The eccentricity of meme tokens has not prevented them from making waves in the crypto markets over the past few years. 2024 saw a resurgence in these highly speculative assets driven by the remarkable Bitcoin gains, increased institutional adoption, and markets’ optimism for regulatory changes in the United States.
The buzz surrounding Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential elections in November 2024 also had a huge impact on cryptocurrencies and meme coins in particular, some of which were specifically created to leverage political themes, whether in support or satirically. As of January 10, there are 92 politically-oriented meme coins and tokens listed on CoinGecko, while CoinMarketCap shows 112 such coins. But which are the hottest meme tokens right now among both crypto investors and enthusiasts? In an attempt to answer this question, the team at BestBrokers compared the search volume on Google for the ten meme coins with the largest market capitalisation.
Data shows that Dogecoin remains not only the largest meme coin in terms of market cap but it is also the most commonly searched on Google. However, a much newer meme coin, namely BRETT, which was launched in early 2024, saw the greatest increase in searches between the first and last weeks of the year. Search interest for one of the first coins on the Base network grew by 600% in that period although it had no presale and was not listed on any platform until March.
Methodology
To measure the popularity of meme coins on the Internet, the team at BestBrokers utilised the Keywords Explorer by the leading SEO platform Ahrefs. This instrument displays the Google search volume for keywords searched within the past 12 months in various countries or globally. With it, we checked how many times per month people around the world have searched for the ten meme coins with the largest market capitalisation at the time of writing. We added the largest politically-themed meme coins that gained traction before and right after the U.S. Presidential Elections in November 2024. The figures displayed on the graphics are for the average number of searches per month.
We also looked at data from Google Trends, a free tool that analyses search queries entered into Google’s search engine over a certain period of time. It uses a sample of searches to show “search interest”, as the folks at Google call it, measured on a 1-100 scale. Even more interestingly, it allows comparing the search interest for up to five search terms or keywords. These can be broader topics and users can make the analysis localised or more specific by choosing from a number of categories.
For our analysis, we compared the worldwide searches during the first week of January 2024, and the last week of December 2024, ending Sunday. We looked for search terms in any category, choosing the ten meme coins with the largest market capitalisation according to CoinMarketCap. It should be noted that the search interest for these coins was measured against the search interest for the most popular one, Dogecoin. Coins launched after March 2024 were not included since search volume for them is too insignificant to analyse.
Which Meme Tokens Are Crypto Enthusiasts Interested In?
While not considered a serious investment by many traditionalists (even by some crypto holders, as well), meme coins have become widely popular due to their humorous and satirical nature and connection to a particular Internet meme. They have been endorsed by celebrities, including Snoop Dogg, Gene Simmons, and most notably Elon Musk. Not to mention the many meme tokens created by celebrities themselves. Currently, there are also more than 40 Donald Trump-inspired meme coins.
But meme coins aren’t just hype. Currently, their combined market capitalisation is over $104.6 billion according to CoinGecko and thousands of people are using them to trade, buy things on the Internet, or even donate to different charities. Some even see meme coins as an investment. But which meme tokens are popular right now? According to Google search volume data covering global searches over the past 12 months, the dog-inspired Dogecoin is the most searched meme coin in the world.
Dogecoin
Launched more than a decade ago, Dogecoin is considered the original meme coin and is the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap right now ($48.8 billion). Its price peaked in May 2021 reaching $0.726288 when Elon Musk, a huge DOGE supporter, appeared on Saturday Night Live. Since then, its price has moved much less impressively; at least until the 2024 U.S. Presidential Elections. From $0.158152 early on November 5, DOGE reached $0.399477 on November 13 and exceeded $0.4 after November 22, according to CoinGecko. Compared to a year ago, the cryptocurrency is now trading at around 300% more. It is also the most searched for meme coin on the Internet. Over the past 12 months, people googled Dogecoin an average of 2.27 million times a month.
Shiba Inu
With an average of 956,000 searches each month on Google, the Shiba Inu coin ranks second on our list. Released back in 2020, the dog-themed coin has become one of the most beloved meme coins. The Ethereum-based cryptocurrency is now accepted by a large number of places either directly or through third parties. With a market cap of $12.33 billion, it is the second largest meme coin by market capitalisation after Dogecoin and fourth in terms of trading volume as of January 2025. Many crypto enthusiasts expected Shiba Inu to increase in value following a staggering 4,100% surge in its burn rate, which occurred on January 8. In this process, a number of coins are burned and removed from circulation, thus limiting the supply and potentially causing more people to buy. This time, nearly 21.7 million SHIB tokens were removed from circulation but did not result in a price surge; on the contrary, the token dropped by more than 13% in the week after.
