Meme coin moves from the margins to the center stage: A panoramic interpretation of the market landscape, risks, and opportunities in 2025.

The Transformation of Meme Coin: From Community Joke to Speculative Hotspot

When it comes to Meme coins, many people still view them as “pure entertainment.” But the reality is that these cryptocurrencies, which originate from community creativity rather than fundamental support, have made a stunning transformation from fringe novelties to mainstream speculative assets. They not only influence the direction of market liquidity but also sway the emotional fluctuations on social media, and even become new tools for brand marketing.

Data speaks. In 2024, the total capital in the Meme coin sector will grow by over 500%. Entering 2025, speculative funds begin to rapidly shift from large-cap coins to Meme altcoins. The US SEC will officially reclassify many Meme coins as collectibles rather than securities in 2025, which technically reduces the level of regulatory protection for investors.

The most eye-catching phenomenon is the emergence of the $TRUMP token. Since its launch on January 17, 2025, this themed token's market value skyrocketed to $27 billion in less than 24 hours. This explosion directly triggered a wave of imitation tokens—over 700 Trump-themed Meme coins emerged in just a few weeks, with 192 even directly using the names of Trump family members and 67 claiming to be the “official” brand.

Power restructuring of the on-chain ecosystem

Interestingly, by mid-2025, the BNB chain surpassed the previous leader SOL in trading volume on the Meme coin DEX. The BNB chain captured 45% of the market share, while SOL's share slid to 25%, and Ethereum ranked third with a score of 20%.

Why is SOL still worth paying attention to? Because its economic activity is highly dependent on the Meme coin ecosystem—over 60% of economic activities are closely related to Meme coin-related businesses. On the SOL chain, Telegram bots lead various sectors with 26% of application revenue, driven primarily by trading automation and Meme coin issuance. Issuing platforms follow closely behind, accounting for 23%, reflecting the surge in new Meme coin issuance.

However, it is important to note that Pump.fun, once a major issuer of Meme币, is currently in trouble. This platform is facing a federal lawsuit, accused of charging nearly $500 million in fees and issuing over 11 million tokens, of which an astonishing 98% completely collapsed within 24 hours. Moreover, less than 1% of the tokens issued on Pump.fun ultimately managed to upgrade to mainstream DEX trading.

Numbers don't lie: market size and participation.

By 2025, the market share of Meme coin in the global cryptocurrency market is expected to reach 5% to 7%, with a total market value of approximately $63.6 billion. The daily trading volume is about $7.61 billion. However, behind these numbers, the actual market concentration is very high—the top few coins (mainly DOGE, SHIB, and PEPE) still dominate the entire sector's market value.

In early 2025, more than 800,000 new Meme coins are issued every month. In just January alone, 1.7 million new Meme tokens were born. Some issuing platforms even claim to have issued millions of Meme coins through their own platforms.

This crazy issuance speed has created a brand new industrial chain. The current estimated value of the Meme coin development service market exceeds 70 million USD. But the problem is that the low creation threshold means that a large number of tokens bypass strict review and auditing processes, sharply increasing the risk of rug pulls and various fraudulent activities.

long-term perspective of price trends

Some institutions predict that the Meme coin market will show a steady upward trend in the coming years.

• 2025: The average price is expected to be $0.0226, with a high possibly reaching $0.0245.
• 2026: The average price rises to $0.0278, an increase of about 23% compared to 2025.
• 2027: Continue to rise to $0.0379, with a peak close to $0.0409.
• 2028-2029: The average price is stable around 0.0501 USD.
• Year 2030: With the widespread adoption and enhancement of token utility, the average price may reach $0.0572, with a peak touching $0.0613.
• 2031: The average price is expected to reach $0.0811 in the long-term outlook, an increase of over 250% compared to 2025.

The survivor's paradox in an active ecosystem

In 2024, CoinMarketCap listed a total of 2,229 Meme coins. However, many newly issued tokens quickly disappear or are delisted. By 2025, there will be thousands of active Meme coins at any given time, with active quotes on 217 trading markets worldwide.

