- Several memecoins and altcoins have outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) in H1 2024.
- Dogwifhat (WIF) has emerged as the top-performing token in H1 2024.
- Top memecoins have a combined market cap of over $40 billion.
Memecoins have outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) in the first six months of 2024, with Dogwifhat (WIF), Pepe (PEPE), and FLOKI (FLOKI) being the top gainers so far this year.
After a small cycle of boom and bust, many wonder if the memecoin mania is over. In simple words, memecoins are here to stay.
Memecoins Outperform Bitcoin
While BTC saw solid growth, adding some $409 billion to the entire market value in H1 2024, it only experienced a 48% increase. As per a report from Forbes , the viral nature of memecoins has seen this new class of crypto outperform the almighty Bitcoin.
Within this same time frame, WIF gained around 1,300% and was the top returner out of 70 cryptos, with market caps over $1 billion. PEPE was the second-best performer in H1 2024, gaining approximately 800%, and FLOKI came in third with a 500 % appreciation so far this year.
Other notable memecoins that have outperformed BTC in terms of price gains so far this year include Shiba Inu (SHIB), which was up 67% by July 2024, and Bonk (BONK), which is currently up around 81% in H1 2024.
A relatively new memecoin, “Brett (Based) ” (BRETT), has also been one of this year’s success stories, gaining over 200% since its launch in March 2024. It currently sits at a price of $0.12 and commands an impressive market cap of $1.2 billion, making it one of the most significant gainers of Q2 2024.
Honorable Mentions
Though they aren’t memecoins, other altcoins have also outperformed the king of crypto so far this year.
Notable gainers through the H1 2024 period include Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET), which was up over 500%; JasmyCoin (JASMY), which was over around 343%, and Arrweave (AR), which saw an appreciation of 343%.
One particular success story has been that of Core (CORE ). After losing almost 100% of its value after launching in February 2023, it caught the memecoin mania wave in late March 2024, more than tripling its value when it peaked. In those brief few months, it made an incredible comeback, gaining some 152% in H1 2024.
Telegram-native Toncoin (TON ) has also relished significant gains as it begins building out its wallet and ecosystem offerings with the likes of Notcoin (NOT). In H1 2024, TON was up 135%.
The native token of the Bitget crypto exchange, Bitget Token (BGB ), is also one of the top performers this year, rallying some 100% by July, and is continuing this climb.
Memecoin Mania
Memecoins represent some of the most speculative assets on the market. Arguably, they are the 2024 equivalent to the 2017/2018 initial coin offerings (ICOs) that swamped the markets with heaps of good, bad, total junk, and scam crypto projects.
There are memecoins like DOGE, SHIB, FLOKI, and others that work to build out an ecosystem in which their community can thrive and utilize these tokens. This is often through a combination of governance voting, staking, and the occasional airdrop to reward loyal HODLers, but that’s about it. Meanwhile, others, such as PEPE, seem to exist for the fun of it.
Often, they use some combination of meme-magic, FOMO, and FUD in their social media posts to spark some interest in their project.
Naturally, the memecoins markets are a minefield of pump and dump schemes, rug pulls, wallet drainers, frauds, and myriad other dangers to even the most experienced crypto traders.
Many seem willing to look past this, as evidenced by the success of the memecoin market. Seemingly, despite crypto’s best efforts to educate and inform investors of said dangers, the prospect of a 1000% price gain on a random viral crypto remains irresistible.
