Counting the development of meme coins this year, from the rise of Raydium and Pump.fun in March, to the countless FUD from analysts or institutions that pointed out that the meme coin craze was about to pass. But meme coins have been able to continue the discussion, find new ways to play, and have also spread from Solana to the Ethereum mainnet, Base, Sui, and more public chains. However, the fact that Coinbase has become the hottest app in the US, which represents the short-term peak of the market, and Phantom has become the hottest free app in the US, may also mean that the meme coin craze has gone out of the circle and is about to enter a period of contraction.
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ToggleThe meme coin craze that started in March helped Solana become the second largest public chain in terms of trading volume
Meme coins started to ignite the craze from Solana in March this year, and the myth of BOME being listed on Binance in a short period of time also added heat to the community sentiment. During the meme season, you can see countless new meme coins being born every day, and of course Pump.fun has also contributed a lot (they have also made a lot of money themselves). According to KOL Bunji, "Pump.fun didn't ruin meme coins, it just made the token launch process very convenient."
In March, Raydium also surpassed Orca to become the largest DEX on Solana, riding on the momentum of Pump.fun. Not only that, if we take the average daily trading volume of the third quarter of last year as the baseline, Raydium's average daily trading volume has been more than 100 times that of the third quarter of last year since the first quarter of this year. At the same time, Solana has also become the public chain with the most active off-ETH chain activities.
Meme coins keep pushing out new ones, with strong vitality
The meme coin craze has also spread to public chains other than Solana, whether it's Base, the Ethereum mainnet, or the recent Sui. Even Justin Sun has launched SunPump on TRON, and Binance Chain has also launched Four Meme. After BAYC launched the APE Chain, Ape Express was immediately listed, and recently the official Aptos launched Emojicoin.fun, the vitality of meme coins can be said to be increasingly strong.
And the narratives are constantly being updated, the previous round had Dogecoin that was hyped by Musk, and PEPE frog. After the craze of BOME and WIF in March, the focus shifted to celebrity-issued tokens, such as the MOTHER token launched by Iggy Azalea. Subsequently, political meme coins have also been gradually heating up with the approaching election, such as Trump's MAGA and FIGHT.
Then there's the new dog adopted by the owner of Shiba Inu's Kabosu, named Neiro. But the really dramatic part is that this meme coin has different versions on Solana (Neiro) and the Ethereum mainnet (uppercase NEIRO and lowercase neiro). In the end, Binance's decision to list different Neiros on its futures and spot platforms also sparked discussions in the community. The latest meme craze is AI-issued tokens: GOAT, and topics around AI Agents like ai16z.
Phantom ranks 7th in the US, does it mean retail investors are entering the market with the new high of Solana?
However, in past experience, we often see Coinbase reaching the top of the US app as a signal of the short-term peak. This may mean that liquidity from outside the circle is starting to enter, and the market is starting to overheat a bit.
From the data of App Figures, Phantom has become the most popular app in the US free utility series. And we see from the official Apple data that Phantom is currently ranked 7th, surpassing Google. Phantom is currently the most well-received Solana wallet (currently supporting Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, Base and Bitcoin), and is a tool used by many people to rush into meme coins. Coupled with Solana's repeated new highs, we may infer that off-market capital is pouring in continuously.
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