Are Meme Coins the most profitable cryptocurrency niche so far in 2024?

The first half of 2024 has come to a close, and supply chain experts have gathered data to identify the profitable sectors so far this year.

According to reporting by freelance cryptocurrency reporter Colin Wu, memecoins became the most profitable sector in the first half of 2024, followed by real world assets (RWA) and artificial intelligence (AI).

Memecoins emerge as the most profitable

Wu analyzed the price returns of the ten largest tokens by market capitalization in each sector using data from CoinGecko, comparing their average daily price returns to prices at the beginning of the quarter. Tokens were selected based on their rankings as of the last day of the quarter.

Memecoins have recorded an average return of 2405.1% in 2024. As of June 19, three of the top ten memecoins by market capitalization were launched between March and April, including Brett (BRETT), Book Of Meme (BOME), and DOG GO TO THE MOON (DOG).

Brett saw the highest return, rising 14353.54% from its issue price, while dogwifhat (WIF), another noteworthy project, rose 933.93%.

“Over the past few months, the phrase ‘value investing is empty, choose MEME to live in a palace’ has gradually become one of the mantras of this bull market,” Wu said.

DeFi and GameFi are lagging behind

Memecoin’s yield is 8.6 times higher than the RWA sector, which had a yield of 213.5%, and at least 500 times higher than the least profitable sectors, which include decentralized finance (DeFi), GameFi and Layer 2.

In February, RWA briefly became the most profitable sector as it was widely discussed in the traditional financial space and giants like asset manager BlackRock invested in it. Top RWA tokens by market cap include Mantra (OM) and Ondo (ONDO), which saw gains of 1123.8% and 451.12%, respectively.

Moreover, the artificial intelligence sector recorded an average return of 71.6%, with tokens such as Arkham (ARKM) and AIOZ Network (AIOZ) seeing gains of 215.5% and 192.19%, respectively.

Sectors such as Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) and Layer 1 have seen steady growth, with returns of 58.7% and 43%, respectively. Wu said that DePIN has huge growth potential and is one of the sectors capitalizing on this bull market.