Memecoins had a good run… is the party over?

Plus: TikTok onchain? This might actually happen

GM. Crypto news today is like a piñata full of fruit – you’ll want to dodge the flying coconuts, but there are some sweet mangoes in there too.

👋 The end of the memecoin supercycle.

🍋 News drops: mission to bring TikTok onchain, Raygun’s brother’s crypto crimes + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Not exactly the dream scenario, but hey, we’re getting somewhere.

Even though investors are still shaking in their boots, the charts don’t look as depressing as they did yesterday.

CryptoQuant’s XBTManager pointed out that when Bitcoin reaches new peaks:

And that’s exactly what’s happening now.

This suggests we’re in a cooling-off phase after BTC’s $109K January all-time high, so things will likely move sideways for a bit.

For the market to really pick up again, we need short-term holders to start selling and long-term holders to step back in.

Until that switch happens, it’s a game of patience – and probably not the best time for high-risk trades.

But if we step back from the short-term noise, the long-term outlook is still solid – and the big dogs know it.

• Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas has 70% of his investment portfolio in Bitcoin-related assets;

• Metaplanet bought another 497 BTC for around $43.9M;

• The IMF told El Salvador to stop buying Bitcoin if they want a $1.4B loan – but President Nayib Bukele ain’t gonna listen:

Reminder: this is a marathon, not a sprint. The market might be taking a breather now, but the bigger picture stays the same – we’re moving forward, y’all.

🥝 Memecoin harvest

These memecoins are pumping harder than you before beach season 🏋️

Data as of 07:10 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the table above 👆, you’ve probably noticed – memecoins just aren’t hitting like they used to.

Late 2024 was their golden era – memecoins were riding the bullish wave that came after Donald Trump’s election. Actually, scratch that. Even before Trump, memecoins were EVERYWHERE in 2024.

But fast forward to now, and, well… the hype train has crashed:

• The total memecoin market cap has dropped 57% from its December peak;

• Dogecoin – which accounts for nearly half of the entire memecoin market – lost 24% in the last month;

• Pump(.)fun trading volumes dropped by 63% in February.

Yeah. It’s lookin’ rough.

Now, duh, the entire crypto market is struggling – global economic uncertainty has investors playing it safe. But memecoins aren’t sinking just because of that.

1/ Absolutely shameless pump-and-dump action

Celebrities, influencers, and even PRESIDENTS have been launching memecoins, hyping them up, and then (shocker 😧) dumping them on retail.

Memecoins used to be fun, community-driven internet experiments – but now, they’ve turned into blatant cash grabs.

This, obviously, killed trust, cuz many investors got burned hard.

2/ The Lazarus Group situation

These North Korean hackers allegedly used memecoin platforms to launder over $1.5B from the Bybit hack.

Not exactly good PR, either.

Put all that together, and Bitwise’s CIO Matt Hougan believes this is the end of the memecoin boom – if not immediately, then within the next six months.

The good news? All that attention and money memecoins sucked up is gonna flow into stuff with actual utility. We’re talkin’:

• DeFi projects making a comeback;

• Institutional Bitcoin adoption accelerating;

• RWA (Real World Assets) tokenization taking off;

• Stablecoins becoming a dominant force;

• Etc etc etc.

Overall, we had our fun. We’re ready for the crypto market to level up – stronger, smarter, and built to last.

🧃 Sip of gains

Psst… just a little reminder that BitDegree’s Season 7 airdrop is still very much happening – so the $30K prize pool AND the extra $1K from BYDFi are still up for grabs.

🏆 Current top gainers:

Not seeing yourself on the list? Craazy. But you’ve still got time to fix that – the BYDFi stage ends on March 10.

Momma didn’t raise a quitter – get in there and make her proud! 🫡

🍋 News drops

🎶 Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is joining Project Liberty’s mission to buy TikTok’s US operations. The goal: to bring the platform onchain.

🦘 Remember Raygun, the breakdancer who repped Australia at the 2024 Olympics? Well, her performance wasn’t the only crime the Gunn family served us – her brother’s been charged for allegedly moving dirty money through a fiat-to-crypto conversion company.

💰 Iris Ramaya Au, ex-girlfriend of crypto fraudster Adam Iza (aka The Godfather), is pleading guilty to filing a false tax return. She failed to report over $2.6M in illegal earnings from her ex’s crimes.

⚖️ The SEC continues stepping away from crypto fights. They’re now dropping their case against the trading firm Cumberland DRW.

🚀 Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade went live on the Sepolia testnet. Mainnet launch is getting closer, but some issues from the last testnet failure still need fixing, so delays are possible.

🍌 Juicy memes