Recently, an intriguing piece of news emerged when a netizen questioned Elon Musk about the significance of the U.S. government. Musk responded by saying that America was saved by a squirrel and MEME coins. Following this statement, the MEME coin inspired by the squirrel, PNUT, saw a 40% increase, pushing its market cap to $650 million.
But that’s not all — just a couple of days ago, an AI-themed MEME token skyrocketed 20 times in a single day after being listed on Binance, and even after its market cap retraced, it still stands at $570 million. When we include well-known MEME coins like Doge, SHIB, PEPE, and WIF, the total market cap of this entire sector has now reached $100 billion. This is an astonishing figure that many people might not fully grasp. To provide some perspective, I’ve compiled data from CoinMarketCap:
The total market cap of the AI sector is $35.9 billion.
The RWA (Real World Asset) sector totals $40 billion.
The GameFi sector has a total market cap of $25 billion.
The DeFi sector stands at $90.9 billion.
This means that the MEME sector is now the largest and most unique category outside of Bitcoin and public chains, making it essential to pay attention to.
Honestly, MEME coins seem to have inherited the legacy of the A-share market in China. Those who are involved in both markets might feel an uncanny similarity between them. At the end of last month, data from the A-share market showed that the CSI 500 Index was up 1.27%, the CSI 1000 Index rose by 1.79%, and the CSI 2000 Index increased by 2.97%. The smaller the market cap, the faster it tends to rise — even if their financial reports are poor — while larger projects continue to decline without regard for valuation or rationale.
However, this trend of not picking up has seemingly been broken. The market cap of MEME tokens is rising rapidly, and the consensus among investors is growing stronger. The temptation of “three people can create a tiger” and getting rich overnight is too strong, causing many long-term holders to become restless. This poses a significant issue because the methodologies in these two markets are not the same.
In essence, the MEME sector is fundamentally a high-risk gambling arena where small bets can lead to large rewards. It operates on “attention economics” and “market dynamics,” focusing on hype and liquidity in an extreme probability game.Currently, there are several categories within the MEME market:
High-traffic projects: These are projects closely associated with prominent figures like Trump and Musk — think Doge, PNUT, LUCE, etc.
Liquidity-enabled projects: These include tokens like NEIRO and ACT that gain liquidity from being listed on Binance.
Blue-chip MEMEs: Tokens like PEPE, ORDI, WIF, and SHIB have survived several cycles and emerged as winners.
Community stars: Many projects can reach hundreds of millions in market cap through early-stage investors successfully riding trends.
Once you categorize these tokens well enough, you can filter based on your needs.
The first category consists of large investors seeking stability within the MEME sector. Although the MEME market has reached a valuation of $100 billion and could potentially grow to $200 billion or $300 billion in the future, I maintain that different methodologies apply; however, there is a common underlying logic: polarization. The more successful and larger a project’s market cap becomes, the stronger its consensus will be.
For certainty, look at Doge — the Bitcoin of MEMEs — whose popularity remains high thanks to its strong community support. In contrast, Shib seems relatively weaker; it’s somewhat akin to comparing Ethereum to Bitcoin but worse off because Doge and Shib are too similar.
The second category includes small to medium-sized investors seeking leverage beyond stability.
Moreover, each wave of MEME hype typically results in two winners. In previous cycles, we had Doge and SHIB followed by PEPE and ORDI; this year’s breakout projects will likely also consist of two tokens with market caps between $3 billion and $6 billion.
If you want to find projects that can turn hundreds of millions into billions, you’ll need to look at Binance since it offers unmatched liquidity compared to other exchanges — there’s an exponential gap between them. This logic is purely probabilistic; for a token’s market cap to exceed billions, it must aggregate liquidity through Binance listings.
To achieve leverage beyond what Binance offers while still ensuring stability, consider lower-market-cap tokens like ACT and NEIRO — both of which I personally invested in.
The third category involves small to medium-sized investors seeking stability while also looking for leverage opportunities. At this stage, it’s challenging; you can only try your luck with projects aiming for tens or hundreds of millions on Binance.
If there isn’t a strong correlation with Binance listings for these projects, it becomes very difficult to succeed — judging community sentiment, chip distribution, hype levels, etc., are all crucial factors.
The three categories mentioned above provide a relatively clear path forward. As for projects starting with market caps in the hundreds of thousands or those that have already peaked at billions but lost momentum — there’s not much more to say about them. Projects with market caps in the hundreds of thousands can vanish with just a gust of wind; investing in 100 such projects might not yield even one success.
As for those old-school players trying to make a comeback — it’s all about survival of the fittest; you’re better off choosing Doge instead.
Lastly, don’t misinterpret my message. I’m not saying everyone should rush out and buy MEMEs or encouraging anyone to do so. It’s just that the MEME sector has surpassed $100 billion and has become a crucial piece in the crypto landscape — a genuinely existing alpha opportunity where excess returns are indeed generated.
As I’ve said before: The bull market is still ongoing; amidst countless potential opportunities that may arise, focus first on holding Bitcoin before considering anything else.
Just a final reminder: Bull markets can also experience significant volatility. Don’t let various noises lead you into FOMO; with such high greed levels right now and prices rising so quickly, corrections are entirely normal!