Meme coins have finally shown an exciting rebound after a long period of weakness.
Since mid-September last year, the overall market capitalization of meme coins gradually declined from about $80 billion to a low of only $35 billion, with hardly any significant rebounds along the way. However, entering 2026, in the first week of the year, the total market capitalization of meme coins finally rebounded, returning to nearly $50 billion.
During this period, the market capitalization of meme coins accounted for almost the lowest historical percentage among all altcoins since July 2022, dropping to about 3%. As we entered 2026, this metric finally rebounded to around 4%.
The current rebound in meme coins gives a sense of "nostalgia." It seems that the market for meme coins has switched from "new dog coins" to "classic old coins." Pepe has surged over 70% in the past week, with a trading volume in the last 24 hours reaching a staggering approximately $1.1 billion, accounting for over 50% of Doge's trading volume in the same period.
Familiar large-cap, long-lived meme coins like Doge, Shiba, Pepe, BONK, Pengu, SPX, and Fartcoin have all seen significant increases in the past week, with none below 20%. If this trend continues, based on past experiences, we can hope to see a repeat of previous bull markets where large-cap meme coins surged and new meme stars emerged.
This current meme coin rebound is also viewed by optimistic players in the crypto space as the starting point for a new round of comprehensive market activity. Historically, meme coin trends have often served as leading indicators of changes in market risk appetite, such as Doge in 2021 and Bome and pump.fun in 2024. Since the logic of meme coins is more supported by emotions and can easily spark discussions on social media, once the price rises and positive discussions increase, it can easily create a comprehensive bull market atmosphere among retail investors.
If this bull market truly arrives, from our current standpoint, what angles can we explore to capture new opportunities in the new bull market?
"Currently Hot": Attention Tokens
The rebound in meme coins has also led to a rapid rotation of attention tokens. The success of White Whale has only been a little over a week, and the price is still near its historical peak, but in the past two days, a new token called "114514" has emerged, which just broke through a market cap of $40 million today, setting a new historical high with an increase of about 250 times in just two days.
The "114514" meme originates from a gay adult film titled "BABYLON STAGE 34 Midsummer Night's Dream the IMP," released by the Japanese company COAT CORPORATION in 2001. An actor playing the "senpai" role in the film delivered a standout performance, especially when he exclaimed, "Okay! Come on! (いいよ！こいよ)," which has since been referred to by Japanese netizens using a phonetic play on Japanese numbers and has been incorporated into various meme images and videos.
Although the true identity of this "senpai" remains unknown due to the production company's confidentiality agreement, in 2011, a man named Hiroshi Tada was arrested in Japan for obscenity, as he bore a striking resemblance to the "senpai," leading netizens to assume that "senpai" was Hiroshi Tada. This meme has also gained popularity in the Chinese-speaking community, often accompanied by terms like "stinky, disgusting, foul" in the comments, stemming from the obscenity charges associated with the presumed "senpai." Another common phrase seen is "Good times, coming power," which is a deliberate translation of "114514."
It's hard to objectively analyze why the old meme "114514" suddenly surged in the crypto space, but the emotional overflow can still provide some expectations. Without objective reasons, the direction of "114514's" emotional overflow will depend on how the market interprets it and how funds choose to direct it. It can be understood from the perspective of Japanese meme culture or as a pure numerical meme like "42069."
In the game of attention tokens, there's no need to ask why; instead, we need to judge how other players will think, what reasons can be accepted by the majority as buying power, and rely on luck.
"Long-Termism": Classic Meme Coins
The return of classic meme coins like Pepe, BONK, and Pengu during this meme rebound is surprising, as these large-cap, long-tested meme coins have not been in the market spotlight for a long time. Due to the popularity of attention-driven gameplay, people have become more accustomed to fast-paced speculation, and "diamond hands" have even taken on a mocking connotation.
However, in every truly comprehensive market cycle, some excellent meme coins emerge, gaining acceptance and recognition from the market as "good coins," maintaining a high market capitalization over the long term, and having a group of steadfast holders.
This is actually what meme coins have needed for a long time, marking the true maturation of this sector. Murad's "meme coin supercycle" theory includes a set of standards for evaluating meme coin quality—whether it can maintain a medium or large market cap (over $5 million), whether it has undergone at least six months of time testing, whether it has a sufficiently clear goal to achieve certain things, and whether it can resonate with people's hearts to truly complete the sedimentation and unity of holders.
According to this standard, aside from the meme giants like Doge, Shiba, Pepe, BONK, and Pengu, which the market has already deemed "too big to fail," there are still many potential stocks worth paying attention to. Larger ones include SPX, Fartcoin, Mog, and BITCOIN (HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu), while smaller ones include neet, Chillhouse, Joe, and others.
In the game of classic meme coins, it is essential to detach personal emotions as much as possible and observe their social media and community objectively and deeply. Meme coins that have grown to this stage must be rare and easily distinguishable because, first, it is not easy for a meme coin to be operated stably over the long term; either the community has already come together to collectively produce content, or a sufficiently resourced team has greater ambitions for sustainable development. The goals of these coins are no longer just to stabilize the internal community and token supply but to consider how to attract external growth through multiple channels, even allowing meme culture to influence and change real-world issues from certain perspectives.
"Income is King": Realizing Token Rights
For a long time, it has been difficult to analyze projects in the crypto space with beautiful and stable income reports using the stock market's price-to-earnings ratio logic, as token holders do not enjoy dividends and other rights like shareholders. Therefore, the profit metric in the crypto space is more of a "hope," serving a "narrative" function. This fragile "narrative" function has also led meme coin maximalists to believe that, essentially, there is no difference between altcoins and meme coins; altcoins are just meme coins.
Nevertheless, the income narrative still holds in the crypto space. More distant examples like Uniswap and Aave remain at the top of the crypto market capitalization rankings, while more recent examples like Hyperliquid's rapid growth have raised the ceiling for the Perp DEX sector.
Better yet, since last year, we have seen some progress in realizing token rights. For instance, the Uniswap fee switch, which had been stuck for a long time, has finally been successfully activated, and although the proposal to "transfer brand asset control to token holders" by Aave faced turmoil and ultimately did not pass, Aave Labs has committed to sharing off-protocol income with token holders, acknowledging that interest alignment is crucial for both Aave Labs and AAVE holders.
Although there are still many legal and practical execution issues on the road to aligning tokens with equity rights, the improvement of governance models within the community and the awakening of holder awareness are significant progress. If there is a market trend ahead, those projects that perform better in terms of income interest alignment should gain more market recognition, representing an upgrade before income distribution truly breaks free from narrative and becomes a reality.
Conclusion
We hope that the current rebound in meme coins is truly a prelude to a comprehensive market trend. If a comprehensive market does occur, we hope to see new stars emerge and complete the "new-old transition" in the crypto space.
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