Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) is in rarefied air – more than 10 years after its launch, it is valued at billions of dollars – a status not shared by tens of thousands of memecoins, as the majority of such projects quickly sink, according to a published study this week.
Chainplay found that 97% of the 30,000 memecoin projects it studied will be extinct by 2024, with the average lifespan of a memecoin being just one year. The blockchain gaming information site found that the average lifespan of a crypto project is three years.
“This rapid turnover underscores the speculative and often short-lived nature of memecoins, making them a risky investment choice,” Chainplay’s report said. The company found that over 55% of all memecoins are “malicious” and that about six in 10 new investors view memecoins as an essential asset in their portfolio.
Chainplay focused on the Solana, Ethereum and Base blockchains, and the list of 30,000 cryptocurrency coins was compiled on the crypto data platform Dexscreener. Memecoins were declared dead if they did not meet any of the following criteria:
- The 24-hour volume is below $1,000
- No updates on Twitter for 3 months
- The liquidity pool is below 50,000
- Twitter account deleted
Chainplay said it assessed the lifespan of memecoins by examining the launch date of a registration domain on Twitter (now X) and the date of the last post on the social media platform.
The study came out when the memecoin market was valued at about $39 billion, according to Coinmarketcap, led by Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) at about $15 billion. The memecoin market was one of the fastest-growing niches in the crypto market in 2024, BDC Consulting said earlier this year.
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Shiba Inu (SHIB-USD), another popular memecoin, was valued at around $8.1 billion on Thursday. In terms of volume, Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) and Shiba Inu are among the top 15 most traded cryptocurrencies, led by market heavyweight Bitcoin (BTC-USD).