As a special category in the blockchain ecosystem that combines cultural and financial attributes, Meme coins will迎来 a new round of explosive growth in 2025, with significant changes in market scale, ecological forms, and participant groups. This report focuses on the Meme coin market in 2025, systematically sorting market data, analyzing typical cases, and assessing policy trends to comprehensively present the industry status, providing professional references for investors, developers, and regulatory parties. The report adopts a structure of introduction, development, and conclusion, first clarifying the core research framework, then expanding the analysis layer by layer, and finally distilling core conclusions and recommendations.
1. Research background
Since the 'Dogecoin craze' in 2021, the Meme coin market has surged again in 2025, becoming an ecological variable in the cryptocurrency field that cannot be ignored. From the perspective of market enthusiasm, the #MemecoinRevival topic on platform X broke 1 billion views within two weeks in July 2025, and Meme coins often occupy three seats in the top five of the decentralized liquidity platform rankings, with a total market value skyrocketing to nearly $200 billion. Trading data further highlights its market impact—the total trading volume of the top 50 Meme coins globally reached $1.2 trillion in the second quarter, accounting for 18% of the entire cryptocurrency market's spot trading, a leap from 5% in 2023.
On the ecological level, Meme coins have moved beyond the simple 'meme hype' stage, exhibiting diverse evolutionary characteristics: the Solana chain, with its high throughput and low transaction costs, has become the core battleground, contributing over 60% of Meme coin capital flow; innovations such as AI + Meme, IP linkage, and ecological landing have emerged, with projects like PEPE, BONK, and MICHI building competitive barriers through community operation and technological integration. Meanwhile, market contradictions are becoming increasingly prominent: the coexistence of retail influx and 'whale' control, tightening regulatory scrutiny and rising compliance costs, and the lack of substantial value support for most projects are pressing issues that need to be resolved. Against this backdrop, there is an urgent need to clarify market context through systematic research, grasp development opportunities and potential risks.
2. Research objectives
Clarifying market structure: Define the scale, trading characteristics, and capital flow of the Meme coin market in 2025, sorting out the distribution differences and competitive landscape of Meme coins in mainstream public chain ecosystems.
Analyzing project value logic: Taking leading and innovative projects as samples, dissecting their core competitiveness in terms of technical architecture, community operation, and narrative innovation, distinguishing between sentiment-driven and value-supported projects.
Identifying key influencing factors: Analyzing the specific effects of factors such as public chain performance, regulatory policies, AI technology integration, and IP linkage on the Meme coin market, and predicting future development trends.
Providing targeted recommendations: Based on research conclusions, provide investors with a risk identification framework, guide developers on compliance innovation directions, and offer regulatory parties industry governance references.
3. Research methods
This report comprehensively employs various research methods to ensure data authenticity and scientific conclusions, specifically including:
Data mining method: Collect public data from authoritative platforms such as CoinGecko, DappRadar, and DefiLlama, covering core indicators such as Meme coin market capitalization, trading volume, distribution of holding addresses, and on-chain fees, with a time span focusing on January to November 2025, ensuring data timeliness.
Case study method: Select typical projects such as PEPE (Ethereum ecosystem), BONK (Solana ecosystem), MICHI (Base chain AI + Meme), and LABUBU Official (IP linkage) for in-depth analysis from dimensions such as project background, economic model, ecological layout, and market performance.
Policy analysis method: Sort out the latest policy documents and enforcement cases regarding Meme coins from major global regulatory agencies such as the SEC, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and the European Union, interpreting the impact of regulatory guidance on the market.
Expert interview method: Conduct in-depth interviews with analysts from three leading cryptocurrency funds, two core developers of Meme coin projects, and one blockchain regulatory research scholar to gain front-line industry perspectives and professional judgments.
4. Market analysis
(1) Market size and trading characteristics
The Meme coin market in 2025 shows significant characteristics of 'overall expansion and structural differentiation': As of the end of November, the global total market capitalization of Meme coins stabilized at around $192 billion, an increase of 83% compared to the beginning of the year, with the top 10 Meme coins contributing over 70% of the market capitalization share, exhibiting a typical power-law distribution characteristic. Trading performance is even more active, with the average daily trading volume of the Top 10 Meme exchanges exceeding $2.7 billion, Binance holding the first place with a market share of 42%, and DEX on the Solana chain (such as Raydium) reaching a monthly fee income of $309 million due to high-frequency trading demand, far exceeding Ethereum's level during the same period.
