Memecoin Hype Fades After Failures and Scams, But Some May Endure
Interest in memecoins has significantly dwindled, according to Bobby Ong, the founder of CoinGecko, following a series of failed launches and rug pulls that have left investors disillusioned.
Ong noted that the once-bustling Pump.fun platform, which tracks token launches, saw a sharp decline after the Libra token disaster. Its numbers dropped dramatically, with newly launched and daily graduating tokens plummeting more than 90% since February. The launch of the TRUMP and MELANIA tokens, he added, drained liquidity and overshadowed other memecoin projects.
This marks a stark change from earlier this year, when the release of Trump’s memecoin saw record-high activity on Pump.fun, hitting $3.3 billion in weekly trading volume. However, after January, trading volumes fell by 63%, and memecoins’ market cap dropped from a peak of $124 billion in December to just $54 billion.
READ MORE: Bitcoin’s Post-ATH Struggles: Slow Climb Back Expected
Ong attributes the decline to the crash of LIBRA, a token associated with Argentine President Javier Milei, which saw insiders profit $107 million before it collapsed by 94%. This event shattered the illusion that memecoins were fair launches and exposed the reality of insider profits.
Despite the downturn, Ong believes some memecoins will endure through market cycles. With interest in traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum growing again, Ong speculates that the future of memecoins will follow a “power law,” where only a few will survive. He points to tokens like DOGE, SHIB, and BONK, which have built loyal communities and survived market volatility, as models for future success.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
