This week, the meme coin market has been experiencing renewed interest, with a 6% rise in market cap, now at an almost unbelievable $50.57 billion. This upswing in value is taking place during what had seemed a rather dull, low-volatility stretch and is part of a generally positive post-Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting outlook. Investors seem to like the idea of interest rates holding steady for now, but with the potential for cuts down the road (some are even eyeing 2025 for the next big drop). Understandably, this seems to have invigorated the entire meme coin sector, which presently ranks 7th on DeFiLlama and is beating some big names in the crypto world. This week has continued to see several interesting developments in the sector, from new platform launches to explosive growth of meme coins. The growth we’re seeing in the market is not just about price movement but also about change in the competitive landscape, with established players adjusting to the incredible growth and popularity of meme tokens. Let’s take a closer look at some of the significant highlights of the week. Raydium Launches “Pump(.)fun Killer” Competitor: The New Era of Meme Coin Platforms Raydium, a decentralized exchange (DEX) constructed atop the Solana blockchain, has taken its first steps as a new kid on the block in the meme coin space. Meet LaunchLab, which aims to challenge Pump(.)fun and those like it. If you are a developer of a new meme coin and want to construct a path to your token’s farcical destiny, LaunchLab offers strong, customizable, and user-friendly tools to do just that. In particular, LaunchLab seems more inclined to help developers and users find that custom path, and as such, seems to be a potential challenger to existing platforms. Launching LaunchLab directly responds to Pump(.)fun’s success, which controls a very significant portion of meme coin trading volumes. According to Raydium, Pump(.)fun memes alone command 41% of the total swap fees on their platform, an incredibly strong and profitable demand indicator that amounts to meme coin trading. In providing this service, Raydium is aiming to niche out in the very competitive meme coin market, giving developers and traders a plethora of more powerful tools for creating, managing, and exchanging the meme-based assets overwhelmingly demanded right now. This action spotlights the increasing professionalization of the meme coin space. Although the meme coin market has generally been linked with low-level, sometimes disorderly, trading, the ascent of platforms like LaunchLab shows that there is growing interest in creating sustainable ecosystems for these coins. Tron Memes Heat Up: Sun’s $1 Million Commitment to Meme Developers At the same time, on the Tron blockchain, meme coins are also making waves, especially with the backing of founder Justin Sun. In a bold move to cultivate the meme coin development on the Tron network, Sun has now committed $1 million in funds to meme developers. And, oh, there’s more: those funds, which will soon be used to develop a whole new set of meme coins on the Tron network, will be doing so with a zero-trading-fee incentive attached to them for forking over 4 years. This initiative has ignited a fresh wave of projects within the meme coin space on Tron, further elevating the status of meme coins and presenting a rare chance for developers to expand their tokens without the drag of steep transaction fees. Sun’s work on Tron is indicative of a much larger vision he’s got for the network, which is all about making it an “Ethereum for everything, but especially for DeFi and meme tokens”—the latter being associated more with the Internet meme culture than any actual monetary value. Evidently, the growth of Tron tokens like TRONDOGE reflects the rise of Tron memes. In the past week, what has been fueling the competitive dynamics of the meme coin market is Tron’s quite rapid growth. And, with the backing of not just a developer community but also Sun’s bucks, Tron’s meme token sector looks poised for an explosion of activity. Base Tokens Surge: 270% Increase in Price Action The Base network, another Ethereum Layer 2 solution, has this week basked in significant attention. Base tokens have surged by a very impressive 270%. The network now can be counted among the top gainers within the broader meme coin ecosystem. Why is Base moving? Its rising price seems to be tied to increasing interest in Layer 2 solutions, which are viewed as providing not only faster but also much more reasonably priced transactions than what Ethereum’s Layer 1 offers. Moreover, Base increasingly seems to be integrating with Ethereum’s decentralized applications ecosystem and can thus be viewed as rising with the tide of the dApp sector. Week in Meme Coins: Raydium’s “Pump(.)fun Killer” Revenge, Tron Memes Cook. Raydium launches Pump(.)fun competitor! Tron memes explode! Base tokens surge 270%! Let's dive into this week's meme resurgence 1/6 pic.twitter.com/p4Ya7rB9K2 — CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) March 21, 2025 Even if Base’s triumph isn’t directly linked to the meme coin story, its surge success seems rather connected to the way platforms supporting the growth of meme tokens and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications are being adopted. Base’s user attraction and user ecosystem integration seem basic-to-meme success ingredients in the week of Aug. 7. Base’s Telegram channel swelled 66 percent in just a few days, from Aug. 4-7. The Battle for Meme Coin Supremacy: Market Sentiment and Major Players Although the market shows positive momentum, some well-known individuals express caution over the future of meme coins. Cathie Wood of ARK Invest observes, “The majority of meme coins could eventually become worthless as speculative interest fades. Because we really don’t see … fundamental value to them. And a lot of them are very opaque in terms of what their supply and demand equation is.” Indeed, in the space of just a few months, Wood’s comments have gone from being relatively upbeat to downright pessimistic. Why the shift? Maybe it’s because Wood is coming to terms with the possibility that not all meme coins will always have the backing of bored, secretive billionaires. The short-term sentiment in the current market is distinctly bullish. There’s a number of different reasons for this, but the most prominent one is that this current ‘bull run’ is being completely led by what you could call the ‘smart money.’ This is the money that’s coming in from hedge funds, institutional investors, and family offices. They’ve been putting in huge amounts of capital here recently. And when the smart money talks, the retail trader tends to listen. In addition, certain tokens have really shot up in value this past week, and that always tends to put in more of a speculative underpinning to the market. So talking about some actual numbers here, the market capitalization of the entire crypto ecosystem now sits at $1.12 trillion. That’s a 5% increase in just a week. The Future of Meme Coins: Growth Amidst Challenges Even as the meme coin sector keeps growing, platforms such as Raydium and Tron are staking their claim as key players in the sector. These platforms are offering developers and traders a range of new tools and incentives to use their ecosystems. Meanwhile, tokens like CHEEMS, FART, and SPX keep posting impressive gains, proving that despite all the skepticism the meme coin market still has plenty of appeal. Over the next few weeks, it will be very important to keep an eye on the new platforms just mentioned, to see how well they perform. At the same time, we should also watch the evolving dynamics within the meme coin market and pay attention to the larger trends in DeFi. Because the meme coin platform space is becoming more competitive and innovative, it is potentially set for a more exciting ride going forward—one that promises some pretty high returns and also some very high volatility for investors. Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services. Follow us on Twitter @nulltxnews to stay updated with the latest Crypto, NFT, AI, Cybersecurity, Distributed Computing, and Metaverse news ! Image Source: peshkov/ 123RF // Image Effects by Colorcinch