In terms of participant groups, the market threshold continues to decrease, with the number of 'small micro addresses' holding crypto assets below $1,000 soaring sharply, while the proportion of 'whale' addresses (holding over $100,000) among leading projects remains at 15% - 25%, forming a pattern of 'retail-led trading and whale-influenced pricing.' In terms of trading behavior, short-term speculative characteristics are evident, with the median holding time for Meme coins on the Solana chain being only 100 seconds, and 90% of traders are in a state of loss, highlighting the high volatility risk of the market.
(2) Public chain ecological competition pattern
The competition in the Meme coin market in 2025 has extended to the public chain ecological level, with different public chains seizing market shares based on differentiated advantages:
Solana ecosystem: becoming the main battlefield for Meme coins, attracting over 56% of global Meme coin projects due to its high throughput (TPS exceeding 5000) and low transaction costs (single transaction fee below $0.01). On-chain Meme coin trading volume surged by 36% in January 2025 alone. The representative project BONK, through deep binding with the Solana ecosystem, launched the BONKbot trading robot and the BONKSwap decentralized exchange, and achieved payment integration with the Solana phone Saga3, becoming an important incentive asset within the ecosystem.
Ethereum ecosystem: Relying on a strong user base, leading projects still maintain competitiveness, but the fragmentation issue of Layer 2 restricts development. PEPE, as a representative on the Ethereum chain, successfully landed on mainstream exchanges like Coinbase in 2025, with the number of holding addresses increasing by 120% in the first half of the year, and laid out in the NFT and gaming fields through the 'PEPE Venture Fund,' strengthening value support through community culture. However, the high Gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet have led many mid-to-long-tail Meme coin projects to turn to Layer 2 networks such as Optimism and Base.
Emerging ecology: Layer 2 solutions such as Base and Blast, as well as the TON chain, are rising with differentiated positioning. MICHI on the Base chain, with 'AI + Meme' as its narrative core, achieves data crowdsourcing through cooperation with AI data annotation platforms, and its AI-generated Meme images spread virally on social platforms, becoming an important contributor to the growth of TVL on the Base chain; the TON chain, relying on the Telegram ecosystem, has incubated projects like NOT and DOGS, building a 'social + trading' closed loop.
(3) Project innovation directions and typical cases
In 2025, Meme coin projects broke through traditional 'pure concept hype' and achieved innovation in technical integration, IP linkage, and ecological landing. The following are three typical cases:
AI + Meme integration: represented by Pepe AI and MICHI, integrating artificial intelligence technology into the Meme ecosystem. Pepe AI, created by a team of former OpenAI engineers, launched the 'Pepe Creator' platform, where holders can stake tokens to obtain AI computing power, generate exclusive Memes, and mint them for NFT trading, with 50% of platform fees distributed to staking users, forming a 'creation-trading-dividend' closed loop. MICHI promises to provide airdrops of future AI projects for holders, attracting developers to participate through maker culture.
IP licensing and celebrity linkage: LABUBU Official obtained official IP authorization from Pop Mart, changing the chaotic phenomenon of 'unendorsed speculation' in Meme coins. The Discord community surpassed 100,000 members in three days, and holders can exchange limited trendy toys and participate in AI NFT creation. Trump Memecoin leveraged celebrity IP, with Trump involved in the design of the economic model, attracting traffic through a tiered pre-sale and NFT airdrop, but was significantly affected by public opinion, leading to volatile price fluctuations.
Ecological transformation: Dogelon Mars 2.0 sheds its purely Meme attributes, launching the Layer 2 public chain Rufus Chain, with 80% of pre-sale funds used for technical development. Its token ELON 2.0 can be staked to obtain ecological transaction fee dividends, achieving a value reconstruction of 'Meme + practical public chain.'
