Original Title: Memecoin Market Map - a $120B Asset Class
Author: Eli Nuss
Translation: Scof, ChainCatcher
Over the past year, Memecoins have been the best-performing sector in the crypto market. Today, the total market capitalization of Memecoins has surpassed $100 billion, exceeding the combined total of DeFi, DePin, gaming, and the metaverse.
As the scale and diversity of this asset class continue to expand, we attempt to create a market map to identify opportunities within it.
We analyzed the best-performing Memecoins from each quarter this year, and the results confirmed our hypothesis—Memecoins dominated the market in every quarter. In the first quarter, $POPCAT, $WIF, $MOG, and $MYRO were the top performers;
In the second quarter, $PONKE, $SPX, $TURBO, $GIGA, $WOJAK, $BRETT, and $MOG stood out; in the third quarter, $SPX, $GIGA, $FUD, and $MUMU led the way.
When attempting to formulate a methodology for the Memecoin market, one thing is very clear: understanding the "meta" (cultural trends and movements) is crucial. While this is generally applicable in cryptocurrency, it is especially important for Memecoins, with an influence far greater than other categories. Below is an extended timeline aimed at highlighting some significant meta changes and emerging trends.
Until 2021, the Memecoin market was almost solely dominated by Doge. Then, Shiba Inu launched as the first true "Doge killer," and people naturally flocked to it, hoping to replicate Doge's success. This search for the "next XX" mentality is the root of forming the meta. The success of Shiba Inu spawned various Memecoins related to dogs and Elon Musk, making 2021 the first true Memecoin meta year. Then, in 2023, the launch of Pepe Coin drove a surge of Memecoins related to frogs and the "boys club," while the later launches of Bonk and Wif coins established Solana as the dominant chain for Memecoins, ultimately leading to pump.fun. In the first quarter of 2023, the Memecoin market erupted into widespread frenzy, with new metas emerging almost weekly, if not daily. After reaching a local peak in March, the market slowed slightly in the summer. As Bitcoin began to break out, market enthusiasm surged again, with new metas continuously emerging, including @truth_terminal's $GOAT, $MOODENG (the cute hippo coin), and $PEANUT.
Today, the Memecoin market has seen an overflow of metas, and we attempt to break down the market by different categories.
As you can see, Dogecoin remains the dominant sector in the Memecoin market, primarily driven by Doge. A few weeks ago, when we started compiling this data, the Sentient AI category was almost nonexistent, and the Martyr category also showed no significant performance (though we must respect the OG coin $Harambe). This is enough to demonstrate the rapid evolution of the Memecoin market.
Unsurprisingly, since the launch of Pepe Coin, Dogecoin's dominance has begun to gradually decline.
It seems this trend will continue, as new metas will keep emerging, and different sectors will be pushed to the forefront.
From the changes in market capitalization across categories, several interesting trends can be observed.
For instance, the Crypto Culture category of Memecoins (like $bitcoin) gained some attention in 2023, especially when relatively little new capital was entering the market at that time. However, with the influx of new capital towards the end of the year, the Crypto Culture category gradually gave way to broader internet culture (like $giga, $npc, etc.).
As mentioned earlier, the rapid rise of $GOAT and $PEANUT is also quite surprising. While it may still be too early to categorize them into new categories, it is clear that there are now many AI-related Memecoins whose market capitalizations have reached nine figures.
Additionally, earlier celebrity tokens and politically related Memecoins saw some growth, but most have gradually cooled off since then.
Over time, Memecoins could potentially become a fractal of the entire crypto market, with Dogecoin's status akin to that of Bitcoin (BTC). Some "cult coins" will have loyal community support and exist long-term; however, most Memecoins may be fleeting, much like NFTs in 2021.
Nevertheless, it is evident that there are significant opportunities for early entry into new metas.
I anticipate that the fastest-growing categories in the future will be internet culture and self-aware AI. Internet culture is widely recognized and has a rich cultural foundation, giving it a clear advantage over other categories. Self-aware AI combines the most exciting technology with the most volatile asset class, and they may continue to dominate the Memecoin market in the future.
As for the open market space, there will always be room for new animal types—many animals are currently lacking in the market, especially some exotic animals (like tigers, giraffes, zebras, etc.). As for entirely new Memecoin categories, existing fan cultures (like superheroes, sports, etc.) may be creatively tokenized.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
