The cryptocurrency market is set to enter the last quarter of the financial year, and memecoins have already been the star performers.
What happened: A plethora of tokens inspired by dogs and cats have netted massive returns to their holders year-to-date.
Interestingly, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) has taken the lead over Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), the traditional home of world-beating memecoins.
Cat-themed Popcat has been the market's best performer this year, exploding an eye-popping 12882% this year. The coin became the latest entrant to the billion-dollar memecoin club, with a 13% spike in the last 24 hours.
Dog-themed dogwifhat occupied the third spot in top gainers list, lifting 1108% since 2024 began. The token reclaimed its $2 billion market capitalization with a 15% jump in the last 24 hours.
Overall, the total market capitalization of Solana-based memecoins surged to nearly $8 billion as of this writing, according to data from CoinGecko.
| Blockchain | Cryptocurrency | Gains YTD +/- | Price (Recorded at 11:45 p.m. EDT) |
| Solana-Based | Popcat (POPCAT) | 12882.01% | $1.05 |
| dogwifhat (CRYPTO: WIF) | 1108.91% | $2.07 | |
| Bonlk (CRYPTO: BONK) | +44.90% | $0.00001933 | |
| Ethereum-Based | Pepe (CRYPTO: PEPE) | +521.07% | $0.000008726 |
| Floki (CRYPTO: FLOKI) | +292.63% | $0.0001444 | |
| Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) | +45.03% | $0.000015 |
Ethereum, which saw the first wave of memecoins, underperformed in comparison, although popular frog-themed cryptocurrency Pepe witnessed massive upsides, rising 521%.
Canine-themed Floki, which initially launched on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token, also soared 292% year-to-date. Today, the coin is also available on BNB Chain (CRYPTO: BNB).
However, traditional heavyweights like Shiba Inu and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) were restricted, increasing by just 45% and 23%, respectively.
Note that Dogecoin operates on a separate chain, with the underlying technology derived from Litecoin (CRYPTO: LTC).
The overall memecoin market was worth nearly $48 billion as of this writing, with Dogecoin's dominance at 33%.
Price Action: The memecoin frenzy appeared to rub on Solana’s native token, SOL, as the coin rose 3.51% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Ether was muted, with marginal gains of 0.50% as of this writing.
Photo by Avi Rozen via Shutterstock
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