Meme coins—cryptocurrencies that originated more as a community joke than as a fundamental asset—have evolved from fringe novelties to serious speculative assets, influencing liquidity flows, social media sentiment, and even political branding.
In the marketing field, brands may issue meme coins to increase engagement; in the financial field, hedge funds may allocate small positions in highly volatile meme coins.
The following data-driven insights paint a picture of the current memecoin landscape.
Recent Developments
In 2024, total capitalization in the meme coin sector increased by over 500%, prompting a rapid shift of speculative funds from large-cap coins to meme Altcoin in early 2025. In 2025, the US SEC officially classified many meme coins as collectibles rather than securities, reducing regulatory protections for investors.
Following its launch on January 17, 2025, $TRUMP's market capitalization soared to $27 billion in less than a day, sparking further interest in presidential-themed tokens. Within weeks, over 700 Trump-themed meme coins emerged, 192 of which included the names of Trump family members and 67 used "official" branding.
By mid-2025, BNB Chain will account for 45% of Memecoin DEX trading volume, surpassing SOL, whose share will drop to 25%, and Ethereum will rank third with 20%.
Reports indicate that less than 1% of new tokens listed on Pump.fun are even traded on major decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Pump.fun, currently facing a federal lawsuit, is accused of collecting nearly $500 million in fees and issuing over 11 million tokens, 98% of which collapsed within 24 hours.
SOL economy is highly dependent on Meme coin activity
(Data source: Messari)
Currently, more than 60% of economic activities in the SOL ecosystem are highly dependent on Meme coin-related businesses, which shows the increasingly prominent Meme-driven ecological characteristics of this public chain.
Telegram bots lead all sectors with 26% of app revenue, driven by transaction automation and Memecoin issuance.
The issuance platform ranked second with 23%, indicating a surge in the issuance of new meme coins on SOL.
Wallets contributed 18% of total revenue, driven by on-chain transactions and user growth.
Trading applications account for 14%, reflecting the high daily activity of Meme coin swaps and speculation.
Derivatives, coin trackers, and other applications each account for 5%, indicating moderate engagement outside of core Meme functionality.
DEX accounts for only 4%, which is partially exposed to risks because many Meme coin traders prefer robots and issuance platforms rather than traditional decentralized exchanges.
Market Overview
The Meme coin market is increasingly becoming an area where speculation drives capital rotation.
By 2025, memecoins will account for 5% to 7% of the global cryptocurrency market capitalization, with a total market capitalization of approximately $63.6 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of approximately $7.61 billion.
The high point of the field's market capitalization is still driven by a few currencies ( such as DOGE, SHIB, and PEPE ).
Memecoin issuance statistics
By the beginning of 2025, the average monthly issuance of MemeCoins exceeded 800,000. Of this total, 1.7 million new MemeCoins were issued in January 2025. Some issuance platforms even claimed to have issued millions of MemeCoins through their platforms.
The best performing meme coins in 2025 achieved an average return on initial investment of 150% .
The surge in Memecoin issuance has led to a market for services developed for it that is currently estimated to be worth over $70 million.
But the surge in issuance suggests that low barriers to entry remain a defining characteristic of memecoins. Many issuances skip rigorous scrutiny or audits, increasing the likelihood of a scam or fraud.
Memecoin Price Prediction
(Data source: Cryptopolitan)
2025
The average market price of Meme coin is expected to be $0.0226, with a potential high of $0.0245. The market is showing an early stabilization trend.
2026
The average price of Meme coin is expected to climb to $0.0278, a 23% increase from the average price in 2025.
2027
The forecast shows that Memecoin will continue to rise to an average price of $0.0379, with a high close to $0.0409.
2028-2029
The average price of Meme coin is expected to remain stable at $0.0501.
2030
As applications become more popular and token utility increases, the average price may reach $0.0572, and the peak may reach $0.0613.
2031
The long-term outlook shows significant growth, with the average price expected to reach $0.0811 and a maximum of $0.0836, an increase of more than 250% from the 2025 level.
