The whales are back, and they're buying meme coins like it's 2021 all over again. Whale transactions worth over $100,000 in FLOKI (FLOKI), PEPE (PEPE), and Shiba Inu (SHIB) exploded by 950%, 620%, and 111% respectively this week, as meme coins added $14 billion in market cap since the start of 2026.
Meme Coins Take Over Whale Activity Rankings
Market intelligence firm Santiment tracked a surge in transactions worth $100,000 or more—the kind of size that screams institutional or wealthy individual investors rather than retail traders frantically buying on their phones. And the data tells an interesting story about where the smart money is rotating.
Meme coins dominated this activity, claiming four of the top ten spots among all crypto projects with at least $500 million market caps. FLOKI on Ethereum led the pack with a 950% surge in whale transactions, followed by PEPE at 620% and FLOKI on BNB at 550%.
Shiba Inu rounded out the meme coin presence at 111%, beating out AI tokens, real-world asset platforms, and established DeFi protocols for whale attention. The pattern suggests large holders are rotating capital away from Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) into higher-volatility meme coins, hunting for outsized returns.
Performance Numbers That Reverse 2025's Brutal Losses
FLOKI surged 41.7% over the past week while PEPE emerged as the strongest performer with a 67% weekly rally, breaking out from descending wedge patterns that had trapped traders for months.
Shiba Inu climbed 28.7% over seven days, up nearly 48% from its late December lows. Dogecoin (DOGE) reclaimed the $0.15 level with a 30-33% rebound from December, benefiting from renewed institutional interest through ETF inflows.
Collectively, these four meme coins posted 25-67% gains in the first week of 2026, reversing months of losses that saw the sector collapse 61% throughout 2025. That's the kind of bounce that gets people's attention.
A 37% Market Cap Surge in Just Eight Days
Meme coins added $14 billion in market cap since January 1, rising from $38 billion to $52 billion—a 36.8% surge in just eight days. The rally significantly outperformed the broader altcoin market, which has been grinding sideways while meme coins ripped higher.
Darkfost on CryptoQuant noted that memecoin dominance within the altcoin market hit a historical low in December 2025. In November 2024, meme coins accounted for 11% of total altcoin market cap. By December 2025, that ratio had fallen to just 3.2%. The last time memecoin dominance reached such low levels, it preceded a massive memecoin season.
Over the past few days, major meme coins posted strong gains, potentially marking the beginning of a memecoin comeback. Whether this is the start of a sustained rally or just another head-fake remains to be seen, but the whale activity suggests at least some large players are betting on the former.