Title: Memecoin Market Map - a $ 120 B Asset Class
Author: Eli Nuss
Compiled by: Scof, ChainCatcher
Over the past year, Memecoin has been the best performing sector in the crypto market. Today, the total market capitalization of Memecoin has exceeded $100 billion, surpassing the sum of DeFi, DePin, gaming, and metaverse.
As the scale and diversity of this asset class continue to expand, we have tried to map the market to identify the opportunities within.
We analyzed the best performing Memecoin in each quarter of this year, and the results validated our hypothesis - Memecoin has dominated the market in every quarter. In the first quarter, $POPCAT, $WIF, $MOG, and $MYRO were the top performers; in the second quarter, $PONKE, $SPX, $TURBO, $GIGA, $WOJAK, $BRETT, and $MOG stood out; in the third quarter, $SPX, $GIGA, $FUD, and $MUMU took the lead.
When trying to develop a methodology for the Memecoin market, one thing is very clear - understanding the "meta" (cultural trends and trends) is crucial. While this is generally applicable in cryptocurrencies, it is particularly important for Memecoin, where the impact is far greater than other categories. Here is an extended timeline aimed at highlighting some important Meta changes and emerging trends.
Until 2021, the Memecoin market was almost exclusively Doge. Then, Shiba Inu, as the first true "Dogecoin killer", was launched, and people naturally flocked to it, hoping to replicate Doge's success. This mentality of finding the "next XX" is the root of the formation of the Meta. The success of Shiba Inu spawned various Memecoin related to dogs and Elon Musk, making 2021 the first true Memecoin Meta. Then in 2023, the launch of Pepe coin drove a surge of Memecoin related to frogs and the "boys club", while the later launch of Bonk and Wif coins established Solana as the dominant Memecoin chain, eventually forming pump.fun. In the first quarter of 2023, the Memecoin market experienced its first widespread frenzy, with new Metas emerging almost weekly or even daily. After reaching a local high in March, the market cooled down a bit in the summer. As Bitcoin started to break out, market enthusiasm was rekindled, and new Metas continued to emerge, including $GOAT from @truth_terminal, the cute $MOODENG (Hippopotamus coin), and $PEANUT.
Today, the Memecoin market has seen too many Metas, and we have tried to break down the market into different categories.
As you can see, Dogecoin is still the dominant sector in the Memecoin market, primarily driven by Doge. A few weeks ago, when we started compiling this data, the Sentient AI category was almost non-existent, and the Martyr category also did not have a significant presence (although we must respect the OG coin $Harambe). This is enough to demonstrate the rapid evolution of the Memecoin market.
Unsurprisingly, since the launch of Pepe coin, the dominance of Dogecoin has begun to gradually decline.
This trend seems set to continue, as new Metas will continue to emerge, and different sectors will be pushed into the limelight.
Looking at the changes in market capitalization across the different categories, there are a few interesting trends.
For example, Memecoin in the Crypto Culture category (such as $bitcoin) gained some attention in 2023, especially when there was relatively less new capital entering the market at the time. But as new capital was injected towards the end of the year, Crypto Culture gradually gave way to a broader internet culture (such as $giga, $npc, etc.).
As mentioned earlier, the rapid rise of $GOAT and $PEANUT is also very surprising. Although it may be too early to classify them into a new category, it is clear that there are now many AI-related Memecoin, with market capitalizations already reaching nine figures.
In addition, celebrity tokens and politically-related Memecoin that emerged earlier also experienced some growth, but most of them have gradually cooled down since then.
Over time, Memecoin may become a fractal of the entire crypto market, with Doge's position similar to that of BTC. Some "cult coins" will have loyal community support and exist in the long term, but most Memecoin may be like the NFTs of 2021 - fleeting.
Nevertheless, the opportunities to get ahead of new Metas are clearly immense.
I expect the fastest-growing categories in the future will be internet culture and sentient AI. Internet culture has already gained widespread recognition and has a rich cultural foundation, giving it a clear advantage over other categories. Sentient AI, on the other hand, combines the most exciting technology and the most volatile asset class, and they may continue to dominate the Memecoin market in the future.
As for open market space, there is always room for new animal species - the market currently lacks many animals, especially some exotic ones (such as tigers, giraffes, zebras, etc.). As for entirely new Memecoin categories, existing fan cultures (such as superheroes, sports, etc.) may be tokenized in creative ways.
