The meme coin market shows clearer signs of recovery in December. Pump.fun – the leading platform for launching meme coins – reports a renewed increase in newly created tokens.
Analysts also note that investor sentiment is shifting towards a higher risk appetite as the year comes to a close.
How does Pump.fun reflect the increased risk appetite in December?
Dune data shows that the number of meme tokens created daily on Pump.fun remained above 20,000 throughout December. On December 2, this number exceeded 25,000. This was the highest level since mid-September and marks a notable shift.
This recovery may not yet match the peak levels of early 2025. However, it signals a shift in investor psychology.
Many seem to believe that this is a favorable time for retail capital to flow back into low-cap and newly launched tokens.
Although the number of new tokens shows a mild upward trend, Pump.fun's revenue and DEX volume remain over 80% lower compared to early 2025.
One positive indicator stands out: the number of active addresses – including new addresses and returning users – has remained around 100,000 on average since August. The market experienced several major liquidation events during this period, but the user count did not decline sharply.
Moreover, Michael Nadeau, founder of The DeFi Report, emphasized a striking comparison between user retention in Web2 and on Pump.fun. Pump.fun achieved higher retention rates, with 12.4% in week 4 and 11.4% in week 8. In contrast, the Web2 averages range from 5% to 10% in week 4 and 2% to 5% in week 8.
These figures seem encouraging within a market environment characterized by declining valuations and persistent extreme fear in the last quarter of the year.
Additionally, well-known trader Daan Crypto Trades noted that meme coins have outperformed major altcoins in the past two weeks.
“In the past two weeks, memes have been the outperformer for a change. It's been a long time since they did well. This follows a long stretch of outperformance in 2023 and 2024,” said Daan Crypto Trades.
He added that this performance could be an early signal that the market is ready to accept higher risk levels. However, he also warned that the trend could be short-lived and may not reflect a long-term shift.
A recent report from BeInCrypto also highlighted at least three indicators suggesting that the meme coin season could return in December. If that scenario occurs, the Pump.fun ecosystem may attract retail investors – those who embrace high risks in hopes of significant potential returns.
At the time of writing, the Pump.fun Ecosystem is ranked as the third best-performing category in the market during the first week of December according to Coingecko.