The meme coin wave is stronger than ever

Although Bitcoin’s (BTC) rally has stalled, the meme wave remains unstoppable.

According to anonymous analyst Crypto Coryo, the data tracking website CoinMarketCap listed a record number of memes in April this year, reaching 138, a parabolic increase from just 18 in April last year. Crypto Coryo said on the X platform that the actual number may be higher, as CoinMarketCap reportedly only lists 10% of all tokens.

As of press time, the number of memes listed on CoinMarketCap has reached 2,229, with a total market value of more than $50 billion, almost comparable to the market value of investment banking giant JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and American electric car manufacturer Tesla (TSLA).

This is an impressive achievement, as memes are often criticized for lacking practicality or real use cases, being considered synonymous with pure speculation.

“Fundamentally, people participate in meme transactions because (i) they are likely to go up in value, (ii) they appear democratic and open for anyone to participate, and (iii) they are fun,” Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, the birthplace of some of today’s hottest memes, wrote in a blog post.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX and chief investment officer of Maelstrom, is more inclined to see memes as drivers of growth in the blockchain ecosystem and advocates for a deeper understanding of them.

“You can write these things off as silly and worthless, but if they attract more attention and engineers into the space, then they’re a positive value for blockchain itself,” Hayes said in a March 30 interview with Real Vision.

Solana, a programmable blockchain that is cheaper and faster than Ethereum, has become the new home for these tokens since the end of last year. During the first quarter, the meme craze led to a record high in Solana network activity, pushing the price of SOL above $200 for the first time since November 2021.

“DeFi activity has (partially) moved away from Ethereum due to high gas fees. We saw this with Bonk on Solana and Bald on Base. But now Solana has become the home of the meme,” Crypto Coryo noted.

Bucks Chasing PEPE

Bitcoin’s recent lackluster price action has seen speculators flock to popular meme token pepe (PEPE), which has gained nearly 17% in seven days, becoming the ninth-best performing cryptocurrency on CoinMarketCap’s list.

Additionally, PEPE has the second-highest ratio of total open interest (OI) to market value for perpetual swaps, behind only another meme, Dogifwhat (WIF), according to data tracked by Paris-based Kaiko.

“Pepe (PEPE) and Dogwifhat (WIF) have ratios twice as high as other altcoins,” Kaiko said in its weekly report. “Higher ratios indicate that the derivatives market positioning of assets is larger compared to market capitalization, which makes the price discovery of these tokens more concentrated in the perpetual swap contract market.”

Total open interest refers to the dollar value locked in the number of active or open futures contracts.