The summer of Meme coins is being declared over.

From the collapse of the Trump family's $TRUMP to the exposure of the $Libra scam endorsed by the Argentine president, Solana, which viewed Memes as the core driving force of on-chain transactions, has seen its transaction volume halved and a 70% reduction in the number of new coins issued daily. The top Meme coins have fallen by over 70% since the beginning of the year... These signs indicate that the nearly $60 billion Meme bubble is beginning to crack.

Investors such as Bitwise's Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan, Dragonfly's Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi, and Castle Island Ventures' Partner Nic Carter have recently expressed bearish views on the future of Memes.

"I still can't just lie back and do nothing," Philo told ChainCatcher in an interview. Philo, who calls himself a "P-Youth," recently claimed to have cashed out successfully by liquidating all his Meme assets. However, instead of taking a break, he decided to pivot. Philo told ChainCatcher that he plans to start a business building a platform to short Meme coins.

This decision signifies Philo's departure from being a P-Youth, a transition that is just one of many among P-Youths facing the sudden cooling of the Meme coin market.

Meme Coins Face a Waterloo as P-Youths Reach a Crossroads

According to Google Trends, the global search interest for "Meme coin" peaked in January and then plummeted by nearly 60% by the end of February. Data from CoinGecko shows that over the past seven days, the Meme sector has been among the worst-performing Top 10 assets in the entire crypto market. Well-known Memes like TRUMP and MELANIA have fallen by over 70% since the beginning of the year, and even blue-chip Meme coins like DOGE and SHIB have recorded negative returns.

The secondary market for Memes is performing poorly, and on-chain activity is also sluggish. Dune Analytics shows that the daily trading volume on the Meme coin issuance platform, pump.fun, has dropped from $390 million on January 24 to $134 million in February, a decline of 64.83%. The number of newly issued tokens has also fallen from 61,800 per day to less than 30,000, a reduction of over 50%.

Faced with the receding tide of Memes, Bitwise's Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan publicly stated, "Over the past year, Meme coins have been the hottest sector in crypto outside of Bitcoin. Removing Meme activity from the crypto ecosystem will have an impact, and that's what you're seeing today."

Philo was one of the P-Youths who got rich in the recent Meme coin boom. Choosing to exit at this point, his decision is hard to imagine for many. The young man, who seized the Meme opportunity, is still a senior in college. Obsessed with studying crypto, he "voluntarily" gave up his studies and recently received a notice of expulsion.

"I was mostly not on campus, so I received the expulsion notice. I went to college to eventually find a job, but my experience tells me that it's easier to make money in the Crypto world—you might earn in a year what many people earn in decades or even a lifetime," Philo told ChainCatcher.

Philo's experience is dramatic. As a civil engineering student, he taught himself programming out of interest. In fact, during the past few cycles, Philo admitted that he seized opportunities in DeFi and NFTs. He was most satisfied with making money using his GitHub account, which made him realize "it's a cost-free but highly profitable thing." Thus, he delved deeper into programming and crypto, even winning a few hackathon awards.

However, the goldmine he struck in the Meme coin wave made him feel it was time to take a break.

Why did he choose to leave the P-Youth identity at this point? Philo said it was his intuition. "I have investment and entrepreneurial experience. My experience tells me that in both investment and entrepreneurship, it's not just about technology and vision; luck plays a significant role."

Leaving the P-Youth identity brought Philo some peace for a while, with increased comfort, happiness, and security. But after less than half a month of rest, he couldn't stay still. He turned his attention to entrepreneurship, stating that he is developing two projects: one is a Bitcoin stablecoin, and the other is a platform to short Meme coins. "I think shorting Meme coins is an opportunity. There are many platforms in the market that help Meme bulls make money, but there's a lack of opportunities for bears to profit. For me, entrepreneurship is more about doing what I want and having a positive impact on the industry, rather than just profit. Even if I lose in entrepreneurship, it's a way of giving back to the market."

