After a prolonged period of weakness, meme coins have finally shown an exciting rebound.
Since mid-September last year, the total market capitalization of meme coins gradually declined from about $80 billion to a low of only $35 billion, with almost no significant rebounds along the way. But entering 2026, in the first week of the new year, the total market cap of meme coins finally rebounded, returning to nearly $50 billion.
During the same period, the proportion of meme coin market capitalization in the overall altcoin market almost reached its lowest point since July 2022, remaining at only about 3%. Entering 2026, this indicator has also finally rebounded, returning to about 4%.
This rebound in meme coins gives a feeling of a "nostalgia server." It seems that the meme coin market version has switched from "new shitcoins" back to "classic old coins." Pepe has risen over 70% in the past week, with a staggering 24-hour trading volume of about $1.1 billion, reaching 50+% of Doge's 24-hour trading volume.
Doge, Shiba, Pepe, BONK, Pengu, SPX, Fartcoin—these familiar large-cap, long-lifecycle meme coins have all risen across the board in the past week, with none increasing less than 20%. If such a trend can continue, based on past experience, we can hope to see a recurrence of the situation in previous bull markets where large-cap meme coins charge forward and then new meme stars emerge.
This meme coin rebound is also optimistically regarded by crypto players as the starting point of a new comprehensive market trend. Looking back at history, meme coin trends have repeatedly served as leading indicators of changes in market risk appetite, such as Doge in 2021, Bome and the pump.fun trend in 2024, etc. Because the logic of meme coins relies more on emotional support, and they easily spark discussions on social media, once prices rise and positive discussions increase, it is easy to form a comprehensive bull market atmosphere among retail investors.
If this bull market really arrives, from what angles can we position ourselves to capture new opportunities in the new bull market at the current point in time?
"Currently Hottest": Attention Tokens
The meme rebound has made the rotation of attention fast again. White Whale's success was only a little over a week ago, and its price is still near its all-time high, but in the past two days, a new "golden dog" called "114514" has emerged, just breaking through a $40 million market cap today to set a new all-time high, rising about 250 times in 2 days.
The梗 "114514" comes from the Japanese film studio COAT CORPORATION's 2001 gay adult film "BABYLON STAGE 34 Midsummer Night's Erotic Dream the IMP." An actor playing the role of "senpai" in the film had extremely outstanding acting and lines, especially shouting the line "Good! Come on! (いいよ!こいよ)" in the film. This line was referred to by Japanese netizens using Japanese number homophones and stuffed into various meme images and videos.
Although, according to the studio's confidentiality agreement, the true identity of this "senpai" is unknown, in 2011, a molester named "Tadokoro Koji" was arrested in Japan. Because he looked highly similar to "senpai," netizens默认 "senpai" is Tadokoro Koji. This梗 is also very popular in the Chinese-speaking community. Accompanying "114514" in comments are generally words related to stench, such as "stinky, smells terrible, foul," the source of which is the foul nature of the molestation crime committed by Tadokoro Koji, who is默认为 "senpai." Also frequently seen is "Good times, have come," which is an intentional translation of "114514."
It's hard to say there is any objectively analyzable reason for the sudden暴涨 of this old梗 "114514" in the crypto circle, but the overflow of emotion can still be given some expectation. Since there is no objective reason, the direction of "114514"'s emotional overflow depends on how the market interprets it and how capital gives direction. It can be understood from the angle of a Japanese meme梗, or from the angle of a pure number梗 like "42069."
In the game of attention tokens, there's no need to ask why, but to judge how other players will think, what reasons can be accepted by most people as buying pressure, and luck.
"Long-termism": Classic Meme Coins
In this meme rebound, the return of "classic meme coins" like Pepe, BONK, Pengu, etc., is surprising, because these large-cap, long-time-tested old meme coins haven't been in the market spotlight for a long time. Due to the popularity of attention玩法, everyone is more accustomed to fast-paced games, and "diamond hands" even carries a somewhat嘲讽 meaning.
However, every truly comprehensive market trend actually has some excellent meme coins that stand out, are accepted and recognized by the market as "good coins," maintain a high market cap long-term, and have a group of坚定的 holders.
This is actually a sign of the long-needed maturity of the meme coin track. In Murad's proposed "meme coin super cycle" theory, it includes a set of criteria for judging the quality of meme coins—being able to maintain a medium or even large market cap (above $5 million), having undergone at least 6 months of time考验, whether there is a clear enough target concept to achieve certain things, whether it can trigger inner resonance to truly complete the沉淀 and unity of holders, etc.
According to this standard, besides the meme giants that the market has默认 "too big to fail" like Doge, Shiba, Pepe, BONK, Pengu, etc., there are actually many potential stocks worth paying attention to. Larger ones include SPX, Fartcoin, Mog, BITCOIN (HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu), smaller ones include neet, Chillhouse, Joe, etc.
In the game of classic meme coins, it is necessary to摆脱 personal emotions as much as possible and objectively and deeply observe their social media and communities. Meme coins that can grow to this stage must be rare and easy to distinguish, because first of all, it is not easy for a meme coin to be operated stably for a long time. Either the community has凝聚起来 to collectively produce content, or a team with sufficient resources has greater ambitions for sustainable development. The goal of these coins is no longer to stabilize the internal community and token supply, but on the basis of having completed internal integration, to consider how to attract external increments through multiple channels, and even to influence and change real-world problems from a certain angle through meme culture.
"Revenue is King": The Implementation of Token Rights
For a long time, it has been difficult to say that those projects in the crypto circle with beautiful and stable revenue report cards can be analyzed using the stock market's P/E logic, because token holders do not enjoy rights like dividends like shareholders. Therefore, the profit indicator, in the crypto circle,更多的是作为一种 "hope," playing a "narrative" role. And this fragile "narrative" role is also considered by meme coin maximalists to be essentially no different between altcoins and meme coins; altcoins are meme coins.
Nevertheless, the revenue narrative still holds in the crypto circle. Farther away, Uniswap and Aave still firmly occupy the forefront of crypto market cap; closer, Hyperliquid's rapid growth has single-handedly raised the ceiling of the Perp DEX track.
Even better, since last year, we have seen some progress in the implementation of token rights. For example, the反复反复就是打不开的 Uniswap fee switch finally successfully opened.又比如, the "brand asset control权移交给持币者" proposal for Aave, although it ended without passing, Aave Labs承诺 will share revenue generated outside the protocol with token holders, acknowledging that interest alignment is crucial for both Aave Labs and AAVE holders.
Although there are still many legal, practical execution, and other issues on the road to aligning token rights with equity rights, the improvement of governance models within the circle and the awakening of token holder consciousness are already significant progress. If there is a market trend next, those projects that do better in terms of revenue interest alignment should be able to gain more market recognition, which is equivalent to an upgrade before revenue distribution truly摆脱 narrative and becomes reality.
Conclusion
We hope that this meme rebound is really the prelude to a comprehensive market trend. We hope that if there is a comprehensive market trend, the market will have new stars脱颖而出, completing the "新旧交替" of the crypto circle.
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