Number of active Meme coins
In 2024, CoinMarketCap listed 2,229 meme coins. Many newly issued tokens quickly disappear or are delisted. Therefore, the actual active number continues to fluctuate.
Analysis reports indicate that thousands of MemeCoins are active at any given time in 2025. They are actively quoted on 217 trading markets worldwide, confirming the regulatory effect of their token economics model on activity.
New meme coins often quickly become saturated with the market, leaving most tokens with little liquidity. Furthermore, the survival rate of new tokens beyond 6-12 months is low, but exact attrition data is difficult to track publicly.
Investors can use professionally screened indexes and ranking mechanisms to filter out low-activity meme coins.
Top Meme Coins by Market Cap
As of October 2025, the top memecoins tracked by the MarketVector™ Memecoin Index by market capitalization include: DOGE, SHIB, PEPE, BONK, FLOKI, and TRUMP. The top 10 memecoins account for approximately 90% of the total capitalization of the entire memecoin space.
#Dogecoin
With a market capitalization of over $31.59 billion, it remains the most valuable Meme coin.
#ShibaInuCoin
It ranks second with a market value of US$6.29 billion.
PEPE
It followed closely with $3.2 billion.
Floki
The market capitalization fluctuates around $705 million, and the ranking position of Meme coins often changes within hours due to social media popularity.
BONK
In July 2025, its single-day increase exceeded 15%, and its market value reached 1.6 billion US dollars, making it the fifth largest Meme coin.
#TRUMP
Its market capitalization peaked at $27 billion within 24 hours of its launch, before falling sharply amidst massive trading.
Approximately 80% of the total $TRUMP token supply is held by entities controlled by Trump or his affiliates.
The $TRUMP launch generated over $350 million in token sales and related platform fees.
Memecoin Volatility Indicator
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pointed out in a regulatory alert in February 2025 that Meme coins often exhibit significant market price fluctuations and their risk level is higher than most crypto assets.
BONK is the most volatile major meme coin, while the daily price changes of JEETS, PEPE, and BOME have correlations higher than 0.72–0.83.
Newly issued tokens have a 60-day survival rate of less than 8%, with most losing over 97% of their peak value in rapid crash cycles.
Research has found that memecoin volatility typically exceeds 11.7% per day, significantly higher than the average for most Altcoin or Bitcoin. POPCAT and similar meme tokens have demonstrated daily price swings as high as 53%, making sudden reversals commonplace in the space.
In 2025, meme tokens frequently traded within the "squeeze zone," where socially driven pumps were often followed by breakout moves of 2–4x magnitude. Furthermore, whale or bot-driven price waterfalls could amplify hourly volatility by 6x.
The meme coin sector achieved an average year-to-date return of +1,313% in the first half of 2025, making it the only profitable crypto sector during that period. Prior to the third quarter, the meme coin sector had an average profit/loss of +33.08%, driven by a small number of outperformers.
Memecoin transaction volume
In the first quarter of 2025 , when the Meme coin sector reached a local peak, its trading volume accounted for 25% of the total cryptocurrency trading volume.
Between January and April 2025 , the meme coin sector lost approximately 58% of its value, and trading volume fell by approximately 63% during this period.
By mid-2025 , Dogecoin and PEPE will maintain 24-hour trading volumes of over US$500 million and US$760 million, respectively.
In early October 2025 , the top meme coins maintained a 24-hour trading volume of over $9 billion, led by the peak of popularity.
During the summer and fall of 2025 , Pump.fun's daily trading volume fluctuated between $96 million and $320 million, depending on the number of MemeCoins issued. Pump.fun reported approximately $264 million in daily trading volume, and as of the fourth quarter of 2025, its historical total trading volume exceeded $73 billion.
Less than 5% of all meme coins issued maintain high trading volume after the first 72 hours. Social media virality, celebrity catalysis, and influencer-driven issuance are the core drivers of sudden surges in trading volume, often increasing by 2–5 times within a few hours.
