Memecoins are not dead because the market is down and the narrative has faded, according to payments infrastructure company MoonPay president Keith A. Grossman, who said memecoins will return but in a different form.
The real innovation of memecoins is that attention can be tokenized easily and at low cost through blockchain technology, democratizing access to the attention economy, Grossman said. Continuous:
“Before cryptocurrencies, attention could only be monetized by platforms, brands and a small group of influencers. Everyone else created value and gave it away. Likes, trends, inside jokes and communities created enormous economic value.”
However, that value did not return to participants and was mostly trapped on large centralized platforms, he added.
Grossman compared the bleak memecoin outlook among analysts to forecasts of the demise of social media after the failure of the first generation of social platforms in the early 2000s, before the emergence of a final cohort of companies that turned the niche sector into a cultural phenomenon.
Memecoins were one of the best-performing crypto asset sectors in 2024 and were the leading narrative that year among crypto investors, according to crypto market data platform CoinGecko.
However, harsh criticism that memecoins and other social tokens are worthless and several high-profile token implosions ultimately caused the market to tank and investors abandon the narrative.
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Presidential antics and the fall of the memecoin sector
The memecoin market collapsed in the first quarter of 2025 following several high-profile token crashes and significant drawdowns that were characterized as “rug pulling.”
US President Donald Trump launched a memecoin ahead of the inauguration in January 2025, which peaked at $75 before crashing more than 90% to around $5.42 at the time of writing, according to CoinMarketCap.
Javier Milei, president of Argentina, backed a social token called Libra in February, which also collapsed, leaving 86% of LIBRA holders with realized losses of $1,000 or more.
The token had reached a market capitalization of $107 million before its collapse and was characterized as a claim by the crypto community.
Although Milei attempted to distance itself from the token’s launch, a government investigation into Milei’s involvement was launched, culminating in lawsuits from retail investors and calls for impeachment by Argentine politicians.
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