Some P-Youths chose to leave at this point, while others decided to stay and upgrade to "P-Marshals." Meme coin influencer @YuYue told ChainCatcher in an interview that her life hasn't changed much. "But I will focus more on life, exploring new projects, and making friends. In the future market, I will continue to actively follow the Meme track and various emerging on-chain Alphas. This type of asset issuance has transcended the cultural concept of Meme, so I remain very optimistic about future on-chain assets and the continued opportunities for on-chain Memes. I will just wait for the right moment to act."

The Davis Double-Whammy Crisis: Bursting Bubbles and the Solana Sell-Off

P-Youths stand at a crossroads, making different choices based on their judgment of the future market.

Despite data showing that Meme coins are cooling down, YuYue doesn't believe the Meme track's story is over.

"I think this change is a natural phenomenon, but it doesn't mean it's 'receding' or that the track is over. In fact, the Meme craze has lasted for over a year, starting from last year's WIF and BOME Memes. This cycle and vitality have far exceeded all other sub-tracks, so it's normal for the Meme track to enter a low emotional valley," she said in the interview.

For a while, the popularity of Meme coins relied heavily on celebrity coins. These coins often have a fan base and stronger topicality, making them easier to go viral. However, the same factor that propelled them to fame also led to their downfall. The collapse of the Trump family's TRUMP and the Libra scam accelerated the market's loss of confidence in Meme coins.

Treeverse founder Loopify publicly stated, "Meme coins are like NFTs in the last bull market; once the tide recedes, only bubbles remain." Take the TRUMP token, for example. Its market value once soared to $70 billion, but after the truth about its lack of practical use cases was exposed, its price quickly dropped to zero.

In this wave of celebrity Meme coins, Memes seem to have lost their original purpose. Initially, retail investors were enthusiastic about Memes to counter VC coins, but today, retail investors have become the ones who suffer.

Dragonfly's Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi said in a recent podcast, "People seem to realize the nature of Meme promoters and how these large-scale Meme coin issuances are disadvantageous to retail investors... There is skepticism about how Meme coins operate, and it's becoming uncertain whether retail investors can continue to participate in this so-called 'casino.'"

A leader of a Meme coin research community told ChainCatcher, "New retail investors have basically been wiped out."

In addition to the bursting of Meme bubbles, the market is gradually shifting towards more conservative asset classes, putting Meme coins in a situation akin to a "Davis Double-Whammy." Since January 2025, Bitcoin ETFs have seen a net inflow of $43 billion, while Solana, the main battleground for Memes, has experienced an outflow of over $12 billion. Moreover, on March 1, Solana faced the解锁 pressure of 11.2 million SOL tokens. These tokens, sold at a low price to institutions as part of the FTX bankruptcy liquidation assets, cost only 30-40% of the market price. The market worries that the unlocking will trigger a sell-off, and the decline in Solana's price will further drag down the prices of many Meme coins that use it as their main battleground.

However, YuYue pointed out to ChainCatcher, "In fact, other tracks in the broader environment, including the ecosystems of various public chains and DeFi, are not so optimistic either. The core reason for the market downturn is liquidity, which is a problem faced by all tracks and ecosystems in the crypto world."

The Second Half for Meme Players: Either Pivot or Persevere

Where should Meme players go in the second half?

On February 19, during Consensus HK, a roundtable discussion on "The Evolution of Memes and P-Youths" was held at the "Trends and Rhythms of the Web3 New Cycle" event hosted by RootData and ChainCatcher. Participants included Kyle, partner of Cooking.city and co-founder of EVG, 0xbing from Paper Venture, crypto influencer YuYue, Vand Ni, founder of Asian on chain, and Leo Li, Web3 product manager at OKX. They discussed the future of Memes.

A consensus was reached that the second half of the Meme game will be a more intense and challenging PVP battlefield. YuYue believes that Memes may have a longer lifespan than most narratives and will force the market to rethink valuation systems. The second half will be a more brutal PVP battlefield, and everyone needs to find their own positioning. Leo Li suggested reducing trading frequency, as high-frequency PVP is too challenging for many ordinary players.

