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Following the LIBRA scandal, the amount of meme coins on Pump.fun has dropped by over 56%.
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The popularity of political meme coins spiked in the first half of the year. However, investor confidence plummeted after LIBRA rugpull.
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AI tokens have overtaken memecoins as the most popular investment, signaling a change in sentiment.
The hot streak of meme coins cooled dramatically in the first quarter of 2025. This sharp drop occurred as investor interest faded, and a major scandal struck the highly speculative markets.
CoinGecko’s first quarter report cited LIBRA’s sudden collapse as the main trigger. When this political coin linked to Argentina’s president Milei imploded the fallout caused Solana’s Pump.fun to drop by over 56.3% compared to its January high.
What sparked the initial Meme coin surge?
Early 2025 meme coins were fueled by political hype. The launches of official TRUMP tokens and MELANIA tokens sparked a major frenzy in Solana. This activity peaked when a record number of 72,000 new tokens were launched on the Pump.fun Platform every day.
The “political meme coin” trend was born, with tokens bearing the names of politicians and countries flooding Solana’s network.
Related:Price action for TRUMP and PEPE Defies logic after large on-chain moves
How did the LIBRA Token collapse?
But the trend was quickly halted when LIBRA collapsed just hours after President Milei tweeted about it. Its market capitalization fell from $4.6 billion to $221,000,000 as insiders allegedly stole $107 million of liquidity.
The fallout from this was brutal. Meme coins lost their luster and trust in new launches disappeared. By the end of Q1, daily Pump.fun coin creation had fallen to 31,000, a far cry from January’s peak.
The percentage of tokens which “graduated,” i.e. gained traction and were traded outside the Pump.fun ecosystem, also dropped by half, from 1.4% to only 0.7%.
Related :SHIB holds #2 Meme Rank but can it survive this critical support test?
The LIBRA incident not only slowed the growth of political meme coins but also ended what many now call the “meme coin Supercycle”. While the most aggressive traders in crypto continue to speculate, the market as a whole has clearly cooled.
Where did investor interest go?
As meme coin interest faded attention shifted. CoinGecko data shows AI coins surpassed memes in Q1 interest for the first time. AI tokens captured 35.7% of interest compared to memes’ 27.1%.
In a recent X posting, Bobby Ong, CoinGecko’s co-founder, echoed the sentiment.
We are still following the same old trends. I guess we’re all tired of the same old trends.
Yet, meme coins are still around. Six of CoinGecko’s top 20 Q1 stories involved meme coins despite market fatigue.
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