Meme coins’ hot streak cooled dramatically in Q1 2025. This sharp drop happened as investor interest faded and a major scandal hit the highly speculative market.
CoinGecko’s Q1 report cited the main trigger: LIBRA’s sudden collapse. When this political meme coin tied to Argentina’s President Milei imploded, the fallout caused activity on Solana’s Pump.fun platform to drop over 56.3% from its January high.
What Fueled the Initial Meme Coin Surge?
Political hype fueled the early 2025 meme coin surge. Specifically, the launches of official TRUMP and MELANIA tokens created a major frenzy on Solana. This activity peaked with a record 72,000 new tokens launched daily on the Pump.fun platform.
This frenzy gave birth to the “political meme coin” trend, with tokens named after politicians and countries flooding the Solana network.
How Did the LIBRA Token Collapse?
But the trend died quickly when LIBRA collapsed, just hours after a tweet from President Milei. Its market cap crashed hard from $4.6 billion down to $221 million as insiders allegedly rug-pulled over $107 million in liquidity.
The fallout was brutal: meme coins lost their luster, and trust in new launches evaporated. As a result, by Q1’s end, daily Pump.fun token creation fell to just 31,000 – far below the January peak.
The percentage of tokens that “graduated,” that is, gained traction and traded beyond the Pump.fun environment, also halved, dropping from 1.4% to just 0.7%.
The LIBRA incident didn’t just curtail the momentum of political meme coins, it also marked the end of what many are now calling the “meme coin supercycle.” While speculation still persists among crypto’s most aggressive traders, the wider market has clearly cooled.
Where Did Investor Interest Go?
As meme coin interest faded, attention shifted. CoinGecko data shows AI tokens surpassed meme coins in Q1 interest – a first. AI captured 35.7% interest vs 27.1% for memes.
That’s my short take on this Q1 report. There are 50 slides with so much more data that I don’t have the chance to share so go give it a read and share with me what data that you found most interesting! https://t.co/yAalPdKPZ9
— Bobby Ong (@bobbyong) April 17, 2025
CoinGecko co-founder Bobby Ong echoed this sentiment in a recent X post, saying,
“Seems like we have yet to see another new narrative emerge and we are still following past quarters’ trends. I guess we are all tired from the same old trends repeating themselves.”
Still, meme coins haven’t vanished. Six of CoinGecko’s top 20 Q1 narratives involved meme coins, even as market fatigue set in.
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