Memecoins have taken the top spot for mindshare in the crypto space this year with nearly a third of investor interest focused on the highly speculative tokens, a CoinGecko study has found.
“The most popular crypto narrative in 2024 was by far the memecoin narrative,” Lim Yu Qian, a research analyst at crypto data aggregator CoinGecko, wrote in a Dec. 23 report.
Lim said a study of site traffic to CoinGecko’s token categories from Jan. 1 to Dec. 21 found memecoins and related categories captured nearly 31% of investor interest over the period.
“In other words, almost a third of crypto narrative interest this year was focused on more speculative opportunities with less emphasis on fundamentals,” she wrote.
Memecoins have seen huge gains — and losses — this year amid a wider crypto market rally that’s seen Bitcoin (BTC) gain 123% year-to-date. The tokens are highly speculative, are sometimes scams and their price action is usually short-lived, but some savvy traders have made quick money on them.
CoinGecko found the “main memecoin narrative” took a nearly 15% share of interest — an over six percentage point hike from 2023, where it was in third place for its share of interest — while an additional four memecoin trends were among “the top 20 crypto narratives.”
Solana memecoins came in as the fourth largest narrative with a nearly 8% share of interest, and memecoins on Coinbase’s blockchain Base took 11th place with just over a 2% share.
Meanwhile, AI memecoins and cat-themed memecoins respectively captured around 1.5% to 1.2% of mindshare and came in 15th and 16th place.
Top crypto categories by traffic market share from Jan. 1 to Dec. 21. Source: CoinGecko
The memecoin market cap currently stands at $113.2 billion, led by Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) at $49.3 billion and $13.8 billion, respectively, CoinGecko data shows.
AI drops from top spot in 2023, but sees more interest
Interest in artificial intelligence-related crypto tokens was the runner-up narrative to memecoins, dropping from its top spot last year.
However, AI tokens saw interest slightly rise from 2023, catching nearly 13% of interest compared to just over 11% last year.
Related: Strange, but true: 5 outlandish and weird crypto stories of 2024
The “overall AI narrative and 5 other AI-related narratives” took around 15.5% of the interest share this year, with 1.17% of CoinGecko visitors having an interest in AI agents — machines capable of autonomously performing tasks on behalf of a user or another system.
The potential of AI agents was on full display when the AI ran X account “Truth Terminal” promoted the obscure memecoin GOAT, which caused the token’s value to soar to $1.3 billion.
AI agent tokens still only own a small share of the $44.8 billion AI crypto token market, which is led by Near Protocol (NEAR) and Internet Computer (ICP).
Top seven largest AI coins by market cap. Source: CoinGecko
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