Some of the biggest gainers over the past several days have been meme coins.
The broader cryptocurrency market has signaled its first revival signs of the year after the painful Q4, 2025, in which many assets posted double-digit declines, pushing analysts to question the overall industry state.
Interestingly, the biggest gainers since Friday come from the meme coin niche, which could signal a significant change in investor behavior.
Data from CoinGecko shows that BONK has emerged as the top performer in the past 24 hours. The asset has returned to the top 100 alts by market cap after suring by 40% daily and more than 60% since this time last Sunday.
PEPE follows suit. The frog-shaped meme coin is up by 13% daily and more than 66% weekly. Shiba Inu is also well in the green on both charts, 11% and 21%, respectively.
Dogecoin became the biggest gainer from the larger-cap alts. The OG meme coin has surged by 6% since yesterday and 23% weekly. The Official Trump (TRUMP) token has performed even better today (a 7% surge), perhaps due to the most recent actions undertaken by the US President.
In a statement to CryptoPotato, Jake Kennis, Senior Research Analyst at Nansen, said this early-year rotation into larger-cap meme coins may suggest “traders are positioning for upside after months of consolidation.” He added that these more speculative assets have been some of the hardest hit during the October crash in terms of downside volatility.
“Markets may have been extremely bearish on memes based on price action and the risk appetite not being there,” he added.
However, Kennis admitted that the meme coins have been trending down relative to bitcoin, and these brief upticks would “have to be confirmed on higher timeframes as both PEPE and DOGE are still down around 80% from their respective ATHs.”
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