The first quarter of 2025 is now over, and one thing that stands out in the crypto space is the no-longer-so-deep obsession with certain familiar themes.
If anything, I think the latest quarterly report from CoinGecko—an upshot of which I’ve written about here—captures well how crypto as an industry seems stuck in a narrative loop and, overall, an attention loop as well.
Narrative 1: AI tokens
A big part of what makes stories worth telling is the cast of characters involved, and right now, the number of characters being rumored to be involved with AI is truly staggering.
The community has requested innovation and new use cases, but the numbers tell a different story. Tokens connected to AI were the most interesting to investors and took center stage with a commanding 35.7% share during Q1. Memecoins weren’t far behind. They accounted for 27.1% of the attention received by relevant narratives in Q1. Out of the 20 most relevant narratives tracked in the report, over half of them—11 to be exact—were either AI-themed or rooted in meme culture.
This long-lasting hold on market sentiment reveals a mix of speculative negative momentum, community hyping, and digital culture trends that stubbornly refuse to die. While AI tokens gain from the tech sector’s fixation with artificial intelligence and automation, memecoins exploit humor, politics, and pop culture to keep people talking. Together, they are molding what Art defines as the “loop market”—an investment arena where fresh narratives are in short supply, which conveniently allows old, discredited stories to be recycled.
Political Memecoins Rise—and Crash
In Q1, some of the politically themed memecoins like TRUMP and MELANIA were doing quite well. The tokens enjoyed the attention of American politics of late, what with an upcoming U.S. presidential election, and plenty of global media focus to go around. We were not only investing in these potential moonshot tokens but also using them to make a digital political statement.
The sensations associated with political memecoins may already be on the wane. The recent nosedive of LIBRA, a promised linchpin of politically flavored meme finance, sent showers of shock through the space. The collapse, which also adversely affected Solana, one of the blockchains where memecoins had found strong purchase, wiped out over $4 billion in market value and triggered panic among new token deployers.
The LIBRA crash was a harsh reminder of how fragile these ecosystems are. With liquidity draining away and confidence shaken, several developers and project teams reportedly pressed pause on new launches (or shelved them altogether), which cooled momentum on the Solana network. For many, LIBRA’s failure signaled the dangers of speculative excess and underscored the need for better risk management—even in markets built around jokes.
Yet, in spite of the setback, memecoins continue to draw in intelligent funds. Experienced traders and crypto-focused funds have displayed a strange knack for timing meme rallies, riding the wave of community-driven trends and making their way safely to the exit before the crash that follows every such rally. This way of investing is the exact opposite of the retail investor, who often buys these tokens in the belief that they have a future.
The AI tokens seem a bit more stable than others in the crypto market. Projects concentrating on decentralized AI infrastructure, model training, and data monetization are attracting an investor class that likes to use the term “long game” when referring to the adoption of AI. However, these AI tokens are in the same boat as other crypto tokens in that a big chunk of their trading volume comes from speculation.
The crypto market is at a crossroads as Q2 rolls out. Investors may keep rotating capital through the same motifs as they search for fresh directions. It’s a bit like the old days of late 2018 and early 2019, when Bitcoin was constantly hovering around the same price level, but there was a clear absence of new fundamental or technical analysis to provide the market some semblance of clarity. Currently, AI and memes—unexpectedly powerful instruments for driving market sentiment—still steer the crypto frontier.
Whether that will still be the case by the time the next cycle kicks in remains to be seen. But for now, sharp cash isn’t seeking the next massive development—it’s determining fresh methods to reimagine the old classics.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
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