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The latest report from HTX Ventures, the investment division of the crypto exchange HTX, analyzes the widespread topic of memecoins.
This trend, which exploded from 2021 onwards, is evolving rapidly despite their limited usefulness on the technical level.
Today the landscape is completely different compared to that of 3 years ago, and sees meme coins rising as one of the dominant asset classes in the crypto sector.
Let’s see everything in detail below.
Summary
HTX exchange report: the spread of the memecoin phenomenon
HTX Ventures, the VC subsidiary of the HTX exchange, published today a new report that closely analyzes the phenomenon of memecoin.
The study, titled “2024 Meme Sector Analysis: From Viral Spread to Ecosystem Beachhead”, explains how the trend has evolved over time in the crypto industry.
Memecoins represent a type of cryptographic token that draw inspiration from the world of internet memes.
They are born with the veiled promise of making a specific ecosystem richer simply by encouraging users to purchase the cryptographic asset.
📢 HTX Ventures unveils the 2024 #Meme Sector Analysis: From Viral Spread to Ecosystem Beachhead🚀 #Memecoins has always been a popular crypto topic, but in 2024, some new trends have emerged to drive the meme coin craze to a new level.
— HTX Ventures (@Ventures_HTX) October 29, 2024
Dive In ⤵️:https://t.co/Ai9QB7R9vE
They are described in the HTX report as “similar to infectious diseases” because they can sometimes spread rapidly within a community.
They can “infect” a large number of users, especially when they encounter strong responses or emotional characteristics that are easy to imitate.
The same users are presented as “superdiffusori” of diseases, which push other people to become part of the inner circle. We can say that the community represents the vital characteristic element of memecoin, fundamental for their expansion.
Especially within social media like X and Tik Tok, there are increasingly more contents that aim to attract investments in certain memecoin.
We often find real (terrible) financial advice where users encourage not to miss out on market opportunities.
This model reflects the spread of infectious diseases in many aspects, namely based on close connections and interpersonal interactions.
Below is a graphic that shows the exponential growth rate of these speculative products.
Source: https://htxventures.medium.com/2024-meme-sector-analysis-from-viral-spread-to-ecosystem-beachhead-8e754a0106a0
Memecoin launchpad: the birth of the Pump.fun and SunPump platforms on Tron and Solana
As HTX recalls in the report, memecoin officially originated in 2013 with Dogecoin (DOGE), but only in 2021 did they gain strong media interest.
From that moment on, aided by the bull market of crypto that caused some meme coins to explode, their spread has been exponential.
The memecoin have earned a position of merit as a new disruptive asset class in alternative finance, popular especially among the new generations.
Over time, various blockchains have incentivized their developers to create platforms dedicated to the trading of these tokens to attract new liquidity from investments.
In particular, the emergence of services like Pump.fun on Solana and SunPump on Tron, has been a true turning point for the sector.
The first allowed the launch of about 7500 memecoin per day, ensuring revenues for the platform of 567,000 dollars per day.
The second recorded a similar success, with 6900 memecoin per day and 368,000 dollars of daily revenue.
These applications have simplified the process of creating and exchanging meme coins seamlesslyby integrating with a vast array of networks.
According to the experts of the exchange HTX, memecoin have become a decisive incentive for network traffic, capable of bringing attention to a community.
They are indeed able to facilitate the integration of liquidity by offering a boost to all other sectors such as DeFi, NFT, RWA, etc.
The role of memecoins and market trends according to the HTX exchange
According to the report from the HTX exchange, memecoins play a well-defined dual role.
First and foremost, they represent the perfect gateway for newcomers to enter the crypto space, as they are capable of generating significant profits.
Very often the retail public is attracted by the (remote) possibility of becoming rich quickly and with little invested capital.
The memecoin allow to live this dream, while hiding enormous risks with a wide history of failures behind.
Secondly, they are used by crypto projects to tap into funds and attract external liquidity. Every crypto ecosystem, from Ethereum to layer-2s and non-EVM chains, has its own supply of memecoins.
Some examples of meme coins that have achieved great success in this regard are FOXY by Linea, DEGEN by Base, and HIGH by Zora.
All 3 cryptocurrencies have grown significantly in the last year, driven by tokenomics “high float and low fdv”.
As rightly described in the HTX report, while the rest of the altcoin crypto are governed by low circulating supply and large investor unlocks, here the entire circulating supply is released at the TGE. Users potentially have the opportunity to get rich, although very difficult, precisely because they do not have to deal with Venture Capital companies.
The report predicts that participation in meme coins will continue for a long time, further affecting the crypto sector.
The experts of the exchange report the following verbatim:
“Meme coins are destined to grow rapidly, thanks to their small market capitalization recognition and low barriers to participation.”
The best memecoins by market capitalization and the opportunities in the next bull market cycle
The report from the HTX exchange analyzes the top memecoins by market capitalization and the upcoming trends of speculative frenzy.
In first place as the largest meme coin, we find Dogecoin, with over 24 billion dollars in market cap and a 13% market share.
Next, we see SHIB with almost 11 billion, PEPE with 4 billion, WIF with 2.6 billion, and POPCAT with 1.6 billion.
Conclude the list of coins with more than 1 billion in capitalization BONK, FLOKI, and BRETT.
Overall, the memecoin industry is worth 62.7 billion dollars, up 4X compared to last year.
POPCAT is the coin with the highest annual performance, especially given its recent bull breakout.
Unlike previous memecoin mania cycles, which lasted a few weeks, in the last year we have witnessed more enduring trends.
In fact, if before 2024 there were few isolated situations of strong speculation on this kind of currencies, now it seems there are more opportunities.
Tokens like PEPE, WIF, and BOME have experienced such violent price surges that they achieved immediate listing on a wide range of crypto exchanges.
Their success has driven a continuous voluminous production of memecoins across different ecosystems, highlighting the return of the frenzy.
For memecoins, it is already a bull market.
