Meme coins are showing signs of recovery
Despite shedding much of their value since the start of this year, animal meme coins had a positive week — especially popcat.
Crypto meme coins are showing signs of life after a rough start to the year.
Many meme coins are trading higher than they were last week, with cat-based token popcat rising above its dog-based competitors, growing 49.6% in the period to trade at $0.24.
Dog-inspired cryptocurrencies, bonk and dogwifhat, are still wagging their tails happily, and have increased 12.6% and 3.9%, respectively, in the last seven days. Meanwhile, frog-themed coin pepe jumped 8.7%, while pengu, a token linked to pudgy penguins, has grown 10.4% in the same time.
Meme coins are cryptocurrencies that initially started as internet jokes or trends before becoming financial instruments that can be traded on exchanges. Unlike long-standing tokens with fundamental value like bitcoin, meme coins are often described as lacking utility and are highly speculative.
Rocky start to the year
The recent rally comes after a steep drawdown across the meme sector since January, as meme coins have been far from immune to the volatility in broader markets.
Meme coins were among the best-performing crypto sectors last year, data from blockchain analytics platform Artemis shows. However, this year the sector has declined roughly 55%.
Dogwifhat, one of 2024’s most hyped coins on the Solana blockchain, reached an all-time high market capitalization of more than $4.5 billion last year, but has dropped about 80% in 2025. Pepe, a popular token on the ethereum blockchain, also posted a record valuation last year, but is down 62% year to date.
These performances parallel broader macroeconomic forces. Bitcoin and the S&P 500 have both fallen more than 10% this year amid rising geopolitical tensions induced from an ongoing tariff war.
“To me, the drop in meme valuations reflects broader macro weakness, not the death of the sector,” self-proclaimed meme coin philosopher Virotechnics told Sherwood News. “Memes are highly reflexive — they lead on the way up in bullish conditions and bleed more on the way down in bearish ones.”
Similarly, Noah Roy, an analyst at crypto investment firm Ryze Labs, said meme coins’ year-to-date “slowdown reflects broader macro constraints rather than a loss of interest.”
Meme coins aren’t dead
The upswing of animal-based cryptocurrencies in the past week shows meme coins are very much alive.
Joe McCann, founder of digital asset investment company Asymmetric Financial, said meme coins have a pulse, arguing their rebound is a signal traders believe the worst could be over.
“Meme coins have never died and will never die,” McCann told Sherwood. “The recent rally in coins like bonk and fartcoin are indicative of traders betting that the stock market has likely bottomed and would prefer to have the highest beta exposure possible in their portfolios: meme coins.”
Jim Hwang, the chief operating officer of crypto investment firm Firinne Capital, agrees that meme coins aren’t dead. He said, “The recent performance, that is resurgence, in the meme coins may be indicative of risk on.”
Roy commented that meme coins thrive at the intersection between culture and speculation, acting as early indicators of crypto users’ risk appetite. “With markets showing early signs of recovery, the rebound in meme coins suggests speculative energy remains strong,” he said.
Meme coins are the most efficient form of speculation, according to Maksim Tkachuk, an analyst at market intelligence platform Santiment. Not only are these tokens a very fast and straightforward way to gain financially from an internet meme, but also, Tkachuk told Sherwood, people remain open to gambling.
And putting money in meme coins is indeed often likened to gambling at a casino.
Wariness hasn’t been extinguished
Caution still lingers. Though investing and gambling are two different behaviors, Hwang says a more appropriate mental model when seeing a number of meme coins trading is understanding that both investing and gambling can exist side by side. “The exchange is set up next to a casino,” he said.
Tkachuk argued that speculative behavior, especially evident in meme coin trading, is often seen before a market finds its floor. People’s willingness to gamble is “a sign that a long-term bottom has not been reached yet,” he wrote.
The market capitalization of the entire meme coin sector stands at $48.3 billion, representing less than 2% of the crypto’s total valuation of roughly $2.8 trillion.
Sage D. Young is a crypto journalist who’s written for CoinDesk and Unchained.
