Coin Metrics has put numbers on a question crypto traders talk about constantly but rarely measure in a systematic way: how long does a typical meme coin actually live once it starts trading.
Using a sample of 150 meme coins and a Kaplan-Meier survival model, the report found that the median token hit its all-time high 17.2 days after its first exchange trade. One quarter peaked within 1.6 days. From that high to a 95% drawdown, the median path stretched to 370 days.
A fast climb, then a long fade
The article, written by Victor Ramirez and translated by TechFlow, said meme coins are usually linked with retail speculation and eye-catching returns, but they have also been effective at drawing attention and liquidity into new ecosystems. Solana saw a wave of meme coin activity during its recovery from the FTX collapse at the end of 2023. Base followed in 2024. More recently, Robinhood Chain has seen meme coins paired against tokenized stocks.
That same viral quality also tends to produce short market lives. Launch platforms such as pump.fun and PONS have lowered the barrier to creating a meme coin, amplifying the pattern. Millions of meme coins have been created, but only a small fraction ever make it onto centralized exchanges, and fewer still remain relevant.
How the study defined a meme coin’s market life
Coin Metrics set three milestones for the analysis:
- Start: the token’s first trade on an exchange.
- Peak: the token’s all-time high, or ATH.
- Crash: a 95% drawdown from ATH.
The study used the Kaplan-Meier estimator, a survival-analysis tool commonly used in clinical trials to estimate median survival time, and applied it to crypto market behavior instead.
The 150-token sample came from Talos market data and covered coins issued after BONK’s December 2023 listing, when the Solana meme coin era broadened.
The report made clear that the sample was tilted toward relatively successful tokens. To be included, a coin had to have price data from at least one centralized exchange. That leaves out a large share of launchpad tokens, including many created on pump.fun, and likely means the study systematically overestimates the lifespan of an ordinary meme coin launched on those platforms.
It also noted that the 95% drawdown threshold was an arbitrary choice and that changing the threshold would materially alter the estimated median lifespan. ATH itself is also an imperfect benchmark because it can only be confirmed after the fact. Even so, the report treated it as the most workable reference point compared with alternatives such as local highs, which depend on unpredictable price-discovery paths. Coin Metrics framed the work as an illustrative model rather than a precise statistical estimate.
Reading the Kaplan-Meier curves
As described in the report, the estimator moves from left to right. Each time an event occurs, it asks what share of tokens still at risk have just “died,” then multiplies those conditional survival rates together.
Tokens that remain alive during the observation window stay in the denominator of the at-risk group. After they leave the sample window, they are not counted as crashed. The resulting curve starts at 100% and steps lower over time. The Kaplan-Meier median is the point where the curve crosses 50%.
That framework produced the study’s central result: the median meme coin reached ATH just 17.2 days after first trading, and one quarter peaked in 1.6 days. The median time from ATH to a 95% collapse was 370 days.
Very few recover after the peak
The time profile already looks harsh. The distribution of returns makes it look worse.
Coin Metrics showed the distribution of meme coin prices relative to ATH and found that more than half were trading over 95% below their peak.
Early in their lives, most meme coins clustered within a relatively narrow range of returns. Later, the whole distribution shifted downward. Out of 151 tokens, only five were trading above their first-day price. By day 300, most were worth just 10% of that first-day value.
The damage was not limited to long-tail names. Among the five largest tokens by market capitalization issued during the Solana meme coin era, three — TRUMP, PUMