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Memecoins in 2025: A Painful Reality Check
Looking at memecoins performance, one thing is obvious: 2025 has been brutal for memecoins.
- Dogecoin ($DOGE) is down roughly −65% year to date, sliding from the $0.35–$0.40 zone to around $0.13.
- Shiba Inu ($SHIB) has lost close to −70%, grinding steadily lower with no sustained relief rallies.
- $PEPE is the worst performer, collapsing by more than −80%, erasing nearly all speculative gains from its hype phase.
The price action across all three looks similar:
lower highs, weak bounces, declining volume, and fading retail interest. From a purely technical perspective, this is distribution, not accumulation.
It’s no surprise many traders are asking the uncomfortable question: are memecoins dead?
Bitcoin Lost Too — But the Difference Is Massive
Now compare that with $Bitcoin.
Bitcoin chart in USD over the past year - TradingView
$BTC also corrected in 2025, dropping from above $120,000 to roughly $89,000. That’s a loss of around −25% from the highs.
But here’s the key difference:
- Bitcoin held its macro structure
- Bitcoin found buyers on dips
- Bitcoin did not collapse into a year long downtrend
While memecoins bled relentlessly, Bitcoin stayed within a broad consolidation range. Institutions rotated out of risk, but they didn’t abandon Bitcoin.
That divergence matters.
Why Memecoins Always Look “Dead” Mid Cycle
This isn’t new behavior. In fact, it’s classic cycle psychology.
Memecoins tend to:
- Underperform during uncertainty
- Get abandoned during risk off phases
- Look completely “dead” before bull runs resume
Historically, memecoins do not lead bull markets. They lag. Capital flows first into Bitcoin, then Ethereum, then large caps, and only later into high risk narratives like memecoins.
By the time memecoins start moving, sentiment has already flipped.
The Bull Run Effect: When Memecoins Explode
Here’s the part many forget.
During true bull runs, memecoins often:
- Outperform Bitcoin by multiples
- Attract massive retail liquidity
- Go vertical in very short timeframes
DOGE in 2021.
SHIB in 2021.
PEPE in 2023.
None of those rallies started when charts looked healthy. They started when interest was gone, volume was dead, and price action looked hopeless.
That’s exactly what the 2025 charts resemble right now.
So… Are SHIB, PEPE, and DOGE Really Dead?
- From a short term trading perspective: Memecoins look weak. Very weak.
- From a cycle perspective: They look exactly how memecoins always look before the next liquidity wave.
Bitcoin losing 25% while memecoins lose 70–80% isn’t a death sentence—it’s a reminder of how risk behaves in crypto.
Memecoins don’t die quietly.
They disappear… and then suddenly return when nobody expects it.