Memecoins experience volatility amid market fluctuations, rebounding after initial crash.
TL;DR
- Memecoins, the riskiest crypto asset class, tanked the hardest on TradFi’s "Black Monday” crash, but bounced by 30% later the week
- Crypto markets rebounded by Thursday, with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana recovering.
- Solana-based memecoins outperformed those on other chains, surging over 30% in 24 hours.
- The crash was caused by BOJ interest rate hikes, poor U.S. job data, and Jump Trading selling large amounts of ETH.
- Analysis shows 98.6% of Pump[DOT]Fun memecoins fail before launch
- A fake Trump-related memecoin (RTR) pumped to a $155 million market cap this week before crashing 95%.
The long Memecoin Bacchanalia 2024 came to an abrupt halt this week, as the brutal “Black Monday” TradFi market crash swept through all financial sectors, crypto included, like the huge tsunami in that end-of-the-world movie.
The beachgoers walking towards and pointing at the Big Red Wave, while the others ran for the hills, getting absolutely rinsed?
You guessed it: Memecoin maxi’s.
What Caused This Week’s Crash?
Over $800 million in longs liquidated on Saturday, due to Bitcoin's 10% drop and Ethereum's 20%+ decline. On Monday, it quickly got way, way worse.
A perfect storm of events triggered this:
- BOJ unexpectedly raised interest rates, causing yen carry trade unwinding and global equities sell-off.
- Poor U.S. job data and a weakening Dow Jones fueled recession fears.
- Jump Trading sold 100,000+ ETH after the CFTC investigation, weakening altcoin markets.
These factors, combined with macroeconomic uncertainty and Middle East tensions, led to widespread market jitters.
Why Did Memecoins Dump the Hardest?
Yep, we got REKT this week.
Je Suis $Billy this week (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Despite a big bounce Tuesday to Thursday, the vast majority of the Top 100 memecoins are still down big.
Crypto is a risky asset class, and memecoins, who all claim have no intrinsic value, are the biggest risk carriers within its borderless, ahem, borders.
Still, let’s face it (Bill Burr voice), “things got a little outta hand quick, ya know?”
After a year which saw meme traders make more gains than anyone else in the market, the music stopped Monday, the lights came on and we saw that Memecoin Funland was now Pump[DOT]fun Wasteland.
A Fallout Season 2 scriptwriter/part-time meme trader would probably describe it as a dystopian post-apocalyptic nightmare where millions of dopamine-addicted traders now roam around in stray packs, trying to survive in the vast and hellish Solana outback by chasing the mystical cabal across Telegram and Discord channels, and inevitably to the gates of Alon Wonka’s Pump[DOT]Fun playground.
It started so well, as we laughed at dogs with hats and used cars, then pressed “buy”.
Like clockwork, a crowd of scammers, copycats and never-do-wells flooded in, taking the Fun right out of memecoins for many.
Now, in August, tens of thousands of joyless meme tokens are churned out prematurely each day, shot off into the heavens, propelled by the off-tune cheers and dreams of their desperate 0.1 SOL bagholders for a precious few minutes.
In most cases, they soon stall mid-air, as devs and snipers sell, then crash down to earth in a plume of smoke before settling in their new forever home of a fresh new sub-$5k market cap crater.
Whether by greed, ignorance or bad luck, these siphon millions and millions in precious SOL from degen retail traders looking for a quick and honest 100x.
While many burned traders leave Solana’s PvP arena to explore friendlier new “PPP” memecoin chains like Toncoin, reports are coming in that the same thing is starting to happen over there as well.
Looking back now, the signs were hiding there in plain sight.
Pump[DOT]Fun: 98.6% of Meme Coins Fail Before Launch
Since its launch in January 2024, Pump[DOT]Fun has changed the memecoin game for good, obliterating the barriers to entry by allowing anyone with a few SOLs to launch their own token within minutes, with fees as low as $2.
- In June, we were told that 450,000 new meme tokens were launched in May.
- In July, we heard that the platform was making $2m a day, more than Ethereum. Yes, the WHOLE Ethereum.
- Now in August, another huge number is making us jump.
According to new Dune data, a staggering 98.6% of Pump[DOT]Fun projects never make it to Raydium.
High-profile figures like Caitlyn Jenner and Iggy Azalea have launched controversial memecoins, surging at first to hundreds of millions of dollars followed by rapid declines.
Despite the high failure rate, Pump[DOT]Fun has proven an incredible financial success.
- In just 42 days, it pushed out 1.5 million token launches
- It has generated over $85 million since January.
- It now dominates Solana DEX transactions at 40.97%, despite representing only 4% of volume.
Despite it being called “the worst thing that ever happened to crypto” this week, anon co-founder Alon embraces the platform's divisive nature, viewing it as essential to the crypto space and the ultimate SocialFi app.
Critics argue it undermines legitimate projects and fosters scams, yet Pump[DOT]Fun's growth persists.
Alon has vowed to improve the platform by “leaning into what we’ve already done”, but refused to give specifics.
Crypto and Meme Prices Rebound By 30% By Thursday
As the Japan rate hike and recession fears began to recede by Tuesday after the Bank of Japan and Federal Reserve members made soothing noises, markets reacted favorably:
- Bitcoin climbed back up from its $49,500 low to a clip over $62k on Thursday (after settling around $58K).
- Ethereum, seemingly down only since its spot ETF July launch, recovered from a $1000 drop from $3.2k between 2 and 5 August to $2,600 at the time of writing.
- Solana, which went as low as $110, now sits comfortably again at $149, as spot ETF hype starts building again.
- Encouragingly, the total memecoin market cap is now at $39.2 billion with trading volume of $3.47 billion.
DeFiLlama’s Narratives chart shows that memecoins are still in the conversation, taking 5th place.
Where Solana goes, its memecoin minions follow.
According to Coindesk, SOLmemecoins surged over 30% in 24 hours, leading crypto market gains.
Popular pet coins POPCAT and WIF surged up to 25% while MUMU and CATDOG rose by 30%
Major memecoins on other blockchains (e.g., DOGE, PEPE) lost up to 5%, indicating a preference for Solana-based tokens.
As Solana’s network volume doubled from $1.5 billion to $3.3 billion, Pum.Fun followed suit, increasing its total fees generated from less than $300,000 to $535k in 24 hours.
Fake Trump Meme Pump Dump Costs Millions
Less than 24 hours after markets collapsed, Donald Trump’s sons tweeted on X about their love for crypto, dropping hints that his own official memecoin was incoming very soon.
Soon enough another rumored Trump coin charged up the charts. A new Solana-based cryptocurrency, Restore the Republic (RTR), falsely rumored to be Donald Trump's official token had its market value soar to $155 million before crashing 95% after Trump's son Eric debunked the rumor as, you guessed it, fake news.
The incident was fueled by unproven speculation and amplified by conservative activist Ryan Fournier. Blockchain data revealed that early investors profited $4 million from the token's volatility.
This is the second Trump-related meme token after Martin Shkreli’s ill-fated DJT coin to pump to over a hundred million, only to lose almost all its value.
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