Meme Coin Market: Evolution from Marginal to Mainstream

Meme coin, as a cryptocurrency originating from community jokes rather than fundamentals, has evolved from a novelty to an important speculative asset. They are influencing market liquidity, social media sentiment, and even political brand shaping.

Recent Developments

In 2024, the total capital in the Meme coin sector grew by over 500%, triggering a rapid shift of speculative funds from large-cap coins to Meme altcoins in early 2025. In 2025, U.S. regulators classified most Meme coins as collectibles rather than securities, reducing regulatory protections for investors.

The market value of a certain political-themed token surged to $27 billion in less than a day after its launch, sparking widespread attention on related themed tokens. In the following weeks, over 700 similar themed imitation Meme coins emerged.

In mid-2025, a certain public chain accounted for 45% of the trading volume on the decentralized exchange for Meme coins, surpassing another public chain's 25%, while Ethereum ranked third with 20%.

Reports indicate that less than 1% of new tokens on a certain trading platform can upgrade to be traded on mainstream decentralized exchanges. The platform is currently facing legal action, accused of charging nearly $500 million in fees and issuing over 11 million tokens, 98% of which collapsed within 24 hours.

Market Overview

The Meme coin market has become an important area for speculative capital rotation.

In 2025, Meme coin will account for 5% to 7% of the total value of the global cryptocurrency market, with a total market value of approximately $63.6 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of about $7.61 billion.

The market capitalization peak in the field is still driven by a few coins.

Meme coin issuance statistics

In early 2025, the average monthly issuance of Meme coins exceeded 800,000. Among them, 1.7 million new Meme tokens were issued in January. Some platforms claim to have issued millions of Meme coins through their platform.

The best-performing Meme coin in 2025, achieving an average return on initial investment of 150%.

The issuance of Meme coin has surged, driving its development service market to an estimated value of over $70 million.

However, the surge in issuance also indicates that the low barrier to entry remains a significant characteristic of Meme coins. Many issuances skip strict scrutiny or audits, increasing the risk of fraud.

Meme coin price prediction

• Year 2025: The average market price is expected to be $0.0226, with a potential high of $0.0245.
• 2026: The average price is expected to rise to $0.0278, an increase of 23% compared to 2025.
• Year 2027: The average price is expected to reach $0.0379, with a high point close to $0.0409.
• From 2028 to 2029: The average price is expected to stabilize at $0.0501.
• By 2030: With the widespread adoption and increased utility, the average price may reach $0.0572, and the peak could touch $0.0613.
• Year 2031: Long-term outlook shows significant growth, with an average price expected to reach $0.0811, a peak of $0.0836, representing an increase of over 250% compared to the 2025 level.

Active Meme coins count

In 2024, a certain data platform listed a total of 2229 Meme coins. Many newly issued tokens quickly disappear or are delisted, leading to fluctuations in the actual active quantity.

The analysis report indicates that there are thousands of active Meme coins at any given point in 2025. They have active quotes in 217 trading markets worldwide, confirming the regulatory effect of their token economics model on activity.

New Meme coins often quickly fall into market saturation, resulting in minimal liquidity for most tokens. In addition, the survival rate of new tokens beyond 6 to 12 months is very low, but exact loss data is difficult to publicly track.

Top Meme coins ranked by market capitalization

In October 2025, the top Meme coins tracked by market capitalization in a certain Meme coin index include: DOGE, SHIB, PEPE, BONK, FLOKI, and TRUMP. The top 10 Meme coins account for approximately 90% of the total capital in the entire Meme coin sector.

• DOGE: Leading with a market value of over $31.59 billion, it remains the highest valued meme coin.
• SHIB: Ranked second with a market value of $6.29 billion.
• PEPE: following closely with a market cap of 3.2 billion dollars.
• Floki: Market cap fluctuates around $705 million.
• BONK: In July 2025, the daily increase exceeded 15%, with a market value of 1.6 billion dollars, becoming the fifth largest Meme coin.
• TRUMP: Reached a market value peak of $27 billion within 24 hours of launch, followed by a significant drop in a large transaction. About 80% of the total coin supply is held by entities controlled by related parties. Its issuance generated over $350 million in coin sales and related platform fees.

Meme Coin Volatility Indicator

U.S. regulators noted in their regulatory guidance in February 2025 that Meme coins often exhibit significant market price volatility, with risk levels higher than most crypto assets.

• BONK is the most volatile major Meme coin, with a daily price fluctuation correlation of over 0.72–0.83 with JEETS, PEPE, and BOME.
• The survival rate of newly issued tokens after 60 days is less than 8%, with most losing over 97% of their peak value during rapid crash cycles.

Research has found that the volatility of Meme coins typically exceeds 11.7% daily, which is significantly higher than the average levels of most altcoins or Bitcoin. Certain Meme tokens have shown daily price fluctuations of up to 53%, making sudden reversals a norm in this field.

In 2025, Meme coins often trade within the “squeeze zone,” and after socially driven surges, they are often followed by breakthrough moves of 2 to 4 times. Additionally, price waterfalls driven by whales or bots can amplify hourly volatility by 6 times.

The Meme coin sector achieved an average year-to-date return of +1,313% in the first half of 2025, becoming the only profitable crypto segment during this period. Before the third quarter, the average profit and loss for the Meme coin sector was +33.08%, driven by a few outstanding performers.

