Memecoin captured an 11% share of the cryptocurrency market in 2024, reaching a value of USD 127.6 billion, amid widespread sector growth. The influence of memecoins is unusually strong in the early stages of a bullish cycle, and continues to be influential even as Bitcoin strengthens. Mogcoin and GmeStop soared 46% and 55%, respectively, due in part to influencer activity. Dogecoin remains a major player, holding the 7th place in market capitalization, and although it has seen significant gains, it is still below its peak price.
The 2024 Meme Coin Boom is dominating the crypto sector, and without the approval of Spot Bitcoin and Ethereum Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), the 2024 report would not have been as noteworthy.
Related: Ethereum ETF surges on steady inflows, a sign of market improvement
Well, that's an exaggeration, but a lot has happened and is still happening. The surge in DeFi usage led to increased adoption of cryptocurrencies, Gensler was quickly eclipsed, tokenization began, President Trump boosted the market, and Bitcoin surpassed $100,000. Sure, a lot has happened, but meme coins have always been around. .
Meme coins seem to have value after all
And interestingly, according to CoinMarketCap, meme coins have captured a total market share of 11% with a total of US$127.6 billion (A$198.6 billion). The market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies currently stands at US$3.6 trillion (A$5.6 trillion).
If you take Ethereum and Bitcoin out of the equation, which are probably in a league of their own, this equates to 10.7% of the altcoin market cap, but even if you add BTC and ETH to the total cap, you still get an additional 3. %.
CEX.IO's vice president of product management, Alexander Keliya, told CoinDesk that such high numbers and market share are unusual, especially at the beginning of a bull market. Ta.
In previous cycles, memecoins typically experienced their greatest capital turnover towards the end of a post-halving bull market. However, this cycle stands out because the significant rise in memecoin influence occurred well before the halving and persisted during Bitcoin's mid-year consolidation period.
Alexandr Kerya, CEX.IO
And while memecoins have no fundamental value, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko believes they do have a purpose. Solana has had outage issues in the past, but the surge in memecoin activity on the Solana platform appears to mean it has become a veteran network.
Yakovenko made the following comments at the Emergence conference in Prague:
Similar to NFTs, we are blessed to be able to solve many engineering problems with meme coins. The network and all systems will only become more robust.
Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana
Is DOGE good for DOGE?
Despite Bitcoin slowdown after reaching USD 100,000 milestone, memecoin sector enjoys big gains, with Mogcoin (MOG) and GmeStop (GME) up 46% and 55% respectively I did.
The rise in GME seems to be partly due to Keith Gill, also known as Roaring Kitty, posting for the first time in three months.
RELATED: US lawmaker's $30,000 investment in ski mask dog causes meme coin rally
Meanwhile, Dogecoin (DOGE), the granddaddy of all meme coins, sits a distant seventh in the market capitalization rankings with US$63.9 billion (A$99.4 billion).
DOGE is up 5% in the past 24 hours and is up 351% this year. However, at US$0.43 (AU$0.66), Dogecoin is still some way from reaching its all-time high of US$0.73 (AU$1.13), set in May 2021.
It remains to be seen whether Elon Musk's DOGE efficiency arm can effectively clean up U.S. government operations, and how much the original meme coin can benefit from future attention.