Memes have also given rise to other innovative plays. For example, Time.fun tokenizes "time," Monsters.fun integrates AI agents with game economies, and Nad.fun introduces anti-MEV mechanisms and social airdrops, all joining the exploration of Meme 2.0.

However, like other once-glorious narratives in the market, DeFi Summer did not lead to DeFi 2.0, and the winter of the inscription market did not welcome Inscription 2.0. The new narratives captured by the market may emerge elsewhere.

On-chain activities are not limited to Memes and celebrity coins. According to Dune data, since the beginning of the year, Derivatives, FriendTech, and RWA have begun to outperform the market.

Behind these three narratives lies the rhythm of institutional capital inflows.

Among them, RWA, as a trillion-dollar track under the wave of compliance, has already attracted large institutions to participate in the past year. DefiLlama data shows that the TVL (Total Value Locked) of the RWA sector exceeded $80 billion in Q1 2025, a year-on-year increase of 300%. Traditional institutions such as BlackRock and Fidelity have entered the market, and the stablecoin bill being advanced by the U.S. Congress will further promote the compliance process.

The DeFi market began to show signs of recovery at the beginning of this year. According to a report by Messari, although the trading volume and TVL of the DeFi market decreased in 2024, liquidity remained strong at the beginning of 2025, showing the market's resilience. For example, Plume Network attracted over $4.5 billion in asset commitments before its launch, with a TVL of $64 million; Uniswap V3 continued to lead the DEX market in early 2025, with a market share of over 40%; and the TVL of lending platforms such as Aave and Compound also rebounded at the beginning of 2025, especially Aave's expansion on Polygon, which increased its TVL from $6 billion to $12 billion.

Notably, Coinbase's BTC-backed loan product has attracted more mainstream users into the DeFi space. Additionally, the integration of RWA is seen as an important growth point for the DeFi market, such as Tradable's cooperation with ZKsync to bring $1.7 billion in credit assets on-chain.

The summer of Meme coins is being declared over.

From the collapse of the Trump family's $TRUMP to the exposure of the $Libra scam endorsed by the Argentine president, Solana, which viewed Memes as the core driving force of on-chain transactions, has seen its transaction volume halved and a 70% reduction in the number of new coins issued daily. The top Meme coins have fallen by over 70% since the beginning of the year... These signs indicate that the nearly $60 billion Meme bubble is beginning to crack.

Investors such as Bitwise's Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan, Dragonfly's Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi, and Castle Island Ventures' Partner Nic Carter have recently expressed bearish views on the future of Memes.

"I still can't just lie back and do nothing," Philo told ChainCatcher in an interview. Philo, who calls himself a "P-Youth," recently claimed to have cashed out successfully by liquidating all his Meme assets. However, instead of taking a break, he decided to pivot. Philo told ChainCatcher that he plans to start a business building a platform to short Meme coins.

This decision signifies Philo's departure from being a P-Youth, a transition that is just one of many among P-Youths facing the sudden cooling of the Meme coin market.

Meme Coins Face a Waterloo as P-Youths Reach a Crossroads

According to Google Trends, the global search interest for "Meme coin" peaked in January and then plummeted by nearly 60% by the end of February. Data from CoinGecko shows that over the past seven days, the Meme sector has been among the worst-performing Top 10 assets in the entire crypto market. Well-known Memes like TRUMP and MELANIA have fallen by over 70% since the beginning of the year, and even blue-chip Meme coins like DOGE and SHIB have recorded negative returns.

The secondary market for Memes is performing poorly, and on-chain activity is also sluggish. Dune Analytics shows that the daily trading volume on the Meme coin issuance platform, pump.fun, has dropped from $390 million on January 24 to $134 million in February, a decline of 64.83%. The number of newly issued tokens has also fallen from 61,800 per day to less than 30,000, a reduction of over 50%.

