Memecoins on fire ‎️🔥

Analyzing memecoin trends

Author

Giottus Team
March 15, 2024

Are you prepared for this bull run? 🚀

15 March 2024

Yet another crazy week in the crypto world. Bitcoin crossed $73,000 triggered by more than $1 billion daily inflows into spot ETF earlier this week. However, a wider financial market sell-off today has resulted in BTC fighting to keep its $68,000 support alive.

Key altcoins have also shed today though many maintain their weekly gains. Ethereum has declined by 7% since its Dencun upgrade the day before.

The focus today is on memecoins — which are emerging as a valid investment class within crypto, thanks to their cult following and hype surrounding gains. And no, we don’t really encourage you to gamble all your money on them.

But before that, here are the top stories and important stats from this week:

Top-3 stories of the week:

1

Ethereum Finalizes 'Dencun' Upgrade, in Landmark Move to Reduce Data Fees

Ethereum has activated the Dencun upgrade, which is expected to catalyze growth on L2 networks like Arbitrum and Polygon by reducing fees. The hard fork accomplished this through "proto-danksharding", adding a new place for data storage on the blockchain at a lower cost. The upgrade is expected to make transaction settlements more efficient and cheaper for rollup networks, which will in turn bring down fees for end users.

2

Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, and Others Test Enterprise Blockchain for Tokenized Assets

Digital Asset has successfully tested its Canton Network, a blockchain service involving major financial firms including Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon. The trial allowed the seamless transaction and settlement of tokenized assets, with uses ranging from fund registry to margin management. The successful execution of 350 simulated transactions demonstrated potential advantages including reduced risk and optimized capital.

3

Monad Labs in Talks to Raise More Than $200 Million Round Led by Paradigm, Valuing the Jump Crypto–Linked Startup at $3 Billion

Crypto venture firm Paradigm is leading a funding round for Monad Labs, a startup aiming to build an ‘Ethereum killer’. The deal, valuing Monad at $3 billion, includes over $200 million in funding, following the company’s $19 million seed round in February. If successful, it will be 2024's largest crypto fundraise to date. This not only shows that investors are interested in what Monad is building but also that VCs are starting to have an appetite for larger deals.

The newsletter is put together by Giottus Crypto Platform. You can read all the previous issues of Cryptogram here.

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WEEKLY MACROS

  • Total crypto market cap - $2.58 trillion - UP 1.2%

  • Bitcoin price - $67,598 - UP 1%

  • The dollar index (DXY) - 103.46 - UP 0.7%

  • Bitcoin Dominance - 53.26% -  No Change

  • Crypto Fear and Greed Index - 83 - the market is in extreme greed

THE HOT TAKE

Memes go berserk in March

Well, looks like we skipped alt season and went straight for meme season.

As Bitcoin extends its price discovery mode, increased retail participation is evident with popular memecoins surging to life and posting triple-digit gains on the week! The meme frenzy has also dragged Ethereum’s network fees to a two-year high.

If you’ve held any memecoin on Solana over the past week, it’s probably been a good week for you.

Memecoins on Solana. Source: CoinGecko

Let us analyze the trends around memes. And what these can mean to you.

Weekly volumes are through the roof

Memecoins have seen outsized gains over the past weeks with weekly trade volume hitting a multi-year high at $80 billion. SHIB saw the largest volume at $31 billion surpassing the market’s leader DOGE ($23 billion) and other large-cap non-meme altcoins such as SOL. PEPE and Solana-based BONK also registered significant volumes — $14 billion and $5 billion respectively.

Memecoin weekly volume. Source: Kaiko

Coins like PEPE and WIF are doing a casual 700-800% on the monthly. However, remember that memecoins are also extremely volatile, capable of doing pullbacks of 60%-95% when the overall market dips by 15%-25%.

Solana memes leading the way

A closer look at Ethereum and Solana DEX volumes reveals that Solana has flipped Ethereum in 24-hour volumes this week, with the two blockchain networks recording $2.5 billion and $2.3 billion in daily volumes, respectively.

DEX volume comparison. Source: Artemis

This could partly be attributed to the rise of Solana memecoins. Projects like BONK and Dogwifhat (WIF) have become leaders in the Solana memecoin market. Solana has also become home to several celebrity- and politician-based memecoins like BODEN, a coin based on US president Joe Biden. 

WIF has momentum and narrative on its side

WIF has run to $3.25 while the community has raised $680,000 to get an ad on the Las Vegas Sphere. Trailing by 25%, the dog-themed coin could soon catchup to PEPE, if it continues its steady growth.

How do you navigate memecoin investing?

  • You can’t ignore them any longer. If you are confident that you can lose your principle in memecoins and be okay with it, then go ahead. We recommend a <2% of your crypto portfolio allocation to memecoins. If they do well, they can even hit 10% of your portfolio on their own.

  • Buying when a coin has already pumped by 100%, 200% or 400% in the short-term is not recommended. You become the exit liquidity for earlier buyers if you do. Do not FOMO because you are late.

  • The reason some memecoins show astronomical gains is because their market cap is low. The lower the market cap of a meme coin, the higher it pumps but risk of fading into oblivion is higher too.

  • If you manage to make 5x on your memecoin investment, the temptation to rotate profits into the next 5x opportunity is high. On the contrary, we recommend booking profits to the tune of 50%-75% to safeguard your gains.

Memes are the most volatile category of the crypto ecosystem. These tokens hold no value and do not serve any purpose. It’s also a zero-sum game. In simpler terms, any profits you make come from someone else. That is why those that sell near the top and don’t FOMO back in, win.

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If you have any questions or feedback for us, write to us at [email protected]. You can check out the previous issues here.

Disclaimer: Crypto-asset or VDA investments are subject to market risks such as volatility and have no guaranteed returns. Please do your own research before investing and seek independent legal/financial advice if you are unsure about the investments.