Over the past 24 hours, the market capitalization of meme coins has decreased, while other altcoins have shown an increase. According to CoinGecko, the market capitalization of meme tokens is $22.6 billion, which means a loss of 1.8%. At the same time, the global market capitalization of cryptocurrencies reached $2.08 trillion after an increase of 2.1%.

The low efficiency of meme coins is probably due to the growth of major cryptocurrencies such as ether, which attract the attention of investors and take away capital. This dependence on social trends and limited fundamentals reinforce this effect, Nansen analysts say.

Over the past week, leaders among meme coins such as Bonk, Pepe and Shiba Inu have shown declines of 14%, 5% and 2%, respectively. At the same time, major cryptocurrencies such as ether have grown by more than 7% over the same period. According to Coingecko, the share of bitcoin in the cryptocurrency market is 48.9%, and the share of ether is 17.2%.

Investor interest is again focused on bitcoin and ether due to the influx of funds from organizations through approved spot ETFs.

The recent bullish growth is structurally different from the hype in the cryptocurrency market in 2021. The market has become more balanced, where meme coins are considered extremely illiquid and volatile assets, according to Ruslan Lienha, head of the markets department at YouHodler.

The current nature of the market with a low share of retail investors differs from previous bullish trends, the Coinbase chart reflects. Quarterly retail trading volume on Coinbase is well below the levels seen during the bullish period in late 2021, when bitcoin reached a historic high above $68,000.