Ethereum and Solana Meme Coin Prices Surge Amid Modest Bitcoin Gains

Bitcoin is rising after a rough week, but meme coins like Pepe, Bonk, Dogwifhat, and Dogecoin are the biggest winners today.

2 min read

May 2, 2024

Bitcoin has been struggling lately, though its modest gains Thursday are surely a welcome sign of life for traders. But Bitcoin's slight rise is being overshadowed by a crypto category that is on fire today: meme coins.

Pepe (PEPE) is the biggest winner, shooting up by over 22% in the past day per data from CoinGecko. The Ethereum-based token hasn't seen much price action over the past week, though, but still is up by over 8% in the past 30 days.

Over the past day, the Solana-based Bonk (BONK) has boomed by over 18%; it's now priced at $0.00002479, CoinGecko shows. Meanwhile Dogwifhat (WIF) and FLOKI have both made notable gains—they're up 14% and 12%, respectively, making them two of the other biggest gainers over a 24-hour period.

And long-standing meme coins Dogecoin (DOGE) and the Ethereum-based Shiba Inu (SHIB) have each posted 24-hour gains around 9%, adding to Thursday's meme coin frenzy.

The boom in meme coins and tokens comes at a time when the broader crypto market has taken a plunge. This week, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major cryptocurrencies took a nosedive after investors cashed out of the popular spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and U.S. inflation proved sticker than expected.

Bitcoin is now trading for $59,000 after plunging by nearly 8% over seven days. It's now well below its March all-time high of nearly $74,000 per coin.

The meme coin and token market is risky: New cryptocurrencies disappear almost as quickly as they spring into existence, either making traders huge gains or crushing losses.

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz's CTO Eddy Lazzarin last week described the sphere as a "risky casino" that is "damaging" for the world of crypto.

A lot of it was started a joke. Dogecoin, the biggest meme coin in existence with a market cap of $18.8 billion, was created to poke fun at the serious world of Bitcoin, according to its developers.

It's now the ninth biggest digital asset by market cap. And it has countless followers piling up billions in collective market value.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

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