However, the survival rate is concerning. New Meme coins typically quickly fall into market saturation after launch, resulting in minimal liquidity for most tokens. The survival rate of new tokens beyond 6 to 12 months is very low, although exact loss data is difficult to publicly track.

According to market capitalization, the ranking of top Meme coins in October 2025 is as follows:

Dogecoin ( DOGE ) leads with a market capitalization of over $31.59 billion, remaining the highest valued Meme coin. Shiba Inu ( SHIB ) ranks second with a market cap of $6.29 billion. PEPE follows closely with a market cap of $3.2 billion. BONK saw a single-day increase of over 15% in July 2025, reaching a market cap of $1.6 billion. FLOKI has a market cap fluctuating around $705 million.

It should be emphasized that the top 10 Meme币 account for about 90% of the total capital in the entire field. This means that the vast majority of newly issued Meme币 cannot capture any market share at all.

The performance of $TRUMP was even more dramatic. It reached a peak market value of $27 billion within 24 hours of its launch, but then significantly retraced in massive trades. More concerning is the supply distribution—about 80% of the total $TRUMP coin supply is held by entities controlled by Trump or his affiliates. The issuance of this token generated over $350 million in token sales and related platform fees.

Volatility: The Double-Edged Sword of Meme Coin

Meme coin is known for its volatility. The US SEC clearly stated in its regulatory guidance in February 2025 that Meme coins often exhibit significant market price fluctuations, with risk levels higher than most crypto assets.

The specific numbers are even more frightening. BONK is the most volatile major Meme coin. The survival rate of newly issued tokens is below 8% after 60 days, with most losing more than 97% of their peak value during rapid crash cycles.

The average daily volatility of Meme coins exceeds 11.7%, which is significantly higher than most altcoins or Bitcoin. POPCAT and similar Meme tokens have demonstrated daily price volatility of up to 53%, making sudden reversals the norm in this field.

In 2025, Meme coins often trade within the “squeeze zone”—after social-driven surges, they are often followed by a 2-4x breakout move. Even more frightening, price waterfalls driven by whales or bots can amplify hourly volatility by 6 times.

roller coaster of trading volume

The Meme coin sector achieved an average year-to-date return of +1,313% in the first half of 2025, becoming the only profitable cryptocurrency segment during this period. However, this is based on extreme volatility.

In the first quarter of 2025, the trading volume of Meme coin accounted for 25% of the total cryptocurrency trading volume at its peak. However, between January and April, the Meme coin sector lost about 58% of its value, with trading volume declining by approximately 63%.

By mid-2025, Dogecoin maintains a 24-hour trading volume of over $500 million, while PEPE sustains $760 million. By early October, the top Meme coins continue to maintain a 24-hour trading volume exceeding $9 billion, driven by peak popularity.

The daily trading volume of Pump.fun fluctuates between 96 million and 320 million US dollars during the summer and autumn of 2025, depending on the issuance of Meme coins. As of the fourth quarter of 2025, the platform's historical total trading volume exceeds 73 billion US dollars.

But there is a harsh reality here: among all the issued Meme coins, only less than 5% can maintain high trading volume after the first 72 hours. The core driving forces behind the sudden surge in trading volume are viral spread on social media, celebrity catalytic effects, and influencer-driven issuance, which often see growth of 2-5 times within a few hours.

The evolution of the Meme coin theme

Animal themes have always been the absolute main force. The total market value of animal-themed Meme coins such as DOGE, Shiba Inu, BONK, and WIF will exceed $30 billion in 2025, dominating the entire Meme brand field. Among them, BONK is set to achieve the milestone of burning 1 trillion tokens this year.

Frog and Amphibian Theme led by PEPE saw a trading volume surge exceeding $1.7 billion in July 2025, with social engagement increasing by 27% month-on-month.

Political satire themes such as TRUMP, MAGA, BODEN, etc., during major political events in the United States, have pushed the trading volume of a certain public chain's Meme coin to $26 billion.

The Meme coin associated with pop culture can experience daily price peaks of 300-600% during the surge of tag trends on platform X.

