Memecoins are not dead because the market has shrunk and lost its narrative, according to Keith A. Grossman, president of payments infrastructure company MoonPay, who said memecoins will return but in a different form.
Grossman said the main innovation of memecoins is to democratize access to the attention economy, easily and at a low cost, through blockchain technology. He continued:
“Before crypto, attention could only be captured by a small group of platforms, brands and influencers. Everyone else created value and gave it away for free. Likes, trends, jokes and communities created huge economic value.”
However, this value is not passed back to the participants and is mostly captured by the large, centralized platforms.
Grossman compared the pessimistic memecoin outlook among analysts predicting the demise of social media to how the first generation of social platforms failed in the early 2000s, before the rise of a later group of companies that turned the niche sector into a cultural phenomenon.
Memecoins were one of the best performing crypto asset sectors in 2024 and the most important narrative among crypto investors this year, according to crypto market data platform Kongiko.
However, sharp criticism that memecoins and other social tokens have no value and several high-profile token implosions ultimately sent the market into turmoil and investors beyond the narrative.
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Presidential Defects and the Decline of the Mimcoin Sector
The memecoin market collapsed in Q1 2025 after several high-profile token collapses and major crashes characterized by “carpet pulling”.
United States President Donald Trump launched a memecoin ahead of his January 2025 inauguration, which peaked at $75 before falling more than 90 percent to a high of $5.42 at the time of writing, according to Coin Market Cap.
Argentina’s president, Javier Meli, endorsed a social token called Libra in February, which crashed, with 86 percent of Libra holders realizing $1,000 or more.
The token had reached a market cap of $107 million before its demise and was characterized by the crypto community as a rug puller.
Although Meli tried to distance himself from the token launch, a government investigation was launched into Meli’s involvement, which culminated in lawsuits by retail investors and calls for impeachment from Argentine lawmakers.
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