How the Meme Coin Sector Is Reshaping the Digital Asset Landscape

It’s not just about the lulz – meme coins are dominating the business news, and they’re only getting bigger.

It’s been a month already since we mourned the passing of the most beloved figure in the world of finance: Kabosu, the Shiba Inu dog who inspired the birth of Dogecoin. Cryptocurrency representatives and analysts were among the dozens who attended Kabosu’s May 26 memorial service in Narita, Japan to pay their respects.

Kabosu may have left us, but her spirit lives on inside Dogecoin; although the crypto markets haven’t been kind the past couple of weeks, Dogecoin is still worth 12.24 Lincoln pennies at press time, after floating around eight cents at the start of 2024.

These are indeed heady times for meme coins in general. According to last week’s CoinDesk article by Omkar Godbole, liquidity – as measured by the total value of coins being traded within 1% of market price – is at an all-time high, reaching $128 million combined for Dogecoin (DOGE) and 10 of its memetic cousins:

• SHIB
• PEPE
• WIF
• BONK
• GROK
• BABYDOGE
• FLOKI
• MEME
• HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu
• HarryPotterObamaSonic

How is all of this even possible? Without getting too far into media studies or poststructuralism or any of that other fun stuff from the ‘90s, let’s take a quick peek at what’s going on with these crazy meme coins, and what impact they’re having on the business odds at our crypto betting sites.

Why Are Meme Coins Soaring?

Because enough people want to get rich.

Earlier this month, Coinmetrics reported trading volumes of $13 billion for meme coins, as recorded using a seven-day average from March. That was more volume than digital assets like Ethereum (ETH), which apparently isn’t speculative enough for some investors to latch onto.

It’s not just about the money, though.

People are choosing meme coins over other digital assets because meme coins are more fun to play with. And it’s getting easier than ever to do; decentralized exchanges are driving that liquidity we were just talking about to new heights.

Who’s Buying Meme Coins?

Thousands of people. However, like all other forms of money, most of these meme coins reside in the digital wallets of a select few. Using the Gini coefficient, where 0 represents equal distribution of assets and 1 represents the complete opposite, meme coins as a group check in at around 0.8, with SHIB and PEPE both above 0.9.

These numbers are important because they show how volatile these tokens are right now. Any time one of these “whales” decides they’re going to buy or sell some crypto, it sends prices soaring or plummeting. That’s the volatility speculative investors are looking for, even to the point where they’re spurning coins like DOGE in favor of newer, riskier coins like PEPE.

But where’s the liquidity? It’s hard to talk about decentralization when so many meme coins are concentrated in the hands of so few investors. The latest numbers say liquidity has never been higher, so that’s a positive sign; we’ll see if that trend continues, or whether one or more of these whales does something disruptive.

Do People Still Buy Ethereum?

Yes, but not like they were before this meme stock surge.

Ethereum is down to just below $3,300 at press time, about 7.5% lower than it was last week. And they’re not the only digital asset in the dumps:

• Bitcoin: -10.25%
• BNB: -7.93%
• Solana: -12.00%
• XRP: -8.19%

It’s a bloodbath out there.

How long this will last is anybody’s guess; as John Maynard Keynes may have once said, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. But if you’re betting on, say, the price of Ethereum, the financials odds at [sportsbook id=”BetOnline”/] (find out more with our [review id=”BetOnline”/]) have Under $3,400.50 priced at –140 for the end of June, which is just around the corner.

Bet accordingly.