After spending most of late 2024 in the doghouse, meme coins are suddenly the talk of crypto again. The sector added $52.4 billion in market cap on Monday alone, surging 7% and reminding everyone why high-volatility, high-reward tokens never truly go away.
Tokens that spent Q4 2024 bleeding out are now posting the kind of gains that make traders question their life choices. Pepe (PEPE), Floki (FLOKI), Bonk (BONK), and Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) have all rallied more than 65% since January 1, outpacing even the meme coin heavyweights. Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) still managed respectable 20% gains over the past week, but the smaller names are stealing the show.
Momentum Is Building Fast
Crypto trader Unipcs, better known as "Bonk Guy," pointed out that Pepe tacked on nearly $1 billion in market value in just 48 hours. That's the kind of move that gets attention. He expects Bonk and Floki to follow with similar explosive upside, noting that roughly six of the top 10 gainers in the top 100 cryptocurrencies right now are meme coins.
History suggests this pattern has legs. When large-cap meme coins start posting sustained 20% to 40% daily moves, the momentum typically spills over into smaller-cap tokens. Unipcs called the current setup a momentum rotation phase and recommended gradual accumulation for traders without exposure. "This is the quarter of meme coins," he said.
He also highlighted Pudgy Penguins as a standout, pointing to its real revenue generation and expanding global brand as underappreciated strengths in a sector that typically runs on vibes alone.
The Numbers Tell a Story
According to CryptoQuant data, meme coin dominance within the broader altcoin market has been in steady decline since the frenzy peaked in November 2024, bottoming out at a historical low in December 2025. The meme-to-altcoin market cap ratio plummeted from 11% in November 2024 to just 3.2% by December 2025. That level of compression has historically set the stage for sharp reversals.
Bitcoin investor Lark Davis noted that meme coin valuations have expanded by more than $10 billion since January 1. Even a modest risk-on shift in Q1 could fuel further upside across the sector, he added. When positioning gets this stretched, it doesn't take much to spark a rush back in.
For traders willing to stomach the volatility, the setup looks increasingly compelling. Meme coins might not make sense on a fundamental level, but momentum and sentiment have a way of mattering more than logic when the market gets hot.