Memecoins Face December Crash with $40 Billion Loss as Demand Plummets Across Key Markets

Memecoin market capitalization saw a 32% drop in December, with losses reaching $40 billion, highlighting a slowdown in momentum and demand. The market peaked at $137.06 billion before plunging to $92.67 billion, leaving traders assessing the future of meme-based cryptocurrencies.

Memecoins Face a 30% Decline in Market Cap

The 30% decline in Memecoin's market cap in December is indicative of waning interest in and demand for coins based on memes.

Memecoins had a total market cap of $120.14 billion on December 1st, according to statistics from CoinMarketCap. On December 9, it peaked at $137.06 billion, and by December 23, it had fallen to $92.67 billion. The market capitalization has dropped by 32.38% in just one month.

Compared to its performance at the beginning of the month, meme coins total market cap is 18% lower at $98.72 billion as of writing.

Pepe Reflects Broader Memecoin Volatility

Similarly to the rest of the memecoin market, Pepe's price fluctuated. Pepe is the third largest memecoin by market valuation. The price of Pepe rose to $0.000026 on December 9 but fell to $0.000017 on December 20, according to statistics compiled by Cointelegraph.

As part of their competition for a piece of the profitable memecoin industry, Binance.US listed Pepe on December 4th. Not only did Binance include Moodeng (MOODENG), Mog (MOG), and Dogwifhat in December, but Coinbase did as well.

Binance Listing Boosts Pepe’s Market Cap

After Pepe was listed on Binance's US arm, its price soared, and on December 7th, its market valuation surpassed that of Uniswap's coin.

The memecoin was worth around $591 million when 2024 began. Following the listing, the token's market cap surpassed $11 billion, marking an 18x increase from the beginning of the year.

Traders Earn Millions Amid Pepe’s Meteoric Rise

Smart traders gained millions of dollars as Pepe memecoin rose throughout the year.

The meme-based cryptocurrency cost a crypto trader $3,000 in April. With a price gain of more than 15,000 times in just one month, the trader's Pepe holdings may be worth as much as $46 million.

December saw the return of $27 in Pepe tokens held by a trader who had been inactive for more than 600 days. The Pepe tokens, valued at around $52 million, were moved to a different address by the wallet.

The trader's return on investment was 1,900,000 times, according to onchain analytics firm Lookonchain.