Memecoins | Crypto

After a year of steady decline, the “memecoin dominance” ratio, a key metric tracking the sector's share of the total altcoin market, has abruptly reversed course from historic lows. This came as the total capitalization of meme assets reclaimed the $50 billion mark and tokens such as PEPE, BONK, and FLOKI posted outsized double-digit gains […] The post Memecoins are back, but one specific wallet metric suggests the $50 billion rally is a dangerous trap appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Once a barometer of retail hype, memecoins are closing the year with shrinking liquidity, weaker participation and fading speculative momentum. Memecoins are trading near year-end lows, marking a sharp reversal from the speculative peak reached in Christmas 2024. Memecoins fell 65% over the year to a market capitalization of $35 billion on Dec. 19, their lowest level of 2025, according to CoinMarketCap data. They retraced some losses on Friday, rising to about $36 billion. Last year, memecoins thrived on Christmas Day, recording about $100 billion in valuation, according to CoinMarketCap data. Read more

Memecoins were never about memes, jokes, or financial nihilism; it is the underlying technology and its implications that are promising. Memecoins are not dead because the market is down and the narrative has faded, according to president of payment infrastructure company MoonPay, Keith A. Grossman, who said that memecoins will be back but in a different form. The real innovation of memecoins is that attention can be tokenized easily and at low costs through blockchain technology, democratizing access to the attention economy, Grossman said. He continued: However, that value did not flow back to participants and mostly remained trapped by large, centralized platforms, he added. Read more

Galaxy Research’s latest report finds that memecoins draw new users into crypto, but the spoils go to enrich launchpads, exchanges and bots rather than traders themselves. Memecoins may attract new users to blockchains, but the profits largely flow to the platforms that launch and trade the tokens, according to a new report from Galaxy Research. The study released on Wednesday shows that while most traders lose money in a short-term gambling market, infrastructure providers such as launchpads, decentralized exchanges and trading bots capture millions in revenue by facilitating memecoin trading. Solana’s Pump.fun, a memecoin launchpad that debuted in early 2024, has been a major beneficiary, with tokens on the platform representing a combined $4.8 billion in fully diluted market value, as per the report.  Read more