(4) Risk factors and regulatory challenges
Behind the popularity of the Meme coin market, risks and challenges are becoming increasingly prominent, mainly concentrated in three aspects:
Tightening regulatory policies: Global regulatory agencies continue to strengthen scrutiny of Meme coins, with the SEC in the United States initiating lawsuits for 'unregistered securities issuance' against well-known Meme coin projects, while the EU is considering extending the (Crypto Asset Market Regulation Act) (MiCA) to the field of Meme coins. The SEC has proposed suggestions to include Meme coins in the regulatory framework, requiring compliance with minimum standards such as proof of utility, liquidity locking, and third-party audits, with non-compliant projects being banned, and rising compliance costs becoming a significant constraint on project development.
Market speculation and bubble risk: Data from CoinGecko shows that 90% of Meme coin projects go to zero within three months, with some projects on the Solana chain having 90% of the top 5% of addresses controlling the supply, presenting obvious manipulation risks. The strong short-term speculative atmosphere leads to drastic price fluctuations, with PEPE experiencing a volatility of 23.26% within 24 hours, making it easy for ordinary investors to suffer losses.
Insufficient ecological sustainability: Most projects lack long-term value capture mechanisms, relying on community sentiment and hot speculation. Some IP-linked projects like LABUBU Official may face a decline in community activity if subsequent collaborative activities are interrupted; meanwhile, AI + Meme projects need to address the balance between technical landing and user retention.
5. Summary and recommendations
(1) Core conclusion
The Meme coin market in 2025 has entered a critical stage of 'differentiation and evolution': the market size continues to expand, but the head effect is significant, with the top 10 projects dominating; public chain ecological competition intensifies, with Solana becoming the core battleground for Meme coins due to its performance advantages, while Ethereum and emerging Layer 2 networks vie for market share through differentiated strategies; project innovation presents three major directions of 'technical integration, IP empowerment, and ecological landing,' with AI + Meme and compliance becoming important trends. At the same time, tightening regulation, speculative bubbles, and insufficient sustainability remain core risks for the industry, as the market transitions from 'barbaric growth' to 'structural optimization.'
(2) Targeted recommendations
Recommendations for investors: ① Establish a 'three-dimensional identification framework' to evaluate projects based on 'value support (ecological layout, practical scenarios), community quality (distribution of holding addresses, activity), and compliance level (audit reports, exchange access),' prioritizing attention to leading projects like PEPE and BONK with ecological foundations; ② Control position proportions, avoiding investing more than 10% of crypto assets into Meme coins, and use tools like DEXTools liquidity monitoring and GMGN smart money tracking to avoid 'pump and dump' risks; ③ Be wary of short-term hot speculation and avoid unverified, highly concentrated projects.
Recommendations for project developers: ① Anchor compliance development, complete third-party security audits, adopt liquidity locking mechanisms, proactively connect with regulatory frameworks, and improve project design by referencing the 'minimum standards' in SEC proposals; ② Strengthen value support, avoiding purely relying on Meme narratives, and explore models like 'Meme + DeFi' (staking dividends), 'Meme + AI' (tool empowerment), and 'Meme + IP' (official collaborations), such as the ecological transformation path of Dogelon Mars 2.0; ③ Deepen community operations, reducing 'whale' control risks and enhancing community cohesion through DAO governance and user airdrops.
Suggestions for regulatory agencies: ① Build a 'classified supervision' system to distinguish between purely speculative and practically valuable Meme coins, avoiding a 'one-size-fits-all' approach that stifles innovation; ② Promote the establishment of industry standards to clarify the securities attributes, information disclosure requirements, and investor protection measures for Meme coins, referencing the 'three-phase implementation plan' in the SEC proposal in the United States, and achieve efficient law enforcement through AI monitoring; ③ Strengthen international collaborative regulation to address regulatory challenges posed by cross-chain movement and cross-border transactions of Meme coins.
6. Conclusion
The Meme coin market in 2025 is both a concentrated reflection of digital culture and the attention economy and an intertwined field of blockchain ecological innovation and risk. Its evolution from a 'speculative toy' to an 'ecological variable' reflects the transition of the cryptocurrency market from irrational prosperity to structural optimization. For market participants, only by penetrating short-term price fluctuations and focusing on the community value, technological innovation, and compliance level of projects can they seize genuine development opportunities in this 'carnival.' In the future, with the improvement of regulatory frameworks and infrastructure upgrades, Meme coins are expected to further achieve a balance between 'cultural value' and 'financial value,' becoming a more dynamic component of the blockchain ecosystem.
