The carnival is short, but the tide recedes for a long time; the vast majority of cryptocurrencies will not see a second peak.

Written by: Victor Ramirez

Translated by: Saoirse, Foresight News

Meme coins are often associated with retail speculation and exaggerated high returns, but it has been proven that they can efficiently bring traffic and liquidity to emerging blockchain ecosystems. At the end of 2023, Solana experienced a recovery after the FTX crash, and a meme coin trading frenzy followed; in 2024, the Base chain replicated this phenomenon; and most recently, the Robinhood Chain introduced a new way to combine meme coins with tokenized stocks.

However, this viral and attention-grabbing attribute inevitably leads to a short life cycle. Platforms like shturl.c and PONS have lowered the issuance threshold for meme coins, further amplifying this phenomenon. Millions of meme coins have been minted, with only a very small portion able to list on centralized exchanges, and those that truly survive are even rarer.

The cycle of meme coins soaring and crashing is well-known but rarely studied quantitatively. How long do the market cycles of meme coins actually last? In the long term, how do they perform? This report selects a large number of meme coin samples to calculate their complete life cycle from initial quotation to crash, analyzing the meme coin sector from a macro perspective.

Using survival analysis models to study the market life cycle of meme coins

To define the market life cycle of tokens, this article sets three key events:

• Start: The token first trades on the exchange
• Peak: The historical highest price (ATH) of the meme coin
• Crash: A 95% drawdown relative to the historical highest price

This article adopts the Kaplan-Meier estimator, a statistical method originally used in clinical trials to estimate the median survival time of subjects, to calculate the typical market life cycle of meme coins. The research sample comes from Talos market database's 150 meme coins, with the sample range limited to those issued after the launch of BONK in December 2023, following the rise of Solana meme coins.

Important note: This sample leans towards relatively successful tokens; the inclusion criterion is that the token must have generated market data on at least one centralized exchange. Many meme coins directly issued by platforms like shturl.c are not included. Thus, the statistical results of this report will systematically overestimate the actual survival time of ordinary meme coins. Additionally, the 95% drawdown is an arbitrarily set threshold; the selection of this threshold can significantly alter the calculation results of media lifespan.

One more point: Comparing the current price to the historical highest price, the statistical results naturally lean pessimistic. Although the historical highest price can only be confirmed later, it still holds reference value; if local peaks were used as a benchmark instead, the uncertainty of the price path would be even greater. Please treat this article as a demonstration of the analytical model rather than as an absolutely precise statistical conclusion.

Meme coin life cycle: Kaplan-Meier survival curve. Source: Talos CM Market Data Pro

Chart reading instructions: The estimator forecasts time from left to right. Whenever a marked event occurs, it calculates the proportion of currently non-crashed tokens that have just crashed; then multiplies the conditional survival rates. As long as the token remains within the observation range, it is counted in the "risk sample denominator," and when the observation ends, it exits the statistics without being marked as having crashed. The curve starts at 100% and gradually descends in steps; the KM median value is the point where the curve crosses 50%.

Core conclusion: After the first trade of a meme coin, the median time to reach the historical highest price is only 17.2 days; a quarter of the coins peak in just 1.6 days. After reaching their historical high, meme coins take a median of 370 days to see a crash result with a 95% drawdown from relative highs.

Investor warning: Like a casino, the return performance of meme coins is extremely harsh

The above analyzes the life cycle from a time dimension; next, we analyze the return distribution of different meme coins.

The following image shows the price distribution of various meme coins relative to their historical highs: More than half of meme coins currently have prices down 95% from their historical highest points.

The current price of meme coins relative to the historical highest price drawdown situation

Price performance of tokens launched during the Solana meme coin era

The vast majority of meme coins have relatively concentrated initial yield ranges, then shift towards a continuous decline; among 151 sample tokens, only 5 have current prices higher than the launch price on the first day. After 300 days of launch, most tokens are worth only 10% of their original value. Regardless of market capitalization, almost all meme coins cannot escape negative returns. Among the five large market cap tokens born in the Solana meme coin era, three—TRUMP, PUMP, PENGUIN—currently have prices below their issuance prices.

Duration distribution of each phase of the complete lifecycle of meme coins

Among the meme coins launched during the Solana meme coin era, 50% completed the entire life cycle from launch, peak, to a 95% drop within an average of 456 days. By the 1000th day, about 90% of the tokens have dropped 95% from their peaks.

The following Sankey diagram shows the ultimate fate of meme coins. Only 19% of meme coins can avoid a 90% drop from historical highs. Among the 81% of meme coins that dropped 90% from their historical highs, only 3% have ever recovered to their historical highs.

Is this the peak? Exploring local peaks versus historical highs

When the market is soaring with you, how do you determine if you have reached a local peak or the absolute peak? There is no way to know, but historically, meme coins rarely set more than one “peak”.

Two-thirds of meme coins in the Solana era do not experience a second rebound. They only rise once, peak within a few days, and never come close to that price again. The remaining one-third of coins average several months before setting a new historical peak.

Jumping out of the price: On-chain activity perspective

We can use the same reasoning to analyze from the perspective of on-chain activity. By counting active addresses on the Solana chain with balances of at least $1, and comparing peak address numbers with current levels. Very similar to the characteristics during price surges: on-chain activity has almost no multiple local spikes before reaching its peak; and after the first peak, on-chain activity finds it difficult to recover. Currently, those "top" meme coins have less than 7% of active addresses remaining after their peak levels.

Data source: Talos CM Network Data Pro

Outlook: Is the era of meme coins coming to an end?

The overall data shows an unsatisfactory state of the meme coin market. Does this indicate the end of speculation in meme coins?

The current spread of meme coin trading across various platforms, however, presents a contrary conclusion. There is almost no evidence that the asymmetrical returns of meme coins serve to reward people for the chance to gain wealth with extremely low probabilities. But if one thinks that meme coin speculation is built on rational market participants making prudent investment decisions, that would be a misplaced categorization. While the market generally understands the extremely poor long-term investment value of meme coins, it does not prevent new participants from endlessly entering this game.

Speculative behavior is deeply rooted in market culture and is unrelated to underlying trading infrastructure. Speculation is not a phenomenon unique to blockchain; it simply allows this type of market to expand efficiently and without barriers to entry. As more assets undergo financialization and on-chain tokenization, a variety of new speculative plays will likely continue to emerge in various unexpected forms.