The memecoin market has seen a sharp increase, adding nearly $17 billion in value since early July. As of Thursday, the sector reached a $72 billion market cap, marking a 29% rise from $55 billion at the end of June.

CoinMarketCap data indicates July brought higher trading activity than the previous month, with the 24-hour volume surpassing $18 billion on Thursday and hitting a second peak of $17.09 billion the prior Saturday.

Top memecoins like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Pepe have posted notable gains over the past week. However, Floki rose by 45%, Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) increased 58%, and Bonk led with a 72% gain.

Bonk’s rapid growth is tied to LetsBonk, a Bonk-supported launchpad for Solana memecoins. On July 7, LetsBonk overtook Pump.fun, the leading Solana launchpad, in daily volume.

In the past week, LetsBonk generated $8.25 million in protocol revenue, surpassing Pump.fun’s $4.91 million. According to DEX aggregator Jupiter, LetsBonk held a 51.9% market share in the last 24 hours, compared to Pump.fun’s 39.5%, and achieved a trading volume of $838 million versus Pump.fun’s $638 million.

Despite this, Pump.fun remains the leading platform in 30-day protocol revenue with nearly $29 million, and still dominates in trader count and liquidity. It recorded 413,000 traders in 24 hours, compared to LetsBonk’s 275,000, and had $510 million in liquidity versus LetsBonk’s $53 million.

Solana’s rising memecoin activity has helped lift the broader market, but the recent rally of Ethereum may also be a factor. Ether was trading above $3,400 at the time of writing, gaining over 22% in the past week.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/memecoin-market-cap-surges-17b-july-bonk-floki-pumpfun

https://coinmarketcap.com/view/memes/

https://jup.ag/pro?tab=launchpads

https://defillama.com/revenue