The recent rally in Bitcoin to a new all-time high has lifted other digital assets, with memecoins among the beneficiaries.
Data from CoinMarketCap indicates that all leading memecoins have recorded price increases over the past 24 hours, with Pepe and Fartcoin posting double-digit gains. Bonk, while the laggard on the day, is up more than 41% on a weekly basis.
Bonk aside, all the seven-day price graphs are hockey sticks.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Beyond a joke
Memecoins are often seen as the joke of the crypto world, with launches and prices pumped by celebrity endorsement and social media campaigns. However, the top ten memecoins now have a market capitalization of over $1 billion. And over $6 billion has been traded in three alone – Dogecoin, Pepe and Pudgy Penguins – over the past 24 hours.
Though conceived in irony, memecoins are now attracting significant inflows from investors.
“It’s an interesting trend that we shouldn’t just dismiss as ‘oh it’s speculation’,” Hong Fang, president of crypto exchange OKX, told the Financial Times. “It’s all about attention and how much people believe in certain things and that gets for the first time reflected in the market, in price.”
Narrative as value
Memecoins remain highly volatile, a characteristic amplified by their ease of issuance and reliance on community narratives to fuel trading.
“The way value is assessed in the memecoin market is similar to that of the art market,” said Ki Young Ju, CryptoQuant Chief Executive Officer on X. “Both markets legitimize intangible value through narrative.”
With CoinMarketCap’s Fear and Greed Index skewed heavily towards greed, investor appetite for memecoins may show few signs of abating for now.
