Meme Coins Might Lose Market Leadership to AI Crypto in 2025: Binance Research

Binance Research has revealed the rapidly changing trends on the cryptocurrency market, particularly regarding meme coins and tokens linked to the nascent artificial intelligence technology.

Meme coins became trendy in 2024

Binance Research published a thread revealing that AI agent-linked coins have been catching up with meme cryptocurrencies in a narrative rise in the last few months. The thread has shared some of the data published in the report about the rise of meme coins in 2024 and how AI cryptos are raising their heads as 2025 has kicked off.

Memecoins were a standout trend of 2024 and dominated crypto mindshare. Not far behind was the AI narrative, with AI agents in particular picking up steam over the last few months.

We recently discussed these topics in our Full-Year 2024 & Themes for 2025 Report 🧵 pic.twitter.com/zgh7Ps42AO

— Binance Research (@BinanceResearch) February 4, 2025

According to the report, meme coins were “the best performing sub-sector of 2024,” presenting a gain of 212% for that year. Meme coins massively outperformed the DeFi and layer-1 sectors and “were materially ahead of many popular TradFi investments.” Among the key reasons for the large popularity earned by meme cryptocurrencies, per the report, is that when they launch, there are no insider allocations or token unlocks. This creates “a sense of transparency and fairness.”

Besides, the report says, in 2024, anti-VC sentiment dominated the crypto market as many retail investors were frustrated at the underperformance of major cryptocurrencies. These early crypto investors began in pour money into meme coins, driving its narrative upward.

Besides, the report stated that “meme coins are speculative vehicles for culture,” i.e., they help to fix on the blockchain certain moments of culture/time and then turn them into profitable coins.

The report pointed out that, currently, there are two leading blockchains that host the largest meme cryptos – Ethereum and Solana. The former continues “to play host to the largest and most established memes.” However, last year, Solana was the leader as the meme coin trading chain.

AI coins might be taking it over from meme cryptos

Over the last few months, according to the report, AI agents have made it to the top of the list of the leading market narratives. Therefore, coins linked to those AI agents are becoming popular too, Binance Research says, naming a GOAT token linked to the Truth Terminal as an example; in October 2024 it became “the first AI agent millionaire.”

The most popular AI agents now are those that provide users with market commentary and/or entertainment. Another example of a successful AI coin in the report was Ai16z.

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