On 25 October 2026, Dogecoin (DOGE) was still the largest meme coin, with a market cap of about $11.99 billion. Next came Shiba Inu (SHIB) at about $2.86 billion, MemeCore (M) at about $2.08 billion and Pepe (PEPE) at about $1.83–1.87 billion, according to CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. CoinGecko put the whole meme category at about $28.65 billion, with $1.81 billion traded in 24 hours. DOGE traded near $0.0766, which CoinGecko shows as 89.5% below its all-time high of $0.7316. The sector is far smaller than at its peaks, and only a handful of tokens have meaningful size.
The ranking: largest meme coins by market cap
These figures come from CoinGecko's meme category and CoinMarketCap's meme view as of 25 October 2026. The two aggregators agree on the order and the rough size. Prices change by the minute, so check a live page before acting on any number.
| Rank | Coin | Ticker | Market cap (CoinGecko) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dogecoin | DOGE | ~$11.99B |
| 2 | Shiba Inu | SHIB | ~$2.86B |
| 3 | MemeCore | M | ~$2.08B |
| 4 | Pepe | PEPE | ~$1.87B |
| 5 | Official Trump | TRUMP | ~$0.46B |
| 6 | Pudgy Penguins | PENGU | ~$0.46B |
| 7 | SPX6900 | SPX | ~$0.34B |
| 8 | Bonk | BONK | ~$0.26B |
| 9 | FLOKI | FLOKI | ~$0.22B |
| 10 | dogwifhat | WIF | ~$0.18B |
This ranking excludes tokens issued by trading platforms or launchpads, a wrapped copy of DOGE on another chain, and one token named after an exchange, so the order differs slightly from the raw aggregator lists. CoinMarketCap counts 5,383 tokens in its meme list. Below the top ten, liquidity thins out quickly.
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer launched Dogecoin on 6 December 2013 as a joke about the crypto speculation of the time. The project's own site credits both as creators. It runs on its own proof-of-work chain, and the official site states a mining reward of 10,000 DOGE per block. DOGE is about four times the size of the next meme coin, so it works as the sector's benchmark. Its peak market cap was above $85 billion in May 2021, which gives a sense of how far the category has fallen.
Shiba Inu (SHIB)
SHIB is an Ethereum token. Its team built Shibarium, an Ethereum layer-2 network that launched in beta in March 2023, with BONE as the gas token. Network transactions were designed to burn SHIB.
MemeCore (M)
MemeCore differs from the rest of this list: it is a layer-1 blockchain built for meme tokens, not a single meme. Project materials describe it as EVM-compatible, with a "Proof of Meme" consensus that combines delegated proof-of-stake with proof-of-authority. M is used for gas, staking and governance, and according to the project it receives 1% of every meme token launched on the chain. M began trading on 3 July 2025, according to a company press release. Most descriptions of MemeCore come from the project itself.
Pepe (PEPE)
PEPE is an Ethereum token based on the Pepe the Frog meme, which existed long before crypto. Its team is anonymous and it has no stated utility.
Pudgy Penguins (PENGU)
PENGU launched on Solana on 17 December 2024, while the Pudgy Penguins NFT collections remain on Ethereum. According to Decrypt, total supply is 88.88 billion, and 25.9% was set aside for the ecosystem airdrop. The token opened at $0.068 and fell about 51% on its first day. On 25 October 2026 it traded near $0.0074.
Bonk (BONK)
BONK launched on Solana on 25 December 2022. There was no private sale. Half of the 100 trillion supply was airdropped to Solana users, artists and developers, according to Blockworks Research. Blockworks also reports that burns have cut supply to about 88 trillion. Other sources give higher burn figures that do not agree with it.
dogwifhat (WIF)
WIF launched on Solana on 20 November 2023. It is named after a photo of a Shiba Inu in a pink knitted hat, and its founders are anonymous. Press reports put its all-time high at about $4.83 in March 2024. By late October 2026 it traded near $0.18, roughly 96% lower.
