Meme token traders are still active, but only a small handful are making profits. In the past 90 days, meme tokens have mostly extracted value from the crypto space.
A running metric for meme token traders shows that the past 90 days were profitable for only 6.25% of wallets. A new dashboard for Solana meme token traders shows the trenches are mostly losing money.
In the past 90 days, a total of 304,161 traders were active on Solana DEX. Of those traders, only 19,003 were in the green, but the median trader lost $120.
The biggest problem with meme token traders is the overall extraction of value. According to on-chain research, as a group, meme token traders lost $1.26B based on paper valuations. Of all traders in the green, 88% made under $100.
The metric tracks realized profit and loss, rather than paper valuations from holding tokens. In most cases, meme tokens have low liquidity, even if their market capitalization is high.
Only 25 Solana meme token traders made more than $10K
Only 25 wallets made more than $10,000 in earnings, showing meme space has lost its ability to produce high valuations and is instead a P2P extraction market.
The current profitability of meme tokens is even lower compared to wagering or prediction platforms, or even general speculative crypto trading. Despite this, the meme token model is still appealing, with incentives like copy trading, influencer tokens, and point farming.
The meme model has also changed, with very few long-lived memes. The newly minted assets have an extremely short lifecycle and are not aiming to create a community.
The ongoing meme activity also pushed Pump.fun to a top-3 position as a fee producer. The platform now achieves over $4.4M in daily fees as of August 19, the highest level since January.
Meme tokens still survive despite the risk of losses
Despite the overall slowdown of the crypto market, meme tokens still survive as one of the viable models. The reason for this is that meme launches happen entirely on-chain, with no limitations and waiting times for listing on centralized exchanges.
On-chain listings also partially solve the issue of curated tokens that are inflated by market makers. Meme tokens with new apps allow for instant onboarding. New users also bypass BTC and blue-chip tokens, which are now closer to mainstream finance.
Robinhood boosted its usage by offering fast meme token launches. Up to 51% of Robinhood activity was based on meme tokens. As of August 19, the trend is starting to reverse, and Robinhood memes erased 10% of their value overnight, with over 30% in losses over the past week.
Another driver of meme activity was the launch of the FOMO app, which achieved another wave of mainstream adoption. The app allowed an inflow of newcomers who still discovered meme trading, leading to almost immediate losses. The social trading feature of the FOMO app allowed users to copy-trade influencers, which led to inflated valuations for several memes.
Meme tokens are also inviting new users through the latest platform launched by crypto influencer Ansem. In this case, using the platform is incentivized by airdrops, though trading itself may lead to similar losses. As with other launchpads, users are waiting for runners, while absorbing the losses for over 99% of meme launches.
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