Meme coins are back in the limelight as the market sentiment continues holding strong after its recovery towards the end of April. The latest recovery also revealed an interesting shift in meme coin dynamics, with mid-cap coins emerging as the biggest beneficiaries.

Santiment data recently confirmed robust renewed interest in meme coins among crypto investors. This is contrary to previous concerns that the same class of cryptocurrencies might fall out of favor with the market.

The bullish market sentiment also encouraged a more appetite for risk especially in the highly speculative asset class. As a consequence, strong liquidity flows were recently channeled into meme coins.

PENGU joins the top 10 meme coins and becomes the biggest weekly gainer

The resurging excitement around the meme coin category yielded some interesting developments. Among them include the rise of Pudgy Penguins (PENGU). The latter was up by over 6% in the last 24 hours at press time.

PENGU’s aggressive bullish activity in the last 7 days fueled a spike in its marketcap from as low as $537.13 million to as high as $871.95 million. This means this particular meme coin might be on track to be the next major meme coin to cross over the $1 billion market cap milestone.

meme coins
Source: Coingecko

While PENGU’s performance underscored its triumphant entry into the top 10 list by marketcap, there was another noteworthy observation. Analysis of the top coins by marketcap revealed that the most popular were not the biggest gainers.

Alternatives such as BRETT, FLOKI, and BONK, outperformed their more popular peers, including Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, in terms of weekly gains.

For context, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and PEPE pulled off 0.4%, 2.6%, and 0.2% respectively. Unsurprisingly, the listed coins would take heavier liquidity injections to achieve a substantial price move compared to their peers.

This suggests that meme coin investors have been exploring coins that are likely to offer more growth in the short term and long term. The surging appetite for meme coins may also signal that networks such as Solana may continue to benefit from aggressive demand associated with the segment.

The recent changing dynamics in the meme coin segment also raise questions as to whether the top meme coins could still benefit amid the improving sentiment. Especially if Bitcoin dominance starts to come down.

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