Meme tokens have become the leaders of the crypto market with an average yield of 2405% in 2024

What’s new? Meme tokens were the most profitable digital assets in the first half of 2024, surpassing the broader crypto market in terms of returns with an average of 2405,1%, according to analyst Colin Wu, citing a report from research firm Biteye based on data from the CoinGecko aggregator. For the top 10 meme tokens by market capitalization, the average YTD return through June 21 was 1834%.

Biteye’s report

What else is known? As of June 19, the top 10 largest meme tokens included three coins that were launched only in March-April this year. These are Brett (BRETT), BOOK OF MEME (BOME и DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (DOG). Among them, the highest yield of 14 353,54% was shown by BRETT.

Activity in the meme token sector is predominantly centered on the Solana blockchain, with 541 000 new coins issued last month alone. In addition, celebrities are starting to issue meme tokens on Solana, including Caitlyn Jenner with the JENNER token and Iggy Azalea with the MOTHER coin.

Other blockchain teams, including BNB Smart Chain and TON, are also launching their own programs to encourage the development of meme tokens.

According to analysts at Kaiko, the liquidity of meme tokens has doubled since the beginning of the year. For individual coins such as Dogwifhat (WIF), Memecoin (MEME), or BOME, the increase in the figure ranged from 200% to 4000%.

Representatives of the crypto exchange Bybit noted that the volume of meme tokens in the portfolios of their institutional clients grew by 125% in 2024. The most preferred asset in this segment remains Dogecoin (DOGE), which is the oldest and largest meme token by capitalization.

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Biteye also named other leading sectors of the crypto market in terms of profitability, noting that meme tokens are 8,6 times more profitable than real-world tokenized assets (RWAs), which are in second place, and 525,5 times more profitable than DeFi protocol tokens.

Thus, the top tokens of the RWA sector demonstrate an average return of 213,5% this year. Among the leaders in terms of capitalization, MANTRA (OM) and Ondo (ONDO) tokens showed the highest growth: 1123,8% and 451,12%, respectively. Analysts noted that most RWA projects are at an early stage and are worth keeping an eye on.

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AI tokens came in third place with a 71,6% return. Arkham (ARKM) had the highest gain of 215,5%, followed by AIOZ (AIOZ Network) with 192,19%. Also notable were Fetch.ai (FET) and Render (RNDR) with returns of 116% and 57,47%, respectively.

In fourth place are Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) tokens with an average return of 58,7%. JasmyCoin (JASMY) performed the best with a gain of 323,42%, followed by Arweave (AR) and Livepeer (LPT) with gains of 174,07% and 116,06%, respectively.

Layer 1 (L1) blockchain token yields were 43,0%. Although Solana is attracting attention amid the hype around meme tokens, its native token demonstrates only 22,91% yield for the half-year, which is significantly lower than in mid-March (85,05%). Among the top coins in the segment, Toncoin (TON) and Binance Coin (BNB) are the best performers with gains of 204,72% and 86,1%, respectively.

Bitcoin is up 45,06% YTD, while Ethereum is up by 49,65%.

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Analysts noted the GameFi, DeFi, and L2 network sectors lagging behind. For the top 10 GameFi tokens, the average return was 19,1% YTD, with Floki (FLOKI) performing best at 362,79%. It is followed by Ronin (RON) with 21,16% and Echelon Prime (PRIME) with 5,27% growth.

The DeFi sector lost momentum by Q2, causing the average YTD coin yield to fall to 3,4%. The best performing asset was Maker (MKR) with a 49,88% gain.

L2 networks’ coins show the worst results, their value decreased by 40,59% on average. The biggest drop was recorded for AEVO (AEVO) and Starknet (STRK): -85,4% and -63,16%. The yields of L2 tokens based on Ethereum Optimism (OP) and Arbitrum (ARB) fell by 54,64% and 53,71%, respectively. Among the largest coins, only Mantle (MNT) shows growth, 26,09%.