The End of Meme Coins? Experts Say the Mania Is Dying Out
Key takeaways:
Meme coins have brought the most attention to cryptocurrency since NFTs popularized decentralization during the pandemic. According to a recent CoinGecko report, meme coins, together with real-world assets (RWA)—tangible assets that can be tokenized on the blockchain—and AI, accounted for 36% of the crypto narrative market share during the second quarter (Q2).
The report said meme coins alone made up four of the 15 most popular cryptocurrency narratives, driving spot trading volume on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) up 16% from the previous quarter. Between April and June, the top 10 DEXs traded the equivalent of $371 billion in cryptocurrency, with Solana DEXs—the lynchpin of the meme coins sub-culture—rising the most.
Meanwhile, spot trading volume on leading centralized exchanges (CEXs) fell 12% quarter-on-quarter to $3.4 trillion, dragged by increased regulatory scrutiny and the poor performance of venture capital-backed tokens, among other issues. Volume slumped on Binance, the world’s biggest exchange, but Bybit became the second-largest spot CEX, accounting for nearly 13% of the total trading volume in Q2.
However, the quick rise of meme coins seen in the second quarter might not continue, analysts suggest. They point to several reasons, including a shift in investor sentiment, changing market conditions, and declining hype. Indeed, CoinMarketCap reports that meme coin traffic dropped from 23% of total web traffic in the second quarter to 15% in the first two weeks of July.
“Investors may shift towards projects with stronger fundamentals, especially in an economically uncertain market environment,” Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research, told Cryptonews . “As the crypto market matures,
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