Benzinga - Altcoins and meme coins are currently navigating choppy waters in the cryptocurrency market. This follows Bitcoin’s (CRYPTO: BTC) price roller coaster, where the apex cryptocurrency spiked to $49,000 last week after the launch of BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S., only to experience a swift downturn to $41,000, as a ‘sell the news’ effect kicked in.
Decline Of Apex Coin Hits Altcoins Hard
Altcoins like Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), among other cryptocurrencies, have recently tumbled. Meme coins like Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) weren’t spared either, experiencing similar drops.
Analyst Michael Van de Poppe spoke to Benzinga about how meme coins, specifically Solana's BONK (CRYPTO: BONK), Floki (CRYPTO: FLOKI), and TokenFi (CRYPTO: TOKEN), are navigating the cryptocurrency market landscape in 2024.
BONK experienced a meteoric rise, soaring by 9900% in 2023. Originally intended as a token for relief aid, BONK took advantage of its robust community support and the resurgence of the Solana ecosystem, catapulting it to become one of the year’s best-performing assets.
The Pursuit of the Next Viral Meme Cryptocurrency
Van de Poppe said, “BONK, the meme coin within the Solana ecosystem, has shown a massive return upwards, through which a lot of people wanted to jump on the wagon, and traders wanted to trade the asset to make sure that they can get a return.”
He further explained that traders are betting on meme coins like Floki, TOKEN, BONK "in search for the next Dogecoin", sparking a rush to capitalize on potential rallies.
Looking ahead, Van de Poppe doubted that utility would be a primary driver for meme coins, he suggested community strength and topical hype as key factors. “Memecoins are probably going to be driving due to community strength and the hype of the day,” he added.
See More: Dogecoin HODLERs Are Beating Shiba Inu With 57% Landing In Profits, IntoTheBlock Data Reveals
To Tokenize or Not To Tokenize, That Is The Question
In an industry increasingly looking to tokenize real-world assets (RWAs), meme coins are finding new footing. He said, “To be fair, If a meme coin decides to be doing something with RWA and has that as a buzzword including a strong community, you'll see it do well when RWA does well."
Last year, Floki developers launched a tokenization platform TokenFi (CRYPTO: TOKEN) dedicated to the rising RWA segment in an effort to position the former memecoin project as a serious DeFi contender, aligning with broader industry moves toward tokenization foreseen by leaders such as Larry Fink of BlackRock.
Fink, said that cryptocurrency funds are an incremental progress towards the broader goal of tokenization. “These are just stepping stones toward tokenization. I really do believe this is where we're going to be going. We have the technology to tokenize today."
Image via Shutterstock
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