Crypto Goes Green: Memes Soar, Pepe Surges, Founder Interview Inside
Meme Coins Show Resilience After 2025 Shakeout, With PEPE and BONK Among Survivors
A broad market downturn in the October quarter of 2025 erased an estimated $19 billion from the crypto market and led to a sharp contraction in the meme token sector, with nearly 8 million coins disappearing from circulation.
In the aftermath of that crash, only a small number of meme assets maintained significant scale. Pepe (PEPE) and Bonk (BONK) were among the few that endured with market capitalizations close to $1 billion, highlighting how quickly the long tail of smaller tokens can vanish during stress events.
The episode underscores a recurring feature of the meme coin market: survival tends to concentrate in a handful of names during downturns, while the rest often lose liquidity, visibility, or ongoing market support.
Momentum-driven “hype cycles” have also been a defining factor in PEPE’s history. During meme coin frenzies in 2023 and 2024, meme tokens generally rose together, but PEPE often outperformed thanks to its early brand recognition. That dynamic illustrates how attention and familiarity can influence outcomes in a category where many tokens have similar structures but widely different levels of mindshare.
More broadly, the 2025 crash and its impact on meme coins offers a clear reminder: in highly sentiment-driven corners of crypto, market cycles can determine not only performance, but whether a token remains relevant at all.