Most Popular Meme Coin Themes
Animal-themed meme coins: such as DOGE, Shiba Inu, BONK, and WIF, will have a total market capitalization of over $30 billion in 2025, dominating the meme brand field.
Among them, BONK is about to reach the milestone of destroying 1 trillion tokens this year.
Frog and amphibian-themed meme coins: Led by PEPE, daily trading volume surged to over $1.7 billion in July 2025, with social engagement increasing by 27% month-on-month.
Meme coins centered around political satire, such as TRUMP, MAGA, and BODEN, pushed SOL's meme coin trading volume to $26 billion during major U.S. political events.
Among them, $TRUMP was launched in 2025 and its market capitalization reached an all-time high of $14.9 billion, and then volatility wiped out $5 billion in market capitalization within minutes of the peak.
Memecoins tied to pop culture: can see daily price spikes of 300–600% during periods of hashtag trending on platform X.
Hyper-deflationary meme coins with a burn mode account for approximately 21% of the year’s best-performing issuances; tokens that lack actual utility and promise “10x returns” account for approximately 17% of daily trending meme coin issuances, often surging within a few weeks before fading.
As of April 2025, less than 10% of the top 100 meme coins by market capitalization still reflect their original themes from Q1, highlighting the rapid shift in trends.
Memecoin blockchain distribution
Meme coin issuance is increasingly migrating to blockchains with average transaction fees below $0.01, driving adoption on SOL, BNB, and Base, which together account for 95% of new Meme token issuance.
Ethereum's market share in Meme coins fell below 5% in the second quarter of 2025.
SOL
Distribution data
Since the platform was created in January 2024, over 6 million Meme coins have been issued on SOL's Pump.fun.
In February 2025, as the market cooled and retail investor interest waned, the daily issuance of meme coins on the pump.fun platform fell from a peak of 70,000 to 25,000.
As of mid-2025, Pump.fun supports the issuance of 65,000 SOLMeme tokens per day, and extends it to the Base chain through the Meme coin minting API.
DEX trading volume
SOL Meme coin DEX trading volume peaked at $206 billion in January 2025, accounting for 79% of SOL's total trading activity that month.
Only less than 2.1% of SOLMeme coins can be "upgraded" from the issuing platform to mainstream DEXs such as Raydium, and most fail to establish sustainable liquidity.
Additionally, liquidity fragmentation persists, with successful meme coins typically spread across 3–5 major chains, but many funding pools on each chain remain shallow.
Multi-chain Meme Coin Statistics
In 2025, 21% of the top 100 meme coins implemented a cross-chain minting/destruction mechanism to maintain supply balance between networks; there were more than 13 million independent wallet addresses interacting with multi-chain meme coin bridges.
In Q2 2025, during the period of celebrity token issuance and major NFT airdrops, total cross-chain bridge volume of MemeCoin increased by 420%.
Meme coin projects utilizing chain-agnostic token contracts achieved 2–3x wider distribution, but had wallet retention rates 17% lower than their single-chain counterparts.
As of the third quarter of 2025, DOGE and SHIB each support more than four major chains, and active multi-chain bridging networks cover BNB, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon and Ethereum.
Ethereum and SOL together account for 78% of all Memecoin cross-chain settlement value, while Base's share grows to 16% by the summer of 2025.
In addition, as of September 2025, security incidents related to multi-chain bridging have caused Meme coin holders to lose over $190 million.
Social Media Activities and Trends
Mentions of #Memecoin# and related hashtags grew approximately 53% from January 2024 to 2025, outpacing discussions within many Altcoin verticals. Viral memes, influencer posts, and coordinated campaigns can trigger price movements of 20% or more within hours.
Platforms like Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and TikTok are key drivers of sentiment. However, comment bots and fake accounts inflate engagement metrics and mask genuine interest.
Among them, many Meme coin communities have active Discord or Telegram groups with more than 50,000-100,000 members.
