AI Tokens, Memecoins Dominate 2025 Q1 Crypto Narratives, 62.8% Investor Interest

In the first quarter of 2025, the cryptocurrency market continued to be dominated by familiar narratives, with few new trends emerging to replace the existing themes. According to a quarterly research report by CoinGecko, artificial intelligence tokens and memecoins were the leading crypto narratives, capturing 62.8% of investor interest. AI tokens alone accounted for 35.7% of global investor interest, surpassing the 27.1% share held by memecoins, which remained in second place.

Out of the top 20 crypto narratives of the quarter, six were memecoin categories while five were AI-related. This dominance highlights the continued interest in these sectors despite the lack of new trends. Bobby Ong, the co-founder and chief operating officer of CoinGecko, noted in an April 17 post that the market seems to be recycling old narratives, with investors showing fatigue from the repetition of the same trends.

Interest in memecoins surged ahead of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, following the launch of the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin on Jan. 18 and the Official Melania (MELANIA) token on Jan. 19 on the Solana network. However, some industry observers expressed concern that the rise of memecoins could be diverting capital from utility tokens, potentially limiting their price potential.

The crypto industry faced another setback with the collapse of the Libra (LIBRA) token, a memecoin endorsed by Argentine President Javier Milei. The token's market value plummeted by $4 billion within hours after insiders allegedly withdrew over $107 million in liquidity, resulting in a 94% price crash. This incident led to a significant decline in the number of new memecoins deployed on Solana’s Pump.fun, with daily deployments falling by over 56.3% from its peak in January to 31K at the end of the first quarter of 2025. The percentage of ‘graduated’ tokens also dropped drastically to 0.7%, compared to 1.4% in January 2025.

Despite the end of the “politicam memecoin” trend following the Libra scandal, some of the industry’s most profitable traders continue to seek speculative memecoin investments. Nicolai Sondergaard, a research analyst at Nansen, suggested that memecoins may only be a “fun play” for smart investors, as they are not affected by the same macroeconomic concerns as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). At the end of March, a trader turned an initial investment of $2,000 into $43 million with the popular Pepe (PEPE) memecoin, although they missed selling at the peak, locking in a realized profit of over $10 million despite Pepe’s over 70% decline.

In summary, the first quarter of 2025 saw AI tokens and memecoins dominate the crypto narratives, with AI tokens capturing the largest share of investor interest. The launch of memecoins related to political figures and the subsequent collapse of the Libra token highlighted the volatility and speculative nature of the memecoin market. Despite these events, some traders continue to seek opportunities in memecoins, viewing them as a separate investment category from traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether.