'Meme coin market retreats to July levels'

The meme coin market has failed to recover from last week's sharp drop and has reverted to July levels. Major meme coins such as Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) are still showing double-digit losses.

On the 15th (local time), according to CoinMarketCap, the meme coin sector's market capitalization plunged from $72 billion on the 11th to $44 billion, nearly 40% on the 12th. It then slightly rebounded over the weekend to recover to $53 billion but still remains at its lowest level since July.

Over the past four months, the meme coin market had remained above $60 billion due to inflows from retail investors centered on Solana (SOL) and BNB Chain, but the recent crash has halted the upward momentum. The current market capitalization of the meme coin sector is estimated at about $57 billion.

The top 10 meme coins account for 82% of the entire market, and all of them showed weekly declines. Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and Pepe (PEPE) each fell 13–22%, and Bonk (BONK) and Floki (FLOKI) also plunged more than 20%. The official meme coin of former U.S. President Donald Trump also fell 20%.

Meanwhile, other cryptocurrency sectors are quickly stabilizing. The non-fungible token (NFT) market saw its total value drop 20% but recovered 10% in one day, and spot ETFs for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) received new inflows of $102 million and $236 million, respectively.