Some projects hold "Meme competitions", AMAs or NFT giveaways to stimulate social virality and engagement.
Investor Demographics and Profiles
A survey indicates that approximately 31% of US crypto investors said their first exposure to cryptocurrencies was through meme coins, with younger investors being more active in the meme coin space.
Many Memecoin holders hold small positions, often <1% of their total portfolio.
A few “whale” or large holders may control 20–50% of the circulating supply of certain tokens.
Many retail investors enter the market mid-term after observing short-term gains, exposing themselves to price reversal risks. While institutional investor interest is evident, it remains primarily limited to structured thematic funds or small allocations to alternative asset classes.
In emerging markets, memecoins often overlap with speculative trading in local forex/crypto channels.
Risk Factors and Scam Statistics
The meme coin craze requires large-scale testing for the risks of undermining the market, backdoors draining liquidity, and malicious token logic. Since 2025, the crypto services sector (not limited to meme coins) has lost over $2.17 billion.
Analysts estimate that up to 95% of newly issued tokens may involve scams or are low-probability success projects, and most will quickly collapse.
60% of newly issued tokens have an active lifespan of less than 24 hours.
Security and vulnerability data
Less than 15% of all meme coins issued in 2025 will have undergone any form of smart contract audit.
Over 25% of audited SOLMeme coin smart contracts were flagged for token distribution centralization risks.
Over 91% of new Meme coins on the Base chain were found to have at least one security vulnerability.
The main attack modes affecting Memecoin include: issuance and destruction logic vulnerabilities, owner withdrawal vulnerabilities, and delegatecall (Ethereum's underlying call instruction) misuse issues.
Sandwich attacks and front-running exploits driven by automated bots led to market manipulation in over 35% of low-liquidity pools.
Sniper bot activity in the Memecoin market
On memecoin issuance platforms like Pump.fun, up to 80% of early trading volume was driven by sniper bots, especially within the first few blocks.
Bots can execute trades in less than a second after a new Memecoin liquidity event, significantly faster than most human traders. In some issuances, bots accounted for over 70% of all unique wallet interactions within the first 10 blocks of transactions.
Additionally, the volume bot simulates organic order flow by randomizing wallet rotation and intervals to avoid detection, providing liquidity for over 100 new tokens daily.
The largest bot-driven memecoin trades can create price spikes of 100–500% in a matter of minutes, followed by rapid reversals as investors try to follow suit.
A single sniper bot amassed over $6.8 million in profits in a single month simply through Memecoin trading on Pump.fun, a 2,227x return on a single trade. (During peak activity in 2024, sniper bots generated realized profits exceeding 15,000 SOL across thousands of trades.)
Sophisticated sniping bots monitor DEX mempools to analyze new contract deployments, anticipating thousands of issuances per month.
Historical Performance and Growth
During the 2023-2024 bear market cycle : Memecoin prices fell by as much as 85%, quickly wiping out speculative gains; more than 60% of Memecoins failed to survive for six months, with significant fluctuations.
Early 2024: The top five meme coins collectively account for over 40% of all crypto speculative trading volume.
Between the first and second quarters of 2024: Memecoin's market capitalization grew by over 550%, surpassing most other crypto sectors.
May 2024: The number of unique Memecoin wallet holders exceeds 18 million.
By the end of 2024: Over 30% of leading meme coins have added community governance features to enhance resilience.
In 2024, Memecoin trading volume surged to over $35 billion.
Dogecoin, with a market capitalization exceeding $10 billion throughout 2024, remains the most valuable meme coin. Tokens such as PEPE and FLOKI have seen returns exceeding 100x from their launch to their respective peaks.
in conclusion
Meme coins have transitioned from a fringe sideshow in the crypto market to a serious player in the speculative market.
However, the benefits come with disproportionate risks, scams, hacks, and unrelenting volatility.
For those venturing into this space, rigorous due diligence, on-chain analysis, and community signaling are must-have tools, not optional extras.
