A memecoin market flippening could be underway

Solana memecoins are collectively at an all-time high

article-image

Akif CUBUK/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

But you should totally judge a chain by its memes. And Solana memecoins are collectively at an all-time high.

There are 57 memecoins with at least a $75 million market cap on CoinGecko. Sixteen of those are native to Solana, 18 are on Ethereum, and the remaining 40% are scattered across chains like Base, Bitcoin, Avalanche and Binance Chain.

It turns out that this particular selection of Solana memecoins have never been valued higher: $9.84 billion on Wednesday and slightly below that today.

Ethereum memes are otherwise sitting at about $19 billion, although shiba inu makes up nearly 60% of the total. 

What’s on CoinGecko probably doesn’t encompass the full scope of memecoinery, as it doesn’t reflect everything on Pump.fun. But those coins would probably only make a marginal difference in the end.

Solana’s memecoin sector is in blue, Ethereum’s in purple, while Base’s and Bitcoin’s are orange and red

Still, it’s telling that Solana memecoins are still gaining ground while Ethereum’s are stagnating at 35% below where they were when bitcoin peaked in March.

And if that doesn’t satisfy your Ethereum bloodlust, consider yourself lucky you’re not a Bitcoin or Base memecoin maxi.

Base still only has two primary memecoins — DEGEN and BRETT — and together they’re stuck at about a $1 billion market cap.

Bitcoin otherwise has three Runes with market caps over $75 million. For a brief moment in May, Bitcoin’s memecoins were more valuable than Base’s, but today the two ecosystems are practically neck-and-neck.

In any case, the fixation surrounding a potential Ethereum flip by Solana has us all watching DEX volumes and fee spend, to see the signs ahead of time.

I’d watch for a flippening of memecoin markets instead.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Pipe Network is a decentralized content delivery network (dCDN) that replaces the sparse, capital intensive data center footprint of traditional CDNs with a permissionless mesh of independent node operators. By orchestrating under-utilized resources that already exist at the edge, rather than purchasing or leasing thousands of servers, Pipe slashes capital intensity while letting supply expand autonomously in the places where bandwidth is scarcest and most expensive.

article-image

The new SVM chain Zink uses zk tech and promises universal account profiles

article-image

DATs contributed to the increase in funding in July, which topped levels not seen since 2021

article-image

An SEC commissioner walks into a cypherpunk meetup…

article-image

Maple’s syrupUSDC will let traders earn passive income while using it to back perp positions on Solana

article-image

The platform’s bitcoin treasury gives it “competitive positioning” in spot and derivatives markets, VanEck portfolio manager says

article-image

Founder Michael Egorov reflects on the mystery, CRV’s role in DeFi, and what’s next