The main memecoins are down an average of 63% despite the market frustration

The memecoin market in 2018 2024 saw explosive growth, but its biggest players — including Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Pepe (PEPE) and Dogwifhat (WIF) — are struggling to hold prices anywhere near their annual highs.

It's not just the top memecoins that are faltering. Several industry insiders told Cointelegraph that the current wave of tokens is having a major impact on the industry, with one saying that memecoins “have lost life from this bull run.”

Data released by Lookonchain on September 2nd showed how tough the market is for the memecoins bundle, which has fallen by an average of 63%.

Crypto giants are facing a market where the rules of the game have changed.

Secure startup services like Pump.fun and BaseJump have made it easier than ever to launch new coins, removing the technical and financial barriers that previously limited the market. The result is a booming memecoin sector.

Elias Salvatore, the development lead for token analytics tool Floss, is one of those cases to focus on, a fast-moving market that's particularly interesting to some traders.

“I think money flows where the focus is,” Salvatore told Cointelegraph. “Pump.fun and Solana have been the craze of the moment for new gems, but that also caters to a certain type of spoiled marketer. […] It's completely different from trading an established meme like Pepe on major centralized exchanges. Capital always fluctuates, but it also depends on your business style and appetite.

Carlos Mercado, a data scientist at blockchain analysis firm Flipside Crypto, said this new market promotes a different short-term mindset than the current memecoin market.

“We see evidence of rotation — for most commemoratives there are already high numbers and traders are referring to recently launched coins,” Mercado told Cointelegraph.

He added that most secure launch tokens only last 24 hours, while only 1% of successful coins last two to six days.

Memecoin numbers will grow, but at what cost?

There will always be new memecoins for the djinns who play the game, thousands of tokens are generated every day. On Pamp.fun alone, more than 1.98 million tokens have been launched since March.

Existing coins face heightened competition with many potential entrants vying for user attention and investment.

A snapshot of the tokens launched on Pump.fun on September 11 shows that only 1.3% have “graduated”, that is, they have reached the market value of $69,000, at which point they can be sold on the decentralized exchange Raydium.

But it looks like users are losing out as winning signals get buried in a flurry of losers. In August, Cointelegraph reported that a $100 bet on Pump.fun has a higher chance of success than a spin on the roulette wheel at the casino.

Latest: Bitcoin ETF Security Concerns Raised After FBI Warns About North Korean Hackers

The long odds of picking a winner have prompted even experienced memecoin traders to call the current memecoin market a “slaughterhouse”.

On August 30, the cumulative revenue on Pamp.fun exceeded $100 million. So far this month, the company has raised a total of $4 million.

Memecoins pose liquidity risk

Some industry figures are concerned about the memecoin market and its wider impact on other crypto markets. They're watching, memes are threatening to suck the life out of the current bull run.

Ivan Lutra, creator of the invincible token housing project CasaNFT, is among those upset by the rise of meme tokens and its wider implications.

“Memecoins is definitely taking all the attention, and where our attention goes, that's where our energy goes,” Lutra told Cointelegraph. “Memecoins are definitely mostly pump and dump, and don't create any value.”

Slava Demchuk, CEO of compliance and blockchain forensics firm AMLBot, sees evidence to support this theory.

“Memecoins may have already sucked the life out of this bull run, and now the money is being diverted to carpetbaggers and pump-and-dump schemes. That is why there is no liquidity in the altcoin market,” Demchuk told Cointelegraph.

According to Flipside Crypto Mercado, “Memecoins, especially popular coins without a dedicated community management team; […] put out. The value flows to the deployers, who then liquidate through centralized exchanges.

And Josh Benaron, founder and CEO of layer-1 programmatic data blockchain Irys, believes that the current memecoin market is growing too big, too fast, eventually becoming self-defeating. He told Cointelegraph.

There is not enough demand to keep creating more new coins on Pamp.fun.

Both older memecoins and the current crop similarly have “little capital left,” Benneron said.

The data may tend to support Benneron's thesis. On September 8, daily earnings on Pamp.fun dropped to $262,000, the lowest level since May, though it has since rebounded to more than $400,000.

A better plan

Lutera believes that blockchain players must focus on what drives long-term value for sustainable success.

“Degans should be concerned about RWAs and AI because this is sustainable in the long term,” he said.

Benaron believes the obsession with memecoins is harmful, but pleading with traders to mend their ways is bound to pay off.

“Memecoins are a double-edged sword,” Benaron said. “On the one hand, they remove the liquidity from real technology projects – the attention-grabbing capital that can drive innovation. On the other hand, most money is ‘merchant' – capital that chases quick profits and moves forward.

More options, more chains

The success of Pump.fun (built on Solana) and BaseJump (built on Base) has led to the creation of similar services on other chains, which has not yet ended the trend of safe startups.

Ethereum safe-start platform EterVista made headlines earlier this month when a trader turned an initial $5,000 investment into $670,000.

In the year On August 13, the Tron-based SunPump security startup was announced, and launched over 80,000 tokens. The platform peaked on August 21st, launching with 7,531 tokens, generating $465,000 in payouts.

But SunPump's activity and payouts dropped sharply in August and early September, mirroring a similar downward trend at Pump.fun.

A spokesperson for memecoin Eth Bull (EBULL) told Cointelegraph, “The dip in the top 10 memecoins may indicate that the initial boom is slowing down,” but added, “It's still too early to call this the end of memecoin mania, though – things can change quickly in crypto.”

Latest: Congressional elections critical to the future of crypto in the US

According to Danila Pronin, Chief Business Development Officer of Tron-based memecoin IVFUN (IVFUN), it is impossible to answer precisely whether this market level has been exceeded or exceeded.

“Somewhere it's fading, and somewhere it's getting stronger,” Pronin told Cointelegraph. “And in general, it will not disappear forever. Memories were, are and will be. People love this part of crypto assets and always return to it.