Memecoins aren’t dead — they’ve just changed shape, says MoonPay president Keith A. Grossman.
Grossman told crypto observers that the core innovation of memecoins was never the jokes or mascots themselves but the way blockchain makes attention cheaply and easily tokenizable. That, he argues, democratises access to the “attention economy.” The problem, he added, isn’t the mechanism but where the value landed: instead of flowing back to communities and creators, much of it became concentrated in large, centralized platforms.
He likened today’s gloomy analyst takes on memecoins to early-2000s predictions that social media was finished after the first wave of platforms stumbled — only for a new generation of companies to turn the concept into a cultural and commercial juggernaut. Grossman expects memecoins to return, but “in a different form.”
Performance and fallout
- Memecoins were one of 2024’s best-performing crypto sectors and the year’s dominant narrative among investors, according to CoinGecko.
- That momentum reversed after a string of high-profile token failures and mounting criticism that many social tokens lacked intrinsic value. By Q1 2025 the memecoin market suffered a severe collapse, with several projects labeled “rug pulls.”
Notable collapses highlighted in the downturn:
- A memecoin launched by former U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of the January 2025 inauguration briefly peaked at $75, then plunged more than 90% to roughly $5.42, per CoinMarketCap (at time of writing).
- Argentine President Javier Milei publicly backed a social token called LIBRA in February. The token later crashed after reaching a $107 million market cap; 86% of LIBRA holders reportedly realized losses of $1,000 or more. The collapse prompted accusations of a rug pull, a government probe into Milei’s role, lawsuits from retail investors, and calls for impeachment from lawmakers.
What’s next
Grossman’s message: don’t write off tokenized attention. The tech that enabled memecoins remains potent, but the model must evolve to get value back into the hands of participants rather than intermediaries. Whether the next wave of social tokens learns from recent failures — and how regulators and communities respond — will shape whether memecoins return as a durable part of the crypto landscape.
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