Morning Minute | Don't Let The Institutions Steal Your Memecoins

TylerD's Market Summary

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🤯 The Institutions Are Coming...For Memecoins

The highlight of Q1 for many active in the crypto trading space was the explosion of memecoins.

Solana led the action, with tokens like BONK and WIF soaring to multiple-billion dollar market caps with a wave of tokens following in their wake.

But then the rally got overheated (see Bome's opening weekend), Solana got congested and attention shifted to Runes on Bitcoin.

Well, attention is coming back to Solana.

And institutions are watching.

What Happened?

A Bloomberg post from yesterday hinted that some serious institutional investors are looking at memecoins.

Hedge funds like Stratos (with limited partners like Marc Andreesen and Chris Dixon) along with Brevan Howard and Pantera Capital have either written about memecoins or already made investments in the sector.

Pantera went as far to write that "memecoins are here to stay" and that "memecoin trading creates gigantic" opportunies.

Thanks for confirming what we already knew, Pantera.

There are signs of serious whale and/or institution investment in memecoins already happening.

Mando posted a wallet which has accumulated $12M of BODEN, $6M of WIF and added $250k of HARAMBE in one clip yesterday.

While not confirmed, he alludes to that being a sign of institutional buying vs retail.

Mando goes on to warn memecoin holders "the institutions are here and they are coming for your memes."

Don't let the institutions steal your memecoins!

Market Impact

Let's just say, yesterday was a green wave.

PEPE went live on Coinbase Advanced and soared 18% to a $3.3B market cap kicking things off.

Then the Solana coins took over.

Some notable gainers from the day:

• WIF +22% to $3.46B mc
• BONK +37% to $2.6B mc
• MEW +28% to $590M mc
• BODEN +35% to $540M mc
• POPCAT +24% to $460M mc
• PUPS +25% to $450M* (on BTC and SOL)
• MANEKI +62% to $150M mc
• NUB +38% to $88M
• SC +70% to $79M
• HARAMBE +120% to $39M mc

It's the biggest day that I can remember, across the board.

Why It Matters

Even after the monster Q1 for memecoins, many had their doubts on the sector's staying power.

And many still do.

But the longer these tokens see sustained gains, the more durable this sector becomes - and the more capital it will attract.

Clearly the institutions are paying attention, and some are even investing.

And with other notable protocols making negative headlines like Renzo depegging (after releasing bad tokenomics and perhaps misleading its community) and Worldcoin inflating their $WLD supply - no wonder some participants simply opt for memecoins this cycle.

No execution risk, no inflation risk - just memes.

And guess what - they're here to stay...

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH led NFT trading volume with $7.7M on the day (even); BTC was next with $6M (-20%) and then Solana with $5.3M (even)
• ETH NFT leaders were mixed with BAYC -1% to 12.7 ETH, Pudgy +3% to 11.4, Milady +6% to 5.2 and MAYC -3% at 2.2
• Art Gobblers and Schizoposters were notable winners, jumping 72% and 56% respectively 
• Squiggles were swept up to 7 ETH, a 40% gain on the day
• Runestone led the BTC NFT board again with just 28 BTC volume, dipping to 0.023 BTC; Prometheans fell to 0.045 as well as Runes interest wanes
• BTC PFP leaders took a big hit with most falling 20%; OMB at 0.41 BTC, Quantum Cats at 0.385, Bitcoin Puppets at 0.345, NodeMonkes at 0.32
• Magic Eden has facilitated more than $6M in Runes trading volume in the past 1.5 days since launch, though most Runes are down
• Solana NFTs were mixed on the day; Mad Lads -5% at 89 SOL, Tensorians -8% at 13.5
• NBA Top Shot announced its Playoff Pack sales deadlines and the respective probabilities of Rare or Legendary Moments for every NBA Playoff team
• Own the Doge acquired the first-ever exclusive license for the famous Doge image

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are slightly green this morning; BTC +0.3% at $66,400; ETH +2.8% at $3,270; SOL +1.7% at $158
• Memecoin majors were very green on the day after PEPE futures went live on Coinbase; DOGE +2%, WIF +20%, PEPE +15%, BONK +33%; SC (+75%), BODEN (+35%), & MANEKI (+30%) outperformed
• Renzo ezETH depegged after its tokenomics release led to a wave of FUD over some misrepresentation of data and lack of community rewards (has since re-peggeD)
• Jupiter announced its Jupiter Mobile Initiative where they advertise trading "any token, anywhere, with 1 click and 0 fees," with Beta coming in May
• Safe introduced Safe{Pass} to actively reward users for being safe while participating on-chain with its smart accounts

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $HARAMBE (+120%, $40M market cap, Solana)
• $SC (+70%, $80M market cap, Solana)
• $MANEKI (+62%, $145M market cap, Solana)
• $NUB (+38%, $88M market cap, Solana)
• $BONK (+37%, $2.6B market cap, Solana)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Art Gobblers (72%, 0.13 ETH Floor)
• SchizoPosters (53%, 0.53 ETH)
• Infinigods (48%, 0.15 ETH)
• CryptoPhunks (44%, 0.15 ETH)
• Remnants (27%, 7.5 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is another slower day of new mints and events.

Laurent Castellani is the meme card artist today, and Casey Reas is back with a team for "Wet and Saturated Process."

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Calamity (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Casey Reas - Wet and Saturated Proceess (1:00 p.m. ET)
• Froogle (1:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.