Memecoins: Another Bull Cycle Bubble?

In every post-halving bull cycle, a new trend gets popularized and overrun in the crypto market. In the 2017 bull cycle, the initial coin offering(ICO) trend was popularized; during the 2020-21 bull cycle, NFTs emerged as the key trend, and in 2024, memecoins became the leading trend.

Crypto Exchanges Fuel Meme Fest

Memecoins have become a growing theme in the crypto market during this bull cycle. This is evidenced by several crypto memecoins being created and listed by crypto exchanges.

Of the tens of thousands of memecoins created this bull cycle, nearly a dozen have found mainstream crypto exchange listings.

The memecoin frenzy is evident from the fact that mainstream crypto exchanges like Binance and Coinbase have listed several meme tokens in this bull cycle.

The meme coin frenzy peaked in April, when meme coins, barely an old week, achieved a billion-dollar market capitalization and exchange listings.

The trend also gave rise to many racist meme tokens, gory content, and several extreme versions of the people trying to pump their tokens. The scams and pump-and-dump schemers have been constant.

The frenzy reached a point where the United Kingdom banned platforms such as Pump.fun, which allows anyone to create memecoins anonymously.

Memecoins Another Bull Cycle Bubble?

In every post-halving bull cycle, a new trend gets popularized and overrun in the crypto market. In the 2017 bull cycle, the initial coin offering(ICO) trend was popularized; during the 2020-21 bull cycle, NFTs emerged as the key trend, and in 2024, memecoins became the leading trend.

However, each popular trend often becomes a bull cycle bubble as most projects fail to achieve the projected target. According to data, 90% of the ICOs were scams .

Similarly, most NFT projects failed to offer the promised returns, and their value fell over 90% in the bear market. A similar trend is being seen with memecoins as well, where many call it pure gambling.

Memecoins had come a long way from their Dogecoin era when they were primarily seen as a cultural thing rather than an investment. The 2021 bull cycle turned these meme tokens into an investment class, with Dogecoin and Shiba Inu making the top 10 by market capitalization.

In 2024, these memecoins have become a pure form of gambling where users buy or create new memecoins to get rich quickly.