SHIB is limited by the capacity of the Ethereum network, which handles about 15-30 TPS.

• Transaction Cost

Transaction costs are highly dependent on the current load of the Ethereum network and can range from a few dollars to dozens of dollars.

• Number of Active Addresses

Over 1.3 million, which emphasizes the significant user community.

• Number of Wallets

Since Shiba Inu is a token, the number of wallets can be comparable to the number of active addresses, which confirms the high interest in it from the crypto community.

• Addresses by Holdings in USD

The distribution of funds among addresses shows that most of the capital is concentrated in the hands of a few large owners, which may have an impact on the volatility of the token.

Shiba Inu is actively growing, offering various elements of the ecosystem, including its own decentralized exchange, ShibaSwap.

Volume Profile Analysis

According to the volume profile, the current trading operations with the asset take place in close proximity to the price range where the maximum interest of market participants is observed. This area functions as an accumulation zone.

Pepe (PEPE)

Pepe Coin is another popular meme coin, also running on the Ethereum blockchain. Its success is largely based on thecommunity supporting memes and cultural phenomena associated with the character Pepe the Frog.

• Hashrate

Not applicable, as it is an ERC-20 token.

• Transactional Throughput (TPS)

Limited by Ethereum network bandwidth.

• Transaction Cost

Similar to SHIB and varies depending on network utilization.

• Number of Active Addresses

Estimated to be several hundred thousands.

• Number of Wallets

Probably similar to the number of active addresses.

• Addresses by Holdings in USD

Funds on addresses show a significant concentration of assets in a few large wallets, which is typical of many new and popular meme coins.

Despite limited technical data, Pepe Coin remains a significant player in the meme coin market due to the popularity of the meme itself and active community support. 

Volume Profile Analysis

At the moment, the asset price chart is located significantly above the area of accumulated interest of market participants. It is necessary to continue monitoring the chart to track the possible upward movement of the price zone of interest.

Bonk (BONK)

Bonk is a meme coin based on the Solana blockchain characterized by high speed transactions.

• Hashrate

Not applicable, as it is a Solana-based token.

• Transactions Per Second (TPS)

Solana can handle up to 65,000 TPS, which provides extremely fast transaction speeds.

• Transaction Cost

Very low, typically less than $0.01, making this token ideal for frequent transactions.

• Number of Active Addresses

Over 100,000, indicating active usage and user interest.

• Number of Wallets

Probably corresponds to the number of active addresses.

• Addresses by Holdings in USD

The distribution of funds on Bonk addresses shows a relatively even distribution compared to other meme coins, which may indicate a wider distribution of tokens among users.

Bonk attracts users with its fast and cost-effective network, which sets it apart from other meme coins.

Volume Profile Analysis

The situation indicates that the asset which recently appeared on Binance, is attracting the attention of market participants across the entire range of its price volatility. The volume profile indicates that investors are actively interested not only in the current prices of the asset, but also in its fluctuations.

Floki Inu (FLOKI)

Floki Inu is a meme coin that runs on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) simultaneously, which makes it moreflexible and accessible.

• Hashrate

Not applicable, as it is a token.

• Transactions Per Second (TPS)

Limited to the underlying Ethereum or BSC network.

• Transaction Cost

Depends on network utilization and may vary by platform.

• Number of Active Addresses

Over 50,000, which confirms active usage and community support.

• Number of Wallets

Probably similar to the number of active addresses.

• Addresses by Holdings in USD

This meme coin sees a concentration of funds at several key addresses, which could indicate the potential influence of large holders on the market.

Floki Inu is actively promoting its ecosystem, which includes gaming, NFT, and decentralized finance, which appeals to a wide audience.

Volume Profile Analysis

At the moment, the asset is trading above the price accumulation zone, where the market participants have shown interest earlier. This situation may indicate gradual profit taking.

Conclusion

The meme coin segment has gone through an interesting development path from individual projects launched by blockchain enthusiasts to a full-fledged industry with its own blue chips, infrastructure, and specific set of stakeholders.

The development of the meme coin segment has largely reflected the technological development of blockchains and the cryptocurrency market, but recently meme coins themselves have begun to influence the development of blockchains and their ecosystems.

In 2024, meme coins have become one of the growth drivers of the cryptocurrency market and have outperformed other market segments such as Layer 2 solutions, DeFi, and others. 

Meme coin-related infrastructure projects such as decentralized exchanges and token launch platforms are also showing significant growth in 2024. All this indicates the increased importance of meme coins for the crypto market and their impact on the industry.

The number of meme coins launched on different blockchains shows exponential growth in 2024, but most of them have near-zero capitalization and trading volume. The meme coin segment is characterized by a high concentration of capital in leading projects, which account for a significant portion of the segment's market capitalization and the majority of trading volume. 

Solana and Base have emerged as the leading networks for meme coin launches in 2024 due to low fees and ease of issuing new tokens. Base leads in terms of daily number of tokens launched, while Solana ranks first in terms of daily meme coin trading volume. Besides Solana and Base, traditional meme coin hubs such as Ethereum and BNB Chainremain popular. 

Solana and Ethereum lead in the number of meme coins launched on these blockchains and are in the Top 100 in terms of market capitalization. These two blockchains also account for the majority of blue chip tokens in the Top 10. Also in the Top 10 are projects on BNB Chain and Base.

Influencers, meme coin launchpads and retail traders are the main stakeholders in the meme coin sector. Despite the fact that retail traders are the largest group, they are the most exposed to risks and are the most vulnerable category in the market. The high speculative component, insider trading and numerous cases of fraud make trading in meme coins an extremely risky activity that requires a great deal of skill.