Meme Coins Capture 31% of Crypto Narrative Interest in 2024

What Are the Most Popular Crypto Narratives in 2024?

The most popular crypto narrative in 2024 was by far the meme coin narrative, which captured a combined 30.67% of global investor interest across the main meme coin narrative and 25 meme coin trends. In other words, almost a third of crypto narrative interest this year was focused on more speculative opportunities with less emphasis on fundamentals, as the market expanded rapidly from dog-related meme coins to other animal- and personality-themed meme coins.

Specifically, the main meme coin narrative ranked 1st with a 14.36% share of crypto narrative interest. This represents a 6.04 percentage point increase from the meme coin narrative’s 8.32% share of interest last year. 

Besides the overall meme coin narrative, four meme coin trends managed to rank among the top 20 crypto narratives: Solana meme coins which ranked 4th with 7.65% share of narrative interest, Base meme coins in 11th place with a 2.13% share, AI meme coins in 15th place with 1.49% and cat-themed meme coins coming in 16th with 1.19% of interest.

AI-Related Narratives Capture 16% of Investor Interest

Another popular crypto narrative in 2024 was the artificial intelligence (AI) narrative, which accounted for a combined 15.67% of investor interest across the overall AI narrative and 5 other AI-related narratives. 

The overall AI narrative ranked 2nd in popularity this year, with a 12.58% share of investor interest. Despite the 1.26 percentage point increase from last year’s 11.32% share of interest, the AI narrative still lost in popularity compared to the meme coin narrative.

Besides the overall AI narrative and AI meme coins trend, the AI agents narrative also made it into the top 20 ranking with a 1.17% share of investor interest. 

RWA & DePIN Gain Attention

Other popular crypto narratives that received greater attention in 2024 compared to the previous year were the real world assets (RWA) and DePIN narratives. 

The RWA narrative saw its share of investor interest increase by 2.16 percentage points, from 6.48% in 2023 to 8.64% in 2024. As a result, its popularity ranking was raised from 6th to 3rd place. Similarly, the DePIN narrative’s popularity ranking rose from 13th to 8th place, as its share of investor interest increased by 1.56 percentage points.

On the other hand, the popularity of the GameFi narrative shrank, with its share of investor interest decreasing by 6.77 percentage points from 10.49% in 2023 to just 3.72% in 2024. 

Growing Interest in Solana & Base-Related Narratives

Solana-related narratives captured a combined 14.30% share of investor interest, putting it close behind the AI narrative in terms of popularity. While Solana meme coins drove almost half of attention towards the chain, investors continued to be interested in the broader Solana ecosystem, which ranked as the 5th most popular narrative with 5.78% of investor interest. The Pump.fun narrative itself contributed a smaller 0.61% share of investor interest, likely reflecting its overlap with the Solana meme coin narrative.

Meanwhile, two Base-related narratives also entered the top 20 rankings this year, on the back of the chain’s strengthening popularity. Altogether, the Base ecosystem and the Base meme coins narratives accounted for 4.87% of investor interest.

In total, 5 out of 67 blockchain ecosystems ranked among the top 20 crypto narratives in 2024. In addition to Solana and Base, these popular blockchain ecosystem narratives include the Ethereum ecosystem (1.82% share of investor interest), Sui ecosystem (1.04%) and TON ecosystem (0.85%).

Most Popular Crypto Narratives 2024

The top 20 most popular crypto narratives in 2024, ranked by market share of annual investor interest, are as follows:

The top 20 crypto narratives accounted for a total 78.72% of global investor interest, out of a diverse pool of 200 narratives that received attention this year. The remaining 21.28% of crypto narrative interest was spread across 180 narratives.

Most Popular Crypto Narratives 2023

The top 15 most popular crypto narratives in 2023, ranked by share of investor interest from January 1 to December 21, 2023 are:

Methodology

The study examined interest in crypto narratives based on CoinGecko categories’ non-botted global web traffic, from January 1 to December 21, 2023, and January 1 to December 21, 2024. For the purpose of the study, only categories with listed pages and a non-zero percentage share of traffic were considered. 

This study is for illustrative and informational purposes only, and is not financial advice. Always do your own research and be careful when putting your money into any crypto or financial asset.

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