PEPE
Pepe coin is an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum blockchain and it is inspired by the Pepe the Frog meme created by Matt Furie. The cryptocurrency was first launched in April 2023 and by May 5 of the same year, it reached a $1 billion market cap. Following the 2024 U.S. Presidential Elections, PEPE’s price started increasing and on December 9, 2024, the coin passed the $11 billion market cap, hitting $0.00002643. It is currently the third-largest meme coin by market capitalisation and the third-most searched one on Google.
Bonk Coin
First minted in December of 2022, Bonk is a dog-themed meme token issued on the Solana blockchain. The coin did not gain much popularity at first but currently, it has a market cap of $1.9 billion. On November 20, 2024, Bonk reached an all-time high of $0.00005825, up almost 7,500% from November 20 2023. Since then, it lost more than half of its value, shedding more than $1 billion off of its market cap. Over the past year, Internet users have searched for Bonk coin on Google an average of 195,000 times each month.
Floki
Floki is a dog-themed meme cryptocurrency inspired by Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu dog called Floki. Like most meme coins, it started as a fun joke but over time, it became one of the most popular meme tokens. It is now a full web3 ecosystem that encompasses decentralised finance, NFTs, and the metaverse. Similarly to other cryptocurrencies, it went up in value following Donald Trump’s re-election but it could not reach its June all-time high of $0.0003449. It is also the fifth-most searched meme coin on Google for the past year with 160,000 average monthly searches.
The Hottest Meme Coins of 2024
The popularity of meme coins can be attributed to social media, celebrity support, games, and overall, online communities. It is no wonder why you would often hear more talk about a specific meme token than some of the largest cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum or Tether. Meme coins were meant to be viral and if we look at the detailed Google Trends data since January, we can see that certain tokens have gained a lot of traction.
For the top ten meme coins by market cap, we compared search interest figures from the first week of January 2024 (Jan 1-7) to the last week of December 2024, ending Sunday (December 23-29). Data shows that Brett coin has exploded in popularity at least in terms of Google searches during this period, having a 600% surge in search interest. The token is inspired by the Brett character from Matt Furie’s famous Boy’s Club comic series (where Pepe the Frog originally comes from) and is the mascot of the Base Chain.
Searches for the Solana-based Dogwifhat have also increased between January and December 2024; much less significantly though (16.67%). The token, showing Shiba Inu wearing a pink knitted hat, saw its value jump to $4.83 in March 2024 but is now trading at around $1.4-$1.5 and has a market cap of $1.4 billion.
The Pepe coin is the third-hottest meme coin, with Google searches for it going slightly up (by 6.67%) between January and December. The search interest for Dogecoin has not changed much between January and December with searches up only 1.03%. The interest in Floki coin has remained the same, while searches for Shiba Inu and Bonk coin have dropped. The search volume for spx6900 (SPX), Mog coin (MOG) and Popcat (POPCAT) was insufficient for this period.
Given the high volatility of meme coins, several events have had a huge impact on both their popularity among crypto enthusiasts and on their performance. One of the events influencing crypto markets in 2024 was undoubtedly the U.S. Presidential Elections on November 5 2024. Anticipating a Trump win and subsequent crypto deregulation, traders and the so-called crypto whales started buying huge volumes of various coins, including meme tokens, which resulted in price surges for most.
This increased investor interest is also reflected in the Google searches on the day of the elections and the week after. The chart above shows that search interest for several meme coins skyrocketed, starting November 5. Between November 5 and November 13, Google search interest for Dogecoin skyrocketed by 1,150%, while for Pepe, it jumped by 800%. Searches for Shiba Inu increased by 700%, while interest also doubled for Floki (FLOKI) and Bonk coin (BONK) in this period.
Searches for Peanut the Squirrel coin (PNUT) peaked on November 3; searches for MAGA coin (TRUMP) and MAGA again (MAGAA) doubled between November 5 and November 6, and tripled for Baby Trump. Search volumes for the rest of the meme coins analysed were insignificant and no changes were spotted.