Memecoins plunged to their lowest valuation of 2025 on Friday, falling to a combined market capitalization of $39.4 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The market partially recovered over the weekend, but it has still erased most of the gains accumulated over the last twelve months.

Sector-wide decline intensifies

The crypto-asset segment of memecoins shed more than $5 billion in just 24 hours on Friday, November 21, dropping from $44 billion despite a 40% surge in trading volume. This represents a dramatic reversal from the yearly peak on January 5, when the collective memecoin market capitalization hit $116.7 billion. Friday’s drop marks a 66.2% drawdown from the 2025 high.

The memecoin decline mirrors the broader crypto market sell-off seen over the past three weeks. The most popular and oldest cryptocurrency, bitcoin, has lost nearly 20% of its value since late October. Other digital assets experienced similarly sharp declines.

Diverging performance among top memecoins

Seven-day losses, however, vary widely across individual memecoins. Dogecoin, the largest memecoin by market capitalization, dropped more than 6%. The sharpest decline among the top 10 came from Pump.fun, which fell over 24%. Pump.fun currently ranks as the fifth-largest memecoin.

In sixth place, the Official Trump memecoin lost more than 10% of its market capitalization over the last week. On the other hand, one top-tier memecoin posted gains: SPX6900 increased its market value by nearly 6%.

NFT market hit by steep correction

The non-fungible token (NFT) market — another speculative corner of the crypto ecosystem — also experienced heavy losses. NFT market capitalization dropped to $2.78 billion on Friday, down 43% from $4.9 billion thirty days earlier. This marks the lowest valuation for digital collectibles since April and signals a cooling demand for NFTs.

Most of the top 10 NFT collections recorded double-digit losses over the past month. The weakest performer was Hyperliquid’s Hypurr NFTs, plunging 41.1%. Moonbirds and CryptoPunks followed with losses of 32.7% and 27.1% respectively. Pudgy Penguins declined by 26.6%. Only two collections bucked the overall downward trend: Infinex Patrons gained 11.3%, making it the strongest performer among the top 10.

What is driving the downturn?

According to analysts, the current market weakness stems from fading expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will soon cut interest rates. With persistent uncertainty surrounding the U.S. and global economies, combined with heightened inflation risk, forecasting the Fed’s next move remains challenging.

For many investors, cryptocurrencies still behave similarly to technology stocks — which makes market sentiment especially sensitive to macroeconomic signals. As a result, analysts say investors are increasingly nervous, and for now, the strategy appears to be simple: wait and see.

Sources:

https://www.tradingview.com/news/cointelegraph:e6166f098094b:0-memecoin-market-sinks-to-2025-low-as-5b-wiped-out-in-a-day/

https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/meme-token

https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/dogecoin

https://www.ft.com/content/d0d71c5b-e822-41ba-a86a-f8c460387972