Meme coins have lost all their 2026 gains and continue to dive
Despite having an early lead in year-to-date features, meme cash have round-tripped and bled even more.
For instance, frog-based token pepe was up 75% within the first 4 days of January, however is now about 8% decrease than the place it began the 12 months. Dogecoin, shiba inu, bonk, pengu, dogwifhat, and trump inform an identical story: posting a constructive achieve after which slumping into the pink.
The year-to-date worth performances of the highest meme cash by market capitalization (TradingView)
Meme cash, cryptocurrencies based mostly on web jokes which are typically critiqued for missing utility, are reflexive: they will lead features throughout bullish market circumstances, however see sharper declines in bearish ones. Your entire class of meme cash has shed 25.8% of its valuation within the 12 months to this point, information from blockchain analytics agency Artemis reveals.
The value motion of meme cash comes amid a broader market decline that noticed bitcoin drop to $63,000 final week as its peers revisited cycle lows.
“The market has, in massive, been bleeding, whether or not main, altcoin, or meme,” in response to Nicolai Søndergaard, analysis analyst at on-chain information agency Nansen. “It isn’t shocking to me to see that bigger memes as nicely have been trending down.”
He informed Sherwood Information, “If we additionally think about the truth that there are much less lively wallets now in contrast to some months in the past, it additionally is sensible that bigger ‘family’ memes would decline as cash shifts round to the following shiny factor.”
