Memcoins are coming out of the shadows: segment capitalization is growing and projects are moving to real utility

Over the past week, the cumulative value of "meme coins" reached $68 billion, with daily volumes exceeding $12.4 billion. Fueled by retail interest, the wave of movement has allowed the sector to overtake a number of mid-sized blockchains in terms of liquidity.

Dogecoin retains its flagship status, with the price climbing to $0.33 and a market valuation cemented at $45 billion. The largest liquidity pools on DEX recorded a 26% increase in turnover over three days.

Shiba Inu's focus shifted to deflation. Over the course of the day, 600 million SHIBs were burned, accelerating the asset's yearly destruction rate to 0.62% of issuance. Amid the statistics, the token added 14 % to its weekly low, and the developers announced a pilot staking for liquidity providers.

New star Little Pepe confirmed raising $10 million at the presale. Unlike classic "hype" launches, LILPEPE goes live immediately on its own 10,000 tps L2, allowing the team to deploy a launchpad for games and NFT series in parallel.

In the Solana market, BONK jumped 8% on expectations of burning a trillion tokens. Analysts compare the effect to last year's SHIB Mega Burn, expecting a 2.6% decline in circulation and higher intraday volatility.

Chicago hedge funds are recording capital inflows into meme pools. Options on pepe and bonk expiring in October were the most sought-after instruments, with the premium rising to $0.23 and open interest doubling to $480 million. Some managers allocated a stake of up to 2% of AUM, offsetting the risk with short swaps on large altcoins.

FLOKI stepped up marketing by placing digital billboards in Tokyo and New York, leading to a 42% spike in search queries in 24 hours. Developers launched a beta of FLOKI's ticket-paying metaverse park, hoping to turn fan activity into sustainable cash flow.

Index-type futures tracking a basket of the top 10 memcoins appeared on derivatives platforms. A MEMX contract with up to 10x leverage accepts USDC margin, and a $5 million deep stack allows institutional investors to hedge a portfolio without having to hold every token.

Lawyers note that the GENIUS Act extends reserve disclosure to issuers with turnover above $500 million. The DOGE and SHIB teams have already prepared audit drafts, and startups are building collateral funds in USDT to comply with the 1.05 ratio.

Banking apps in Latin America are testing micropayments to DOGE and SHIB via NFC terminals: the fee is $0.004 and confirmation takes less than a second. According to a Credit Tech survey, 38% of young people are willing to keep part of their paychecks in memcoins if they can instantly exchange them for digital dollars.

Against the backdrop of these changes, developers are emphasizing usefulness: bonus points in mobile games, content subscriptions and joint crowdfunding projects are becoming the main drivers of interest, while traditional promotion models are rapidly losing effectiveness.