Top memecoins are the only crypto sector to record positive returns in 2025, according to a new study published by NFTEvening.
The report found that the meme category recorded an average profit of 33.08% between January 1 and May 31, outperforming all other tracked sectors. The study used data from PumpFun and CoinGecko, which doesn’t track every single meme token out there. Tokens with no trading activity or that were delisted during the study period were assigned a default return of -100%.
The study compared price performance across ten major crypto categories: Meme, Real World Assets (RWA), Layer 1 (L1), Decentralized Exchanges (DEX), Lending, NFT, GameFi, Restaking, AI, and Layer 2 (L2).
The findings highlight a shift in market sentiment during a year where many crypto sectors have failed to remain profitable, the study notes. “While often dismissed unseriously as the ‘joke coins’ of crypto, memecoins are achieving something remarkable in 2025: outperforming every other market segment,” the report reads. “This comes at a time when the vast majority of memecoins have already faded into obscurity.”
Memecoins also outperformed other active sectors – RWAs, the next-best performing category, recorded an average return of -7.95%. All other sectors posted double-digit losses.
“A notable 18.82% of meme projects achieved profitability,” the study reads. “While this figure may seem modest, it was 117% higher than AI (8.69%) and 207% higher than Layer 2 (6.14%), both of which were heavily favored sectors at the start of 2025,” the report noted.
In terms of activity, memecoin creation surged in 2025, with nearly 5.9 million new meme tokens launched on PumpFun as of June 11 – more than 10 times the number of new tokens created across all DEXs during the same period in 2024, according to CoinGecko.
On average, more than 36,000 meme tokens were launched daily this year, up from roughly 10,400 in 2024. January alone recorded over 1.7 million new meme tokens going live, according to the report.
