The memecoin frenzy has the market speculating over the merits of investing in these tokens over a traditional IPO.
Edited By: Ann Maria Shibu
- More memes are crossing the billion-dollar valuation marks.
- Key crypto figures blame the SEC and TradFi for the meme frenzy.
Memecoins, especially within the Solana [SOL] ecosystem, recorded explosive growth in Q1 2024. At the time of writing, the community-driven Dogwifhat [WIF] was up 30% on the weekly chart.
It briefly touched $4 and flipped Pepe [Pepe] to become the third largest memecoin by market cap. WIF, which started as a Solana native meme, is now worth $3.6 billion in market cap.
The ecosystem now boasts two unicorn memes, WIF and Bonk [BONK], with over $1 billion in market cap. Out of the $67 billion memecoin total market, the Solana ecosystem accounts for $8 billion, translating to about $12% stake.
Memecoin rally: Did the SEC/TradFi influence it?
Memecoins are now billion-dollar gems to seasoned speculators. Reacting to the crazy billions in the meme sub-sector, Messari Co-Founder Dan McArdle quipped,
“The SEC makes it illegal for people who aren’t already rich to try and get rich from early-stage companies & projects.
Result: memecoins to billions.”
Arthur Hayes, founder and former CEO of BitMEX exchange, had similar observations. In a February newsletter championing the “Points System” for crypto projects, Hayes underscored how retailers get raw deals in traditional markets.
“But without a hungry hoard of retail buyers who are excluded from investing earlier at much cheaper prices, there would be no buying pressure to create a successful IPO. That is why retail participation must be saved for the end and not the beginning of the fundraising lifecycle.”
Retailers are excluded from discounted prices so that companies can dump shares at them during the IPOs (Initial Public Offerings).
On the contrary, crypto allows any retailer to join early, like during the Ethereum ICO (Initial Coin Offering), yield farming, points, etc.
On memecoins, Hayes recently stated that trading Slerf [SLERF] and BOME is “more fun” than “negatively yielding bonds.”
However, another user had a contrarian stance: “Meme coins are really just communities of traders that have agreed to compete to take each other’s money using price action.”
Despite what drives them, memes are now billion-dollar gems and have outperformed some legacy projects in Q1. However, they need great due diligence because they are not risk-free.