It is worth noting that Meme coins with a burn mechanism account for about 21% of the best-performing issuances this year; tokens lacking practical utility and promising “10x returns” account for about 17% of daily trending Meme coin issuances, often surging dramatically within a few weeks before fading.

differentiation of the blockchain ecosystem

Meme coins are increasingly migrating to blockchains with low transaction fees. SOL, BNB, and Base together account for 95% of new Meme token issuance. Ethereum's market share of Meme coins dropped below 5% in the second quarter of 2025.

Pump.fun of the SOL ecosystem has issued over 6 million Meme coins since the platform's creation in January 2024. In February 2025, with the cooling of the market, the daily issuance volume fell from a peak of 70,000 coins to 25,000 coins. By mid-2025, the platform supports the issuance of an average of 65,000 SOL Meme tokens daily.

The trading volume of SOL's Meme coin DEX reached a peak of $206 billion in January 2025, accounting for 79% of SOL's total trading activities that month. However, there is a heartbreaking statistic: fewer than 2.1% of SOL Meme coins can “upgrade” from the issuance platform to mainstream DEX, with most failing to establish sustainable liquidity.

Cross-chain Dilemmas and Security Concerns

In 2025, 21% of the top 100 Meme coins implemented cross-chain minting/burning mechanisms. Over 13 million independent wallet addresses interacted with multi-chain Meme coin bridges. In the second quarter, during the issuance of celebrity tokens and major NFT airdrops, the total cross-chain bridging volume of Meme coins grew by 420%.

But multi-chain also means risk diversification. As of September 2025, security incidents related to multi-chain bridges have caused losses of over $190 million to Meme coin holders.

Robots and Scams: The Invisible Market Manipulators

The Meme coin craze requires large-scale testing for rug pull risks, backdoor liquidity extraction, and malicious token logic. Since 2025, the crypto service sector has lost over $2.17 billion. Analysts estimate that up to 95% of newly issued tokens may involve scams or have a low probability of being successful projects.

In terms of smart contract auditing, less than 15% of the Meme coins issued in 2025 have undergone any form of audit. Over 91% of the new Meme coins on the Base chain have been found to have at least one security vulnerability.

Sniper bots are crazily active in the Meme coin market. On issuance platforms like Pump.fun, up to 80% of the early trading volume is driven by sniper bots, especially within the first few blocks. The bots can execute trades in less than a second after a new Meme coin liquidity event occurs. In certain issuances, the bots account for over 70% of unique wallet interactions within the first 10 blocks of trading.

A single sniper robot accumulated over $6.8 million in profits within a month solely through Meme coin trading on Pump.fun, with a single trade return rate as high as 2227 times.

Investor Profile and Risk Tolerance

A survey indicated that among cryptocurrency investors in the United States, about 31% reported that their first exposure to cryptocurrency was through Meme coins. Young investors are particularly active in this space.

Many Meme coin holders have relatively small positions, often accounting for less than 1% of their total portfolio. However, some “whales” may control 20-50% of the circulating supply of certain tokens. Many retail investors enter the market during the mid-term after observing short-term gains, thus exposing themselves to the risk of price reversals.

Institutional investors' interest is gradually emerging, but the main avenues are still limited to structured thematic funds or small allocations in alternative asset classes.

Epilogue: Opportunities and Pitfalls Coexist

Meme coins have transformed from the fringes of the crypto market to an important role in the speculative market. Data from 2024 is enough to prove this: the top five Meme coins account for over 40% of all crypto speculative trading volume, with trading volume for Meme coins surging to over $35 billion, and the number of unique wallet holders for the top five Meme coins exceeding 18 million.

However, this growth is accompanied by disproportionate risks, scams, hacking attacks, and relentless volatility. Tokens like PEPE and FLOKI recorded returns exceeding 100 times from their issuance to their respective peaks, but at the same time, 60% of newly issued tokens have an active lifespan of less than 24 hours.

For those venturing into this field, strict due diligence, on-chain analysis, and community signals are not optional but essential tools. The door to the Meme coin market has been opened, but entrants must always remember: in this stage filled with high profits, failure often comes faster than success.