Meme Coins Slump as Pump.fun Token Leads Crypto Retreat

The native token for meme coin launchpad Pump.fun led losses across crypto’s meme economy Friday, tumbling 9.2% to $0.007213 within 24 hours. Despite this pullback, PUMP remains a standout performer with 142% gains over the past 30 days and sits just 11.5% below its all-time high of $0.008819 reached on September 14. The platform’s mobile app has seen remarkable growth, with daily active users surging 450% over the past three months according to company figures.

The downturn extended across the entire Pump.fun ecosystem, with its total market cap slipping 6% to $3.85 billion. Notable losses included TROLL (down 10%) and Aura (down 12%), while smaller declines hit Fartcoin, PNUT and Moo Deng. The sentiment shift was captured on prediction market Myriad, where users flipped from a 54% chance of PUMP’s market cap hitting $4 billion to a 66% probability of it dropping to $2 billion within 24 hours.

The selloff extended beyond Pump.fun to established meme players across multiple blockchains. Dogecoin (DOGE) slid 3.6%, Pudgy Penguins’ PUDGY dipped 5.1%, while PEPE and BONK notched similar declines. Newer entrants like CHILLGUY and HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu (ETH) fell 7.6% and 6.4% respectively. Collectively, the meme market shed 4.8% over the past day, shrinking to $87.2 billion in total valuation.

This meme sector weakness contrasted sharply with the relative stability of major cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin (BTC) eased down just 0.8% to $116,263, while Ethereum (ETH) fell 1.3% to $4,521 amid ongoing staking concerns that have made yield strategies less reliable for holders. The divergence highlights how meme coins, while often moving in correlation with major cryptos, can experience amplified volatility during market shifts.

While meme coins struggled, gaming tokens and select altcoins showed remarkable resilience. Immutable’s IMX token rallied 17% on Thursday and 47% over the past week, lifted by the Federal Reserve’s recent rate cut and a string of industry partnerships including with gaming giants Ubisoft and NetMarble. This momentum comes despite broader struggles in the crypto gaming space, where unsustainable token launches have forced multiple shutdowns this year.

Analysts suggest the SEC’s move to approve generic listing standards for crypto exchange-traded products may add further fuel for select altcoins beyond the meme sector. The ongoing sector rotation within crypto markets appears to be favoring gaming and infrastructure tokens over pure meme assets, reflecting a maturation of investor preferences and a search for projects with fundamental utility rather than just viral appeal.

Despite the broader meme coin retreat, the first ETF with spot exposure to Dogecoin launched this week to surprisingly strong demand. The initial rollout surpassed analyst expectations, with Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas tweeting that his “over/under got destroyed in the first hour of trading as DOJE already posted nearly $6M in volume. That’s shockingly solid. Most ETFs trade under $1M on day one.”

This successful ETF launch, occurring alongside the meme sector selloff, presents a curious dichotomy. While retail traders appear to be pulling back from direct meme coin investments, institutional products tracking these assets are finding substantial demand, suggesting that while short-term sentiment may be cooling, longer-term institutional interest in meme-themed crypto exposure continues to grow.