The meme coins seem to be taking over this bull season as Pepe (PEPE) and Dogwifhat (WIF) are printing back to back gains. The recent surge has helped PEPE to barge into the top 20 cryptos by market capitalization within a year of its launch. PEPE is standing tall with an 1166% surge on the year to date (YTD) basis while WIF has marked a massive 2200% jump over this time.
PEPE making meme cryptos standout
It is crucial to note that their rise among investors is also visible in the crypto leverage market, where traders either go short or long on their prices. Data shows that four of the top 10 cryptos by open interest (OI) are meme coins. Pepe is leading the charge at $812.6 million in OI which is nearly half of Solana’s $1.7 billion.
Apart from the trending meme coin Pepe, Dogecoin (DOGE), Bonk, and Dogwifhat (WIF) have also made it to the tally. However, Bitcoin (BTC) remains the leader with $11.1 billion in OI, followed by Ethereum at $9.15 billion.
The stark contrast in OI from top to bottom can be seen as Bitcoin’s OI stands at $11 billion., on the other hand, Near Protocol holding the 10th spot has only $230 million. This highlights a major difference in trader interest.
The recent rise in OI for meme coins is briefly linked to their bullish momentum emerging over the past couple of weeks. PEPE price is up by around 120% in the last 30 days, while it hit a new all-time high. WIF reached a multi-week high above $3.30.
What does OI say about the market?
Despite the surge in prices and OI for meme coins, funding rates remained negative across crypto exchanges. Funding rates represent the cost of holding a position in a perpetual swap or futures contract relative to the asset’s spot price. Positive funding rates suggest bullish market sentiment, while negative rates indicate bearish sentiment.
In related news, Solana validators are set to receive more SOL tokens following the approval of a governance proposal that allocates 100% of priority fees to them. This proposal passed with 77% in favor, aiming to ensure validators focus on maintaining network security and smooth operations.
Earlier, half of the fees in priority transactions were burned, while the other half went to validators. The new model, part of Solana Improvement Document number 96 (SIMD-0096), is designed to eliminate “side deals” and better incentivize validators.
