Memecoin Market Share Sinks Below 3% Of Altcoin Value

Memecoins are shrinking against the rest of the altcoin market. The memecoin market share has fallen below 3% of total altcoin market cap, according to a CryptoQuant quicktake from analyst Darkfost. It is the lowest reading on the chart. The author also says selling on Binance across the sector has passed $1.4 billion since Bitcoin's peak.

Memecoin dominance chart from the quicktake. Source: CryptoQuant quicktake by Darkfost.

Checking the memecoin market share

The sub-3% claim holds up against public numbers, with one caveat about definitions. CoinGecko's meme category was worth about $28.8 billion on October 19. Its global data showed a total crypto market near $2.76 trillion, of which bitcoin was about 59.6%.

Take bitcoin out and the rest is roughly $1.11 trillion. Memecoins then come to about 2.6% of that, by our arithmetic. The figure rises to about 3.5% if stablecoins, about $299 billion on CoinGecko, are also excluded.

CoinGecko's meme category page, October 19. Source: CoinGecko, Top Meme Coins by Market Cap.

A long slide in memecoin market share

Darkfost's dominance chart follows memecoin market share back to mid-2022. It peaks near 10% around the turn of 2025 and has trended down since, with the latest reading marked under 3%. The line sits below every earlier low on the chart.

The slide has not been even on CoinGecko's weekly figures. Dogecoin is down about 6.4% over seven days, Shiba Inu about 5.9% and Pump.fun about 15.4%. Pepe is up 0.7% and MemeCore up 23.3%.

Concentration inside the memecoin category

The category is top-heavy. Dogecoin alone is worth roughly $12.4 billion, which is close to 43% of the total. After it come Shiba Inu, Pump.fun, Pepe and MemeCore, each between about $1.6 billion and $2.9 billion.

Those five add up to about $20.7 billion, or nearly 72% of the category, by our arithmetic. The sector's 24-hour trading volume is about $1.89 billion on CoinGecko's count.

The $1.4B memecoin selling figure

Darkfost's second chart tracks the cumulative difference between buy and sell volume for memecoins on Binance, in USDT and USDC pairs. The line has slid steadily from zero to about minus $1.4 billion. A negative reading means more volume was sold into the market than bought.

Cumulative memecoin buy and sell volume difference on Binance. Source: CryptoQuant quicktake by Darkfost.

The $1.4 billion is the analyst's figure, because that series cannot be rebuilt from public data.

The bitcoin backdrop

Darkfost says bitcoin fell as much as 54% from its October peak and now trades about 35% below it. CoinGecko puts that record at $126,080, set on October 6, 2025. A price near $81,900 on October 19 is about 35% under it, so the quicktake's second figure checks out.

The analyst reads falling memecoin dominance as liquidity leaving the riskiest part of the market. That is an interpretation. The data shows the share of the category shrinking, and nothing more.

This article relays published data and our own check of it, and it is not advice to buy or sell any memecoin.