TRUMP, SPX6900 and FLOKI
These three complete the top ten, with the market caps shown in the table. Political tokens carry their own risks, which our Trump meme coins guide covers in detail.
What happened to the 2024–2025 favourites
Three names from the April 2026 version of this ranking show how quickly meme coins drop out.
- ai16z renamed itself ElizaOS on 28 January 2025, after a16z asked it to change the name. In late September 2025, Eliza Labs opened a migration from the AI16Z token to a new ELIZAOS token at a 1:6 ratio, according to The Block.
- Fartcoin and Popcat are no longer in the top ten on either aggregator. Fartcoin sits around 19th on CoinGecko.
How far below its peak is a meme coin?
Enter a coin's current price and its all-time high to see how far it trades below that peak.
| Current price | All-time high price | Distance below the all-time high |
|---|---|---|
| 0.0766 USD | 0.7316 USD | 89.5 % |
| 0.0766 USD | 0.7316 USD | 89.5 % |
| 0.18 USD | 4.83 USD | 96.3 % |
- The first example uses DOGE's 25 October 2026 price of about $0.0766 against its all-time high of $0.7316; the second uses WIF near $0.18 against a reported all-time high of about $4.83.
- Prices change by the minute, so enter figures from a live page; a negative result means the price you entered is above the peak you entered.
This is arithmetic on the two prices you enter: it says nothing about where a coin's price goes next, and it does not show liquidity, holder concentration, market cap or tax.
Are meme coins securities? The US position
On 27 February 2025, the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance said that meme coins of the kind it described "do not involve the offer and sale of securities". It compared them to collectibles, whose value comes from market sentiment rather than from anyone's managerial effort. This is a staff statement, not a Commission rule, and it has no legal force. It does not cover tokens that only call themselves meme coins to hide a security. It also notes that fraud involving meme coins can still be pursued by other federal or state agencies. In practice, buyers do not get the disclosure protections that come with securities.
How to check a meme coin before you touch it
The ranking above covers about ten tokens out of thousands. Most of the rest have little liquidity. Some are copies of real tokens or are built to drain buyers. These checks use free public tools:
- Confirm the contract address. Find the token on CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap and compare the address with the project's official site and X account. Impersonator tokens copy the name and ticker, but they cannot copy the address.
- Look at holder concentration. Use a block explorer (Etherscan for Ethereum, Solscan for Solana) to see how much of the supply the top wallets hold. Exclude burn and known pool addresses. A few wallets holding a large share can sell into everyone else.
- Check who controls the liquidity. If the deployer can withdraw the pool's liquidity, the price can drop to near zero in one transaction. This is the classic rug pull.
- Compare volume with holders. Heavy trading spread across very few holders points to wash trading.
- Compare volume with market cap. A large market cap with little daily volume means a big position may not sell anywhere near the quoted price.
- Read the community, not the chart. If a channel only posts price targets and urgency, the community is most likely bought, not organic.
None of these checks makes a token safe. They only remove some of the obvious traps.
How US tax treats meme coins
The IRS rules apply to meme coins the same way they apply to any digital asset:
- Property, not currency. "For U.S. tax purposes, digital assets are considered property, not currency."
- Selling or swapping is a disposal. Swapping one token for another creates a capital gain or loss, the same as selling for dollars.
- Holding period. An asset held more than one year produces a long-term gain, taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% depending on taxable income. An asset held one year or less produces a short-term gain, taxed as ordinary income.
- Airdrops and staking. Tokens airdropped after a hard fork count as ordinary income at fair market value when received. Under Revenue Ruling 2023-14 (31 July 2023), staking rewards are income once you can dispose of them. The IRS FAQ does not cover other kinds of airdrops; ask a tax professional about those.
- Moving tokens between your own wallets is not a taxable event.
- Broker reporting. Brokers report digital asset sales on Form 1099-DA for transactions on or after 1 January 2025, and must report cost basis for certain transactions from 2026.
Rules in other countries differ. This section is general information, not tax advice.