Faced with the receding tide of Memes, Bitwise's Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan publicly stated, "Over the past year, Meme coins have been the hottest sector in crypto outside of Bitcoin. Removing Meme activity from the crypto ecosystem will have an impact, and that's what you're seeing today."

Philo was one of the P-Youths who got rich in the recent Meme coin boom. Choosing to exit at this point, his decision is hard to imagine for many. The young man, who seized the Meme opportunity, is still a senior in college. Obsessed with studying crypto, he "voluntarily" gave up his studies and recently received a notice of expulsion.

"I was mostly not on campus, so I received the expulsion notice. I went to college to eventually find a job, but my experience tells me that it's easier to make money in the Crypto world—you might earn in a year what many people earn in decades or even a lifetime," Philo told ChainCatcher.

Philo's experience is dramatic. As a civil engineering student, he taught himself programming out of interest. In fact, during the past few cycles, Philo admitted that he seized opportunities in DeFi and NFTs. He was most satisfied with making money using his GitHub account, which made him realize "it's a cost-free but highly profitable thing." Thus, he delved deeper into programming and crypto, even winning a few hackathon awards.

However, the goldmine he struck in the Meme coin wave made him feel it was time to take a break.

Why did he choose to leave the P-Youth identity at this point? Philo said it was his intuition. "I have investment and entrepreneurial experience. My experience tells me that in both investment and entrepreneurship, it's not just about technology and vision; luck plays a significant role."

Leaving the P-Youth identity brought Philo some peace for a while, with increased comfort, happiness, and security. But after less than half a month of rest, he couldn't stay still. He turned his attention to entrepreneurship, stating that he is developing two projects: one is a Bitcoin stablecoin, and the other is a platform to short Meme coins. "I think shorting Meme coins is an opportunity. There are many platforms in the market that help Meme bulls make money, but there's a lack of opportunities for bears to profit. For me, entrepreneurship is more about doing what I want and having a positive impact on the industry, rather than just profit. Even if I lose in entrepreneurship, it's a way of giving back to the market."

Some P-Youths chose to leave at this point, while others decided to stay and upgrade to "P-Marshals." Meme coin influencer @YuYue told ChainCatcher in an interview that her life hasn't changed much. "But I will focus more on life, exploring new projects, and making friends. In the future market, I will continue to actively follow the Meme track and various emerging on-chain Alphas. This type of asset issuance has transcended the cultural concept of Meme, so I remain very optimistic about future on-chain assets and the continued opportunities for on-chain Memes. I will just wait for the right moment to act."

The Davis Double-Whammy Crisis: Bursting Bubbles and the Solana Sell-Off

P-Youths stand at a crossroads, making different choices based on their judgment of the future market.

Despite data showing that Meme coins are cooling down, YuYue doesn't believe the Meme track's story is over.

"I think this change is a natural phenomenon, but it doesn't mean it's 'receding' or that the track is over. In fact, the Meme craze has lasted for over a year, starting from last year's WIF and BOME Memes. This cycle and vitality have far exceeded all other sub-tracks, so it's normal for the Meme track to enter a low emotional valley," she said in the interview.

For a while, the popularity of Meme coins relied heavily on celebrity coins. These coins often have a fan base and stronger topicality, making them easier to go viral. However, the same factor that propelled them to fame also led to their downfall. The collapse of the Trump family's TRUMP and the Libra scam accelerated the market's loss of confidence in Meme coins.

Treeverse founder Loopify publicly stated, "Meme coins are like NFTs in the last bull market; once the tide recedes, only bubbles remain." Take the TRUMP token, for example. Its market value once soared to $70 billion, but after the truth about its lack of practical use cases was exposed, its price quickly dropped to zero.

In this wave of celebrity Meme coins, Memes seem to have lost their original purpose. Initially, retail investors were enthusiastic about Memes to counter VC coins, but today, retail investors have become the ones who suffer.

Dragonfly's Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi said in a recent podcast, "People seem to realize the nature of Meme promoters and how these large-scale Meme coin issuances are disadvantageous to retail investors... There is skepticism about how Meme coins operate, and it's becoming uncertain whether retail investors can continue to participate in this so-called 'casino.'"