Meme coin trading volume

• In the first quarter of 2025, when the Meme coin sector reaches a local peak, its trading volume will account for up to 25% of the total cryptocurrency trading volume.
• From January to April 2025, the Meme coin sector lost about 58% of its value, with trading volume decreasing by approximately 63%.
• By mid-2025, DOGE and PEPE will each maintain a 24-hour trading volume of over $500 million and $760 million, respectively.
• In early October 2025, top Meme coins continued to maintain a 24-hour trading volume exceeding $9 billion, driven by peak popularity.
• During the summer and autumn of 2025, the daily trading volume of a certain platform fluctuated between 96 million and 320 million USD, depending on the issuance of Meme coins. The platform reported a daily trading volume of approximately 264 million USD, and by the fourth quarter of 2025, the historical total trading volume exceeded 73 billion USD.

Among all the issued Meme coins, less than 5% can maintain high trading volume after the first 72 hours. The core driving forces behind the sudden increase in trading volume are viral spread on social media, celebrity catalytic effects, and influencer-driven issuance, which can often grow by 2 to 5 times within a few hours.

Most Popular Meme Coin Themes

1. Animal-themed Meme coins: such as DOGE, SHIB, BONK, WIF, with a total market value exceeding 30 billion USD in 2025, dominating the Meme brand space.

2. Frog and Amphibian Themed Meme Coin: Led by PEPE, the trading volume surged over $1.7 billion on July 2025, with social engagement increasing by 27% month-over-month.

3. Meme coins centered around political satire: such as TRUMP, MAGA, BODEN, during major political events in the United States, pushed the trading volume of a certain public chain's Meme coins to $26 billion.

4. Meme coins associated with pop culture: During the surge of hashtag trends on social media platforms, daily price peaks can reach 300–600%.

Hyper-deflationary Meme coins with a burn mechanism account for about 21% of the best-performing issuances this year; tokens lacking practical utility and promising “10x returns” make up about 17% of the daily trending Meme coin issuances, often surging dramatically and then fading within weeks.

By April 2025, less than 10% of the top 100 Meme coins by market capitalization still reflect their original themes from the first quarter, highlighting the rapid changes in trends.

Distribution of Meme coins on the Blockchain

Meme coins are increasingly migrating to blockchains with average transaction fees below $0.01, driving adoption on certain public chains that collectively account for 95% of new Meme token issuance.

Ethereum's market share in Meme coins fell below 5% in the second quarter of 2025.

Development of Meme coin on a certain public chain

• Issuance Data:

  • Since the platform was created in January 2024, a certain platform on this public chain has issued over 6 million Meme coins.
  • In February 2025, alongside the cooling of the market and a decrease in retail interest, the platform's daily issuance of Meme coins has dropped from a peak of 70,000 coins to 25,000 coins.

• By mid-2025, the platform will support an average of 65,000 Meme coin issuances per day, and expand to other chains through the Meme coin minting API.

• DEX trading volume:

  • The trading volume of the public chain Meme coin DEX reached a peak of $206 billion in January 2025, accounting for 79% of the total trading activity that month.

• Only less than 2.1% of Meme coins can “upgrade” from the issuing platform to mainstream DEX, and most have failed to establish sustainable liquidity.

In addition, liquidity fragmentation continues to exist, and successful Meme coins are usually distributed across 3 to 5 major chains, but many liquidity pools on each chain remain shallow.

Multi-chain Meme coin statistics

In 2025, 21% of the top 100 Meme coins implemented cross-chain minting/burning mechanisms to maintain supply balance between networks; there are over 13 million unique wallet addresses interacting with multi-chain Meme coin bridges.

In the second quarter of 2025, during the celebrity token issuance and major NFT airdrop, the total cross-chain bridging volume of Meme coin increased by 420%.

The Meme coin project using chain-agnostic token contracts achieved a 2-3 times broader distribution, but the wallet retention rate is 17% lower than that of single-chain counterparts.

By the third quarter of 2025, DOGE and SHIB each support more than four major chains, with an active multi-chain bridging network covering multiple mainstream public chains.

Ethereum and a certain public chain account for 78% of the cross-chain settlement value of all Meme coins, while another public chain's share is expected to grow to 16% by the summer of 2025.

In addition, by September 2025, security incidents related to multi-chain bridging have caused losses exceeding $190 million for Meme coin holders.

Social Media Activities and Trends

The mention volume of Meme coins and related tags is expected to grow by about 53% from January 2024 to 2025, surpassing discussions in many altcoin verticals. Viral memes, influencer posts, and coordinated activities can trigger price fluctuations of over 20% within hours.

The main social platforms are the major drivers of emotions. However, comment bots and fake accounts exaggerate engagement metrics, obscuring genuine interest.

Among them, many active group members in Meme coin communities exceed 50,000 to 100,000.

Some projects will hold “Meme contests”, AMAs, or NFT giveaways to stimulate viral social sharing and participation.

Investor Demographics and Profiles

A survey indicates that among cryptocurrency investors in the United States, about 31% reported that their first exposure to cryptocurrency was through Meme coins. Among them, younger investors are more active in the Meme coin space.

• Many Meme coin holders have small positions, often accounting for less than 1% of their total portfolio.
• Some “whales” or large holders may control 20-50% of the circulating supply of certain coins.

Many retail investors have entered the market after observing short-term price increases, thus exposing themselves to the risk of price reversals. Institutional investor interest is evident, but the main channels remain limited to structured thematic funds or small allocations in alternative asset classes.

In emerging markets, Meme coins often overlap with speculative trading in local foreign exchange/crypto channels.

Risk Factors and Scam Statistics

The Meme coin craze requires large-scale detection of rug pull risks, backdoor liquidity extraction, and malicious token logic. From 2025 to now, the crypto service 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 successful projects, and most will collapse rapidly.

60% of newly issued tokens have an active lifespan of less than 24 hours.

security and vulnerability data

In the Meme coins issued in 2025, less than 15% have undergone any form of smart contract audit.

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