After a long period of weakness, the meme coin has finally seen an exciting rebound.

Since mid-September last year, the overall market value of meme coins gradually declined from about $800 billion to a low of only $350 billion, with virtually no significant rebound along the way. However, as we entered 2026, during the first week of the year, the total market value of meme coins finally rebounded to nearly $500 billion.

During this period, the market share of meme coins in the overall altcoin market almost reached its historical low since July 2022, at only about 3%. As we entered 2026, this metric also saw a rebound, reaching around 4%.

This recent rally of meme coins gives off a sense of "nostalgia mode." It seems like the market version of meme coins has switched back from "newly launched meme coins" to "classic old-school coins." Pepe has surged over 70% in the past week, with a trading volume of approximately $1.1 billion in the last 24 hours, surpassing 50% of Doge's trading volume in the past 24 hours.

Doge, Shiba, Pepe, BONK, Pengu, SPX, Fartcoin—these well-known, long-life meme coins—have all experienced a general surge in the past week, with none seeing less than a 20% increase. If this trend continues, based on past experience, we may hope to see a repetition of the scenario where after the major meme coins surge, new meme coin stars emerge in the following bull run.

Furthermore, this meme coin rally is viewed by optimistic players in the crypto space as the starting point of a new comprehensive market rally. Looking back at history, meme coin trends have often served as leading indicators of changes in market risk appetite, such as Doge in 2021, Bome and pump.fun trends in 2024, and so on. Due to the emotional nature and high social media discussion potential of meme coins, once positive discussions increase during an uptrend, it's easy to create an overall bullish sentiment among retail investors.

If this bull market is indeed underway, at this current moment, from which perspectives can we capture new opportunities in the upcoming bull market?

“What’s Hot Now”: Attention Tokens

The rekindled meme coin trend has once again accelerated the rotation of attention. White Whale's success has only been a little over a week, and its price is still near its all-time high. However, a new meme token called "114514" emerged just days ago, breaking through a $40 million market value today, achieving a new all-time high, having surged about 250 times in 2 days.

The "114514" meme originates from the Japanese adult video company COAT CORPORATION's 2001 release of the gay adult film "BABYLON STAGE 34 Midsummer Night's Lewd Dream the IMP." An actor playing the role of a "senior" in the film delivered an outstanding performance and line, especially when he shouted, "Sure! Come on!" This line was humorously referred to by Japanese netizens using wordplay on Japanese numbers and inserted into various meme images and videos.

Although, according to the company's confidentiality agreement, the true identity of this "senior" is unknown, in 2011, a sex offender in Japan named "Koji Tadokoro" was arrested. Due to his resemblance to the "senior," netizens assumed that "senior" was Koji Tadokoro. This meme is also popular in the Chinese community, where alongside "114514" appearing in the comments section, it is usually associated with words related to stench and foul odor. This association stems from the assumption that the "senior," Koji Tadokoro, committed a heinous act. Additionally, the phrase "good times are coming" is often seen, which is an intentional translation of "114514."

It is challenging to objectively analyze why this long-standing meme suddenly experienced a surge in the cryptocurrency world. However, emotional overflow can still provide some anticipation. Due to the lack of objective reasons, the emotional overflow direction of "114514" will depend on how the market interprets it and how funds guide it. It can be understood from the perspective of a Japanese meme or interpreted similarly to pure number memes like "42069."

In the game of attention tokens, there is no need to question why but rather to assess how other players will think, what reasons can be widely accepted as buying pressure, and luck.

"Long-termism": Classical Meme Coins

In this meme revival market, the return of "classical meme coins" such as Pepe, BONK, and Pengu is a pleasant surprise. These high market cap, long-tested old meme coins have long been away from the market spotlight. Due to the popularity of attention-based gameplay, everyone is more accustomed to fast-paced gaming, and even the term "diamond hands" has taken on a sense of irony.

However, in every true comprehensive market cycle, there are always some excellent meme coins that stand out, accepted by the market as "good coins," maintaining a relatively high market value in the long term with a group of steadfast holders.

This is actually a sign that meme coins have needed for a long time, marking the true maturity of this track. In Murad's proposed "meme coin supercycle" theory, there is a set of standards to judge meme coin quality—whether they can maintain a medium to large market cap (over $5 million), have endured at least 6 months of testing, possess a clear enough target concept to achieve certain goals, can evoke inner resonance in people, truly achieve holder sentiment and unity, and more.

According to this standard, apart from meme giants in the market that are already considered "too big to fail," such as Doge, Shiba, Pepe, BONK, Pengu, there are actually many other hidden gems worth paying attention to. Some larger ones include SPX, Fartcoin, Mog, BITCOIN(HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu), and some smaller ones include neet, Chillhouse, Joe, and so on.

In the game of classical meme coins, it is necessary to try to eliminate personal emotions as much as possible, observe their social media and community objectively and in-depth. Meme coins that can grow to this stage must be rare and easily distinguishable because firstly, it is not easy for a meme coin to be stably operated in the long term. Either the community has already come together to collectively produce content, or the team with sufficient resources has greater ambitions for sustainable development. The goals of these coins are no longer just about maintaining internal community and token supply but also about how to attract external growth through multiple channels, and even how meme culture can influence and change real-world issues from a certain perspective.

“Revenue Is King”: Implementation of Token Equity

All along, it has been difficult to analyze projects in the crypto space with a beautiful and stable revenue track record using stock market logic like the P/E ratio because token holders do not enjoy rights such as dividends like shareholders. Therefore, the profit metric in the crypto space is more of a “hope” and plays a “narrative” role. This fragile “narrative” role has also been considered by meme maximalists as fundamentally no different from shitcoins, as shitcoins are meme coins.

Nevertheless, the revenue narrative still holds in the crypto space. Projects like Uniswap and Aave, which are a bit further away, still rank high in the crypto market cap, while Hyperliquid's rapid growth closer at hand has single-handedly raised the ceiling of the Perp DEX track.

What's even better is that we have seen some progress in the implementation of token equity over the past year. For example, the much-debated Uniswap fee switch that couldn’t be turned on finally succeeded in being activated, and Aave's proposal to “transfer brand ownership to token holders,” although the proposal was rejected, Aave Labs committed to sharing protocol-generated revenue with token holders, recognizing the importance of aligned interests to both Aave Labs and AAVE holders.

Although there are still many legal, real-world execution, and other issues on the road to aligning tokens with equity rights, the improvement of on-chain governance models and the awakening of token holders' consciousness represent significant progress. If there is a bull market next, projects that have done better in terms of income-sharing synergy should be able to receive more market recognition. This is equivalent to an upgrade before income distribution truly moves from a narrative to reality.

Epilogue

I hope the recent meme market recovery is indeed a precursor to a bull market across the board. I hope that if there is a bull market across the board, new stars will emerge in the market, completing the "changing of the guard" in the coin circle.

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