Is it worth investing in super-profitable memecoins?
CoinGecko compared cryptocurrencies by price returns. Their selection included the following groups:
- Memecoins and shitcoins that don't offer any practical purpose
- RWA: crypto versions of real-world assets, such as gold or bonds
- AI: tokens of platforms that work with artificial intelligence
- DeFi: tokens of decentralised finance platforms
- DePIN: tokens of platforms that perform decentralised physical infrastructure projects
- GameFi: tokens of platforms from the gaming industry
- Layer-1: coins from layer-1 networks (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, etc.)
- Layer-2: coins from layer-2 networks (Arbitrum, Optimism, etc.)
Among these groups, memecoins won by a wide margin in Q1, rising by an aggregate of 1313%. RWA took second place with a 286% increase, and AI tokens rounded out the top three with a 222% growth.
Image source: coingecko.com
Despite the amazing performance of Bitcoin Cash (131%) and Stacks (143%), layer-1 and layer-2 coins turned out to be outsiders. Their growth rates pale in comparison with memecoin leaders Brett (7728%) and Dogwifhat (2721%).
Image source: coingecko.com
However, CoinGecko's study makes a significant assumption: only the top-10 largest coins by capitalisation at the end of the quarter for each group are included in the analysis. In other words, hundreds of thousands of memecoins that appeared during the period under review weren't included in the report.
On the Solana blockchain alone, approximately 500,000 quasi-tokens were minted. The vast majority of them were dead on arrival. If the analysis had included all coins in the groups it presented, meme coins would be located at the bottom of the list.
Image source: solscan.io
The minting mania to try to create a profitable token reached such proportions that on 6 February, Solana was down for five hours. The network's founder, Anatoly Yakovenko, explained this hobby in an interview with CoinDesk as "people being terminally online and kind of having nothing better to do."
Image source: StormGain Cryptocurrency Exchange
It's worth noting for inexperienced users that the Ordinals protocol, which appeared in early 2023, made it possible to mint NFTs and quasi-tokens on almost any network. On the Bitcoin network, this caused fees to rise above $30, and users quickly cooled to them. However, Solana, which has sub-penny costs, appealed to the horde of 'degens' (the nickname for lovers of freshly minted meme coins on social media).
Image source: coingecko.com
Dogecoin stood out from among these meme coins. It has its own blockchain, is supported by miners, is the most decentralised and has the largest and most experienced army of fans. It also saw some pretty decent upward movement in Q1 as it more than doubled its price.
StormGain Analytical Group
(platform for trading, exchanging and storing cryptocurrency)