Meme Coins Outperform Other Cryptos With 1,834% Return In First Half, Outpacing RWA, AI And DePIN Sectors

Updated: 26 June 2024

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Meme coins have emerged as the most profitable sector in the crypto space in the first half of this year, posting gains of 1,834%.

That’s according to data from CoinGecko, Wu Blockchain and BitEye, which showed meme coins outperforming real-world asset tokenization (RWA), AI and decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) sectors during the first half of this year.

Meme Coins Leave Other Cryptos Languishing

The meme coin space outperformed the next best-performing category of cryptos, RWA, by a wide margin, with RWA-oriented cryptos printing gains of 214%.

AI cryptos took third place, with their first-quarter returns standing at a healthy 72%. Meanwhile, DePIN projects were able to post 59% gains for investors.

Meme Coins are the most profitable sector of the crypto industry for the first half of 2024 ⚡

For the first half of 2024, meme coins gave 1834% returns, while: #RWA – 213% #AI – 71.5% #DePIN – 58.7%#Biteye #Analytics #Memecoins #Cryptocurrencies https://t.co/3H6YlmPDbR pic.twitter.com/QvV9abPFbD

— ✈️ Crypto HODL 🐪💎 (@Crypto7HODL) June 26, 2024

Market leaders Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) also performed well. ETH’s 50% year-to-date growth was more than the 43% achieved by the crypto king. Other layer-1 cryptos also experienced growth, printing an average return of 43% during the same time.

Solana Tokens Ignite Meme Coin Mania

The strong first half performance by meme coins can be attributed to the investor frenzy that developed around Solana tokens. Developers looking to capitalize on this hype all launched their own tokens, resulting in the minting of 541,000 new cryptos on the Solana blockchain in May alone.

Celebrities and influencers also rushed to be a part of the flourishing Solana ecosystem. Big names such as Andrew Tate, Lil Pump and even Iggy Azalea all launched their own tokens on the network.

But many of these cryptos have had to face accusations of insider trading, while some were also labeled as pump and dump schemes.

From a price perspective, meme coins continued their stellar performance over the past 24 hours, when their collective market capitalization pumped more than 7%, CoinGecko data shows.

During this period, the combined valuation of SOL meme coins surged over 10%.

As meme coins add to their dominant first half performance, smaller tokens in their ICO phase are also selling like hot cakes.

Among analyst favorites are PlayDoge (DOGE), Pepe Unchained (PEPU), WienerAI (WAI) and the Solana token Sealana (SEAL), which will list early next week after raising more than $6 million.