Searches for 'meme coin' have trended, reaching 100 points on Google. After several meme coin cycles, the term is showing signs of mainstream interest.

Searches for 'meme coin' on Google hint at widening mainstream interest. Both meme coin and meme coins searches are up to their highest level in five years.

Searches for 'meme coin' and 'meme coins' signaled expanded mainstream interest in the crypto meme space. | Source: Google Trends

This time around, search engine interest is even higher than during the 2021 bull market. At that time, most of the activity was concentrated on NFT, and there were only a handful of meme tokens. The available Web3 and wallet infrastructure was also more difficult to access.

The searches suggest that outsiders may be discovering crypto for the first time, as they do not use the term 'meme token'. There are very few meme coins that still rely on mining, while most available assets are actually tokens on various networks. However, buyers spend a short time thinking about the actual chain, and more about the trading opportunities.

A similar trend is present for YouTube searches, which add another layer of influence. Meme coins are now moving at warp speed, not even relying on KOLs and shillers. Instead, new memes are created so fast that the original creators and communities retain control for much longer. In the past weeks, tokens have also risen much faster, with the top memes easily reaching valuations of $500M to $1B.

The mainstream expansion to meme coins coincides with more crypto players turning their attention to this type of asset. Binance increased its listings for several high-profile tokens. Coinbase also added meme leaders like Pepe (PEPE), and Robinhood increased the outreach of ShibaInu (SHIB) by adding it to its investment app.

New token launches won't stop growing

The meme coin or meme token frenzy is fueled by the discovery of Pump.fun by even more users. The new token creation does not stop, due to the absolutely free token launches.

Pump.fun reached an all-time record on daily launches, with 69,046 new tokens created. Only under 2% of those coins graduate to Raydium, and even fewer become well-known. This does not stop anyone from attempting to generate a token and shill it during a live-stream event.

As a result, the platform generated more than $4.39M in daily fees, which the team retains for its own reserves. After a slow September, Pump.fun returned to non-stop growth, both in terms of on-chain activity and site influence.

The Pump.fun site had 8.4M visits in October and went up by thousands of ranks. Pump.fun is now ranked at position 62 in the category of finance and investing, moving up 20 spots in a month. The site doubled its visits in October and climbed to position 7,089, up by 6027 ranks in a single month. The trend may continue and accelerate in November, based on on-chain data of token creation. Pump.fun is surpassed by DexScreener, ranked at position 28 in its category. Utility sites for meme tokens are even more prominent, showing awareness has already spread to early adopters.

Pump.fun is also incorporating trends from TikTok, such as the recently launched Chill Guy (CHILL GUY) token. The creation of meme coins is turning into a mass appeal event instead of a strictly crypto insider experience. The site gains most of its visits from English-speaking countries, with 30% of the visits coming from the USA. However, Pump.fun also has a 48% share of long-tail countries, including the Southeast Asia region and especially Vietnam.

Pump.fun marked more than 212K daily active addresses, of which more than 41K created a token. The remaining site visitors are lurkers. More than 65% of users are aged under 34, with a strong representation of the 18-24 age bracket. Pump.fun may have a different profile between users, token minters, and active traders.

Meme tokens are a level field, but not all players are the same. Most tokens are often swayed by crypto insiders and whales, even after an initial start with mainstream adoption. Not all whales make money as well – a FOMO buy into trending tokens often leads to deep losses.