2025 looks like the year for meme coins and DeFi tokens; at least that's what the people surveyed by Binance seem to think. The crypto exchange quizzed 27000 users regarding their digital asset holdings and found meme coin holders are leading instead of Bitcoin holders.
While 16% of crypto users held meme coins, only 14% had Bitcoin in their wallet.
Speaking about this starting revelation, Binance said that survey results indicate that “meme coins are not only popular in terms of current holdings but are also the class of digital assets that users are highly excited about for the future.”
The participants of the Binance survey are considering meme coins as a major avenue of crypto market development in 2025. This was vindicated by on-chain data, which shows that the meme coin market has a $117 billion market capitalisation at present with Dogecoin ruling the chart. In comparison, the market cap of Bitcoin is a little over $2 trillion.
The survey also revealed that BNB holders outnumber Ethereum holders, as they account for 10.95% of the total ownership. Another 10.38% ownership was for other layer 1 tokens pulled together.
After meme coin and Bitcoin, most crypto users (12.37%) are holding DeFi tokens, followed by 12.28% Layer 1 token holders.
AI and meme coins to drive 2025 crypto market growth
However, the primary revelation of the Binance survey is how the meme coin market is growing and competing with AI tokens. So much so that crypto users are anticipating that AI tokens will emerge as a dominant force in the meme coin subset. These tokens have a greater potential for upward movement, and 23.89% of crypto users believe they will drive the crypto market growth. Meanwhile, 19.09% of the traders surveyed had confidence in meme coins' potential for growth as they provide greater returns despite their risky investment nature.
The fact that meme coins are highly volatile and speculative in nature is visible in the way Dogecoin gained more than 160% in November following Donald Trump's US election win. Google search data metrics validate the “memecoin” frenzy as the term registered 100 search volume on December 5 before declining to 66 on December 9. Compared to that, “Bitcoin” search volumes declined from their peak at 100 to 50 on the same date.
Decentralisation driving crypto adoption
The Binance survey also highlights how crypto adoption is growing, as nearly half (45%) of the users have entered the market this year. Some 24.52% have adopted digital assets in the last 6 months, while 20.60% joined in the last one year.
Speaking of the survey’s representation of the crypto community, Binance said its “community is characterized by a balanced blend of experience levels, as 41.86% of respondents have been active in the crypto market for one to five years, despite the fact that many new users are still establishing their footing.”
The survey further shows how crypto traders are allocating funds for trading, with 43.97% reserving less than 10% of their fortune to crypto while 24.33% of people are investing 10-25% in digital assets.
The crypto users also reported strong trading activity, as 31.09% of them traded daily while 22.91% traded weekly. The main reason why traders are sticking to the crypto market is the rapid appreciation of digital assets with most users (22.4%); that's the reason for adopting crypto assets.
The survey shed some hopeful light on DeFi as financial independence and decentralization came up as the chief drivers for crypto adoption for 18.78% of users. However, 17.16% of traders still underlined that swift and simple transactions are the most important factor in investing in these assets.
A brief history of meme coins to understand their success
To understand the meme coin frenzy, one must understand this subset of cryptocurrencies that arose from the combination of internet humour memes and digital finance. It's not so much high on utility but driven by a strong community which builds from pop culture references and jokes. Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, they don't solve real-world financial problems. Rather they are created out of social media trends and user participation, as seen in the latest viral meme coin Peanut the Squirrel and CHILLGUY. One of the most important factors in their success is virality, frequently fuelled by online communities and celebrity endorsements. Although they run on blockchain like Solana, their value is driven by the cultural relevance and community buzz.
That's how Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer invented the first meme coin, Dogecoin, on December 6, 2013, to add some fun elements to cryptocurrencies. Nearly a decade later, it has become a top digital asset thanks to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) prodding by Elon Musk. The first meme coin was influenced by a Doge meme, which showed a Shiba Inu dog with multi-coloured comic sans text as the dog’s “thought bubbles.”
The meme was in turn based on a 2010 photograph of a Japanese female Shiba Inu dog called Kabosu. This dog was adopted by Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Satō from an animal shelter in 2008.