The meme coins, or cryptocurrencies based on online memes with little practical use, saw a jump in trading volume last week, echoing the frenzy seen just before past bitcoin (BTC) market peaks.
According to blockchain analyst James Tolan’s Dune analytics-based tracker, last week’s $2.3 billion in meme currency trade volume was the largest since May 2021, six times the $387 million seen the week before.
Pepecoin (PEPE), a token with a frog motif that was released in the middle of April and has a total supply cap of 420 trillion, was in the forefront of the speculation frenzy. On Friday, PEPE’s market worth surpassed $1 billion, ultimately reaching a height of $1.82 billion; this is an incredible feat for a joke cryptocurrency that has only been around for three weeks. According to Coingecko, PEPE has a market valuation of $931M at the time of publication.
Many small-cap tokens, including DINO, WSB, CHAD, and 4TOKEN, have seen strong price increases in the previous two weeks due to speculation sparked by the PEPE craze.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, has historically followed a similar pattern, with big market peaks or bearish reversals preceded by speculative frenzy in lesser-known cryptocurrencies.
Even if the dollar index (DXY) was weakening, Bitcoin was trading about $27,970 at press time, a decrease of almost 2% on the day. The Dollar Index, which tracks the value of the US dollar relative to a basket of other currencies including the Euro, often swings in the opposite direction of Bitcoin.