A leader of a Meme coin research community told ChainCatcher, "New retail investors have basically been wiped out."

In addition to the bursting of Meme bubbles, the market is gradually shifting towards more conservative asset classes, putting Meme coins in a situation akin to a "Davis Double-Whammy." Since January 2025, Bitcoin ETFs have seen a net inflow of $43 billion, while Solana, the main battleground for Memes, has experienced an outflow of over $12 billion. Moreover, on March 1, Solana faced the解锁 pressure of 11.2 million SOL tokens. These tokens, sold at a low price to institutions as part of the FTX bankruptcy liquidation assets, cost only 30-40% of the market price. The market worries that the unlocking will trigger a sell-off, and the decline in Solana's price will further drag down the prices of many Meme coins that use it as their main battleground.

However, YuYue pointed out to ChainCatcher, "In fact, other tracks in the broader environment, including the ecosystems of various public chains and DeFi, are not so optimistic either. The core reason for the market downturn is liquidity, which is a problem faced by all tracks and ecosystems in the crypto world."

The Second Half for Meme Players: Either Pivot or Persevere

Where should Meme players go in the second half?

On February 19, during Consensus HK, a roundtable discussion on "The Evolution of Memes and P-Youths" was held at the "Trends and Rhythms of the Web3 New Cycle" event hosted by RootData and ChainCatcher. Participants included Kyle, partner of Cooking.city and co-founder of EVG, 0xbing from Paper Venture, crypto influencer YuYue, Vand Ni, founder of Asian on chain, and Leo Li, Web3 product manager at OKX. They discussed the future of Memes.

A consensus was reached that the second half of the Meme game will be a more intense and challenging PVP battlefield. YuYue believes that Memes may have a longer lifespan than most narratives and will force the market to rethink valuation systems. The second half will be a more brutal PVP battlefield, and everyone needs to find their own positioning. Leo Li suggested reducing trading frequency, as high-frequency PVP is too challenging for many ordinary players.

Memes have also given rise to other innovative plays. For example, Time.fun tokenizes "time," Monsters.fun integrates AI agents with game economies, and Nad.fun introduces anti-MEV mechanisms and social airdrops, all joining the exploration of Meme 2.0.

However, like other once-glorious narratives in the market, DeFi Summer did not lead to DeFi 2.0, and the winter of the inscription market did not welcome Inscription 2.0. The new narratives captured by the market may emerge elsewhere.

On-chain activities are not limited to Memes and celebrity coins. According to Dune data, since the beginning of the year, Derivatives, FriendTech, and RWA have begun to outperform the market.

Behind these three narratives lies the rhythm of institutional capital inflows.

Among them, RWA, as a trillion-dollar track under the wave of compliance, has already attracted large institutions to participate in the past year. DefiLlama data shows that the TVL (Total Value Locked) of the RWA sector exceeded $80 billion in Q1 2025, a year-on-year increase of 300%. Traditional institutions such as BlackRock and Fidelity have entered the market, and the stablecoin bill being advanced by the U.S. Congress will further promote the compliance process.

The DeFi market began to show signs of recovery at the beginning of this year. According to a report by Messari, although the trading volume and TVL of the DeFi market decreased in 2024, liquidity remained strong at the beginning of 2025, showing the market's resilience. For example, Plume Network attracted over $4.5 billion in asset commitments before its launch, with a TVL of $64 million; Uniswap V3 continued to lead the DEX market in early 2025, with a market share of over 40%; and the TVL of lending platforms such as Aave and Compound also rebounded at the beginning of 2025, especially Aave's expansion on Polygon, which increased its TVL from $6 billion to $12 billion.

Notably, Coinbase's BTC-backed loan product has attracted more mainstream users into the DeFi space. Additionally, the integration of RWA is seen as an important growth point for the DeFi market, such as Tradable's cooperation with ZKsync to bring $1.7 billion in credit assets on-chain.