Memecoin rebounded first, the prelude to the bull market or the trap set by the giant whale?

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With the increase in volume of top Meme coins such as PEPE and SHIB in the short term, chain activity and trading volume have simultaneously recovered, and the total market value of the Memecoin sector has exceeded US$50 billion. The data show that retail funds are returning to highly volatile assets, and social platform discussions are heating up significantly. Against the background of mainstream currency shocks and funds seeking highly flexible opportunities, Meme coins have once again become a concentrated export of emotion and liquidity, which has also forced the market to re-examine whether this round of speculative craze is a short-term carnival or a new round of cyclical signals.

After a full year of continuous decline, the \"Memecoin Dominance Rate\", a core indicator that measures Memecoin\'s share of the altcoin market, rebounded strongly from historical lows. The total market value of Memecoin has returned to the US$500 billion mark, and tokens such as PEPE, BONK, and FLOKI have recorded double-digit gains at the beginning of the year.

This surge has forced institutional fund managers and retail traders to face a key question: Is this a brief burst of speculative sentiment after the holidays or an early signal of a comprehensive switch in market styles?

Data from market intelligence firm CryptoQuant highlights the severity of this shift. After the \"Memecoin craze\" peaked in November 2024, the sector\'s dominance in the altcoin market began a long downward channel.

Memecoin market dominance rate, data source: CryptoQuant

At its peak, Memecoin accounted for 11% of the total market value of the entire altcoin, and its dominance rate reached 0.11. By December 2025, this figure has plummeted to only 0.032, hitting the historical bottom.

However, analysts pointed out that the last time the indicator hit this low, it was followed by a large-scale influx of speculative liquidity, which eventually drove the entire altcoin sector higher.

Today, speculative investors are viewing the current bottoming out as a potential leading indicator.

If this trend continues, it means that the market\'s risk appetite is picking up at a faster rate than expected, which may kick off a new round of altcoin bull market and have a profound impact on blockchain activity throughout 2026. and token listing standards.

Key signals in the hustle and bustle

Data from data analysis platform Sanitation shows that in the first week of the new year, Memecoin\'s overall market value soared by more than 20.8%, and the total value of the sector exceeded US$45.3 billion.

The valuation given by cryptocurrency market website CoinGecko is even higher. The agency estimates that the total size of the \"Memecoin economy\", which covers topics such as dogs and frogs, as well as political satirical currencies, has reached approximately US$51.6 billion.

Leading the rally are the established currencies that have dominated previous bull markets. In the past seven days, PEPE and the self-deprecating USELESS have both increased by 54%;MOG has increased by 38%; and BONK on the Solana chain also recorded a 34% increase. Even veteran assets such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu were not willing to lag behind. The trading boom resumed on Sunday, with Shiba Inu rising by 13% in a single day.

Sanitation analysts attributed the timing of the rally to a classic contrarian investment signal. The rise began shortly after Christmas, when retail traders peak their FUD on speculative assets.

Memecoin led the rebound in the cryptocurrency market. Data source: Sanitation

When market sentiment hit the bottom and ordinary traders were short and left the market, savvy funds chose to enter the market, taking advantage of the market panic selling to attract large amounts of funds at low prices.

For fund managers who will shift asset allocation to \"premium currencies\" in 2025, the comeback of the Memecoin sector puts them in a dilemma.

This wave of market conditions tests the industry\'s willingness to re-embrace leveraged trading: ignoring this rally may miss the first stage of the risk-appetite cycle; and following the trend means we must re-enter the most volatile asset sector in the crypto market.

The boost effect of ETFs

Unlike previous rounds of Memecoin bull markets that were almost entirely driven by overseas exchanges and decentralized exchanges, this rebound in 2026 also carries a compliance attribute.

The approval and listing of multiple complex cryptocurrency ETFs in the United States have opened up new transmission channels for the speculative boom, allowing it to penetrate into traditional brokerage accounts.

Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas pointed out that some of the best performing fund products at the beginning of the year were the leveraged Memecoin ETF.

Among them, the performance of the 21Shares Double-Long Dogecoin ETF(TXXD) is particularly outstanding. This phenomenon shows that the market\'s investment demand for Memecoin is no longer limited to using on-chain wallets. Crypto-native avid traders.

21Shares Dogecoin ETF led the market. Data source: Eric Balchunas

The institutionalization of the \"Memecoin economy\" has completely changed its weight of influence on the entire crypto market. When billions of dollars pour into Memecoin-related assets, the ripple effect will spread outward.

This will affect the launch decisions of large centralized exchanges. After all, these platforms rely on transaction fees for high-volume tokens to subsidize the operations of other businesses; it will also force asset management institutions to broaden product pipelines.

Once this US$50 billion asset class begins to dominate the pace of the market cycle, the entire crypto industry\'s infrastructure will be forced to adapt to the liquidity needs of these once regarded as \"short-lived joke currencies.\"

At the same time, the internal pattern of the Memecoin plate is also constantly dividing. CoinGecko\'s data divides the $51.6 billion Memecoin market into multiple segments, presenting a complex hierarchical structure.

\"Boys Club\" and \"Frog-themed coins\" currently account for 10.9% and 10.7% of the Memecoin market respectively, challenging the long-dominant \"dog-themed coins\"(approximately 6.1% market share).

Proportion of Memecoin segments, data source: CoinGecko

Emerging categories such as \"political and financial coins\" and \"AI Memecoin\" have also accounted for a market size of billions of dollars. This trend shows that the Memecoin sector is forming its own internal rotation rule.

The ecological war on the public chain resumes again

Memecoin\'s comeback has also become a stress test and growth engine for the underlying blockchain network. Among them, Solana Public Chain and Coinbase\'s second-layer network Base perform well.

In the Solana ecosystem, Memecoin Launchpad activity has climbed to a three-month high. Daily trading volume, the number of newly issued tokens, and the \"number of daily token graduates\"-that is, the number of currencies that have been popular enough to successfully migrate from the initial platform to a decentralized exchange-have all soared sharply.

Solana Memecoin Launchpad platform transaction volume, data source: Blockworks Research

This active trend has reignited the topic of \"fee wars\"-competition between different public chains in an attempt to become the preferred position for high-frequency speculative trading.

Last year, platforms such as Pump.fun and LetsBonk contributed huge revenue to Solana Network; and data from early 2026 shows that this trend is accelerating again.

This market development has also sparked heated discussions among industry leaders, who believe that the Memecoin phenomenon is more than just speculation and gambling.

Jesse Pollak, chief developer of the Base network, said that such assets have practical functions in the crypto economy. He defines Memecoin as a \"collaboration anchor for the community\" that brings together people and provides scenarios for collective creative activities.

「我们需要更多Memecoin，因为我们需要更多的创造力、社区活力与集体行动。」Pollak如此表示，他将Memecoin视为一种流量入口机制，能够吸引用户入场，而这些用户最终会转向其他链上应用。

对于区块链网络本身而言，这场Memecoin热潮的影响实实在在：持续的上涨会推高对公链原生代币的需求，考验网络的吞吐量，并吸引更多流动性提供者入驻。