So far, the meme coins have had an incredible year. What began with Elon Musk promoting Dogecoin on Twitter has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry. Meme currency after meme coin had followed Dogecoin, and a large number of them, such as Shiba Inu and SafeMoon, had achieved favor in the market.
The growth of meme coins has undoubtedly resulted in some of them breaking into the top ten cryptocurrencies. Despite being nowhere near the top projects in terms of individual values, the digital assets’ enormous supply saw their market valuation swiftly rise, rivaling some of the greatest projects in the industry. It was open season on meme coins once Dogecoin became the top ten cryptocurrencies by market valuation.
However, with the recent market decline, meme currencies have been particularly hard hit, causing their market capitalization to decrease as a result. Following that, all meme currencies were removed from the crypto top 10.
Dogecoin is likely the most popular and valuable of all meme currencies. As a result, a beat down for the asset can frequently signify bad news for the rest of the meme coin market.
In January, Dogecoin initially entered the top ten largest cryptocurrencies by market size, following a meteoric rise fueled by Elon Musk’s unwavering support for the cryptocurrency. Since then, the meme currency has risen and fallen on the list, peaking at fourth position after deposing ADA and BNB. Doge did not hold this position for long, but it was a key milestone for the asset.
Shiba Inu, a competitor, quickly followed Dogecoin’s popularity. When Ethereum inventor Vitalik Buterin contributed around $1 billion worth of SHIB to an Indian COVID relief fund, the meme coin meant to be the “Doge killer” achieved remarkable success.
SHIB had also gone on to reach new highs, breaking into the top 10 with Dogecoin. It even outperformed its predecessor at one time, peaking at eighth place on the chart. However, market circumstances were not beneficial to the coin, and it quickly slid out of the top ten.
During the recent market downturn, the pioneer cryptocurrency bitcoin fell to $54K. It had unintentionally dragged the rest of the market down with it, as altcoins experienced significant losses. Dogecoin and Shiba Inu were not forgotten, as both cryptocurrencies saw one of their reddest days. By the time the market meltdown was over, both meme currencies had lost enough to tumble out of the top ten crypto coins.
This is the first time in nearly a year that there is no meme coin in the top ten. With the entry of Shiba Inu into the top 10, one or both coins were always included on the list.
This might be the start of a new era when other initiatives with far greater prospects and use cases overtake the top ten. Terra (LUNA) is one of these initiatives, with a fantastic weekend run propelling it to the tenth spot on the list.
