Meme Coin Trends Rise in 2024, Capturing 30% of Crypto Investor Attention

2024 saw massive gains for the crypto market, but meme coins dominated the narrative.

Due to its notable resurgence, several meme coins have even become some of the best-performing cryptocurrencies of the year, contributing to the emergence of new crypto-millionaires along the way.

Speculative coins are taking over crypto

According to CoinGecko reportMeme coins captured over 30% of global investor interest, which was distributed across the central niche narrative and 25 different trends linked to it.

This suggests that almost a third of the focus on crypto was focused on speculative investments, where fundamentals took a back seat, with the market rapidly diversifying from dog-themed coins to other meme tokens inspired by animals and public figures.

The main coin narrative itself emerged as the most popular, accounting for 14.36% of the total interest in the crypto narrative, reflecting a considerable increase of 6.04 percentage points from 8.32%. from last year. Besides the overall meme coin category, other specific trends have also gained attention.

Solana-based meme tokens earned 4th place with 7.65% of narrative interest, while Ethereum Layer 2 core assets incubated by Coinbase ranked 11th with 2.13%. Meanwhile, AI-themed and cat-centric meme pieces round out the top 20, with 1.49% and 1.19% interest, respectively.

AI, RWA and DePIN lagging behind

The artificial intelligence (AI) narrative was another important topic in the crypto market in 2024, attracting a total of 15.67% of investor interest across the general AI narrative and five others AI-related underlying trends. The top AI story ranked second overall, capturing 12.58% of investor attention.

While this represents an increase of 1.26 percentage points from last year’s 11.32%, it remains dwarfed by the coin’s popularity narrative.

Real-world assets (RWA) and DePIN stories were among the most notable trends that saw a surge in interest in 2024 compared to the previous year. The RWA narrative saw its share of investor interest increase by 2.16 percentage points, from 6.48% in 2023 to 8.64% in 2024, which also increased its ranking from 6th to 1st. 3rd place.

Likewise, the DePIN narrative saw a positive shift, with interest share increasing by 1.56 percentage points, allowing it to move from 13th to 8th place. On the other hand, the GameFi narrative faced a decline in popularity, with its share dropping by 6.77 percentage points from 10.49% in 2023 to 3.72% in 2024.