Looking Back at the Latest Meme Coin Frenzy: 6x Average Gains for 20 Popular Coins in a Week—Who’s Driving the Rally?
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Looking Back at the Latest Meme Coin Frenzy: 6x Average Gains for 20 Popular Coins in a Week—Who’s Driving the Rally?
The six listed meme coins on the Solana blockchain achieved an average increase of 906.72%, with the highest gain being CHAT, which rose 1843.74% over the past week.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Frank, PANews
On the evening of March 5, Bitcoin broke through the $69,000 mark again, hitting a new all-time high. However, the market quickly reversed course, triggering a sharp plunge across meme coins during this correction cycle. Looking back at the recent crypto rally, meme coins were one of the hottest sectors aside from Bitcoin. As of March 5, the total market cap of meme coins surged by 159.3% over the past week. PANews has analyzed 20 popular meme coins to reconstruct the drivers and details behind this surge—exactly who fueled this brief meme coin frenzy?
Musk Lights the Fuse, Retail FOMO Ignites the Market
This wave of meme coin mania seemed to erupt overnight with collective surges. However, analysis reveals that the initial meme coin rally began as early as February 23. The first noticeable gainer was TROLL, one of many meme coins popularized by Elon Musk.
At 10:18 AM on February 23, Musk posted a tweet saying "SUP," accompanied by an image of a doll wearing a Grok t-shirt pressing a button labeled "TROLL MODE." Shortly after the post, TROLL's price spiked, rising 38.11% within 15 minutes.
Another early riser was TRUMP, a meme coin predicting Donald Trump’s victory in the next U.S. presidential election. It had already begun climbing in early February. Steven Steel, the project’s director and a YouTube talk show host, recently gave an exclusive interview to CoinDesk. Similarly, TRUMP tokens entered their upward trajectory on February 23, likely driven by Trump’s heightened visibility in the campaign trail.
However, neither of these two tokens can be considered mainstream memes. The true mainstream meme coins—PEPE, MEME, DOGE, SHIB—began rallying between February 24 and February 26. Among them, PEPE was among the earliest movers. On February 23, both Binance and OKX simultaneously engaged with the official PEPE account. That day, PEPE rose nearly 20%.
Afterwards, from February 26 onward, abnormal price movements in meme coins became increasingly frequent, and FOMO sentiment spread throughout the market.
Analysts at QCP Capital pointed out that a "speculative buying spree" during Monday’s Asian trading session may have driven prices higher. The report stated: "As retail FOMO truly emerges, altcoins—especially meme coins—are rebounding sharply."
On-chain data supports this view. Taking PEPE as an example, according to CoinMarketCap, the number of short-term holders (holding less than one month) increased from 9,398 on February 26 to 31,038 on March 4—an increase of nearly 3.3 times. SHIB showed a similar trend: from February 26 to March 4, the share of large whale holdings dropped from 62.36% to 57.9%, while retail ownership rose from 23.74% to 27.34%.
Solana Rises as Meme Hotspot; Ethereum Plays Old Favorites
Unlike previous meme frenzies, this year’s boom is no longer dominated solely by Ethereum. Meme coins on Solana have shown immense potential, now rivaling those on Ethereum. Among the 20 popular meme coins we analyzed, 6 are based on Solana, 12 on Ethereum, and 2 on BNB. (Related reading: Are Solana’s “dog coins” more cost-effective? Calculating real outcomes using the Kelly Criterion)
In terms of gains, Solana-based meme coins appear to offer greater upside. The six featured Solana meme coins achieved an average gain of 906.72%, with CHAT leading the pack at a weekly surge of 1,843.74%. In contrast, the 12 Ethereum-based coins averaged gains of 479.87%. This disparity may stem from differences in market capitalization: Ethereum meme coins average $1.764 billion in market cap, compared to just $705 million for Solana’s. Clearly, smaller market caps allow for larger FOMO-driven spikes.
Although this marks a classic meme season, not all meme coins benefited equally. Regarding composition, all Ethereum-based meme coins in our list were launched more than three months ago, most over six months ago. In contrast, nearly all Solana meme coins were issued within the past four months, except for BONK, which debuted in February 2023. It appears Ethereum meme communities value time-tested projects with established followings, while Solana favors fresh launches.
Some Earned 10,000x, Others Lost Millions in Half a Day
Indeed, the extreme volatility of meme coins continues to spark intense debate within the community. Value investors argue that meme coins are mere emotional signals—high-risk and unproductive for the broader crypto ecosystem. Meanwhile, newer crypto investors favor these straightforward, high-impact assets.
This latest meme coin wave still produced tales of overnight riches—and devastating wipeouts.
According to Lookonchain, one user invested under $3,000 to buy 4.9 trillion PEPE tokens, now worth approximately $35.5 million. During this rally, the user sold $2 million worth of tokens—a return of roughly 11,077x!
Spot On Chain reported that five wallets (likely controlled by the same individual) realized a profit of $5.66 million (up 475%) when PEPE hit a new all-time high. These wallets withdrew a total of 96.996 billion PEPE tokens from Binance on January 16, 2024, when they were worth only $1.19 million.
In any speculative market, winners mean losers. Another Twitter user, @yonghaochen168, shared that he bought 100 billion PEPE tokens on March 5 morning but panicked and exited at noon after a sharp downturn, losing $140,000 (about RMB 1 million) in half a day. He commented: “I don’t know if PEPE’s run is over, but mine definitely is. Even in a bull market, you can lose money. Not buying at the bottom and instead gambling near the top often leads to total losses.”
The wild swings of meme tokens also caught many leveraged traders off guard. On March 5, AiCoin’s liquidation leaderboard showed around $836 million in meme coin liquidations, second only to Bitcoin’s $1.055 billion. CHAT, the token with the largest recent gains, has already fallen from its peak of $7.61 to $3.66—halved in value.
Meanwhile, whales are exiting. According to Arkham Intelligence, the top 10 PEPE addresses collectively reduced holdings by $22.23 million over the past week. In recent days, news of whale sell-offs—including accounts linked to Justin Sun—has become increasingly common.
We cannot precisely identify whose capital drove this meme coin surge. But judging from current outcomes, the biggest beneficiaries remain the early-positioned whales. For retail investors outside the information loop, all that remains is lingering FOMO.
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