Meme Coins Erase Gains Despite Early Post-Election Hype

Many cryptocurrencies have erased all the gains accumulated since the 2024 United States Presidential Election, with meme coins particularly affected, according to IntoTheBlock.

In a recent tweet, the analytics firm highlighted that the meme coin market capitalization is nearing its November 2024 levels.

Such a trend effectively depicted the undoing of the surge witnessed during the winter “meme coin season.”

Meme Coin Meltdown

The OG meme coin – Dogecoin (DOGE) – which rallied from around $0.20 before the election to a multi-year high of almost $0.5 following Donald Trump’s victory on November 5, 2024, has since retraced most of its gains. It is currently trading at $0.20 after this morning’s market-wide crash.

Next up was Shiba Inu (SHIB), which experienced a similar trajectory as it plunged from December’s peak of $0.000033 to $0.0000133 – lower than the pre-election levels.

Additionally, Pepe’s (PEPE) price more than halved from $0.0000264 in December to $0.00000575, marking a 78% decline over two months. Bonk (BONK), too, mirrored this trend, crashing from a December high of $0.000054 to $0.0000125 by late February.

FLOKI’s (FLOKI) price tumbled from $0.00027 in late November to $0.000077 as of February 24th. Notably, dogwifhat (WIF) experienced a dramatic drop, plummeting over 89% from $4.20 shortly after the election to $0.51 at the time of writing.

Bitcoin and XRP Retain Strong Post-Election Gains

Despite the broader market downturn, Bitcoin (BTC) and XRP have managed to hold their post-election gains, distinguishing themselves from the steep declines across the meme coin sector. Bitcoin was trading near $65,400 before the election results and soared above $109,000 in January. Although it has pulled back, the leading crypto asset remains strong, currently trading near $90,000 – still over 42% above its November level.

Similarly, XRP climbed from $0.706 in early November to $3.33 in January. Despite a subsequent decline to $2.21, the token remains up by a whopping 245% since the election period. Its rally has been propelled by growing anticipation over XRP ETFs, especially after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recognized multiple filings in early February.

However, it was Brazil that approved the world’s first spot XRP ETF. The fund, set to launch on the B3 exchange, will be managed by Hashdex with administrative support from Genial Investimentos. At the same time, the SEC is examining spot XRP ETF applications in the US from leading asset managers including 21Shares, Bitwise, Grayscale, and CoinShares.

The divergence highlighted the trajectory maintained by established cryptocurrencies amidst heightened market volatility and profit-taking in speculative assets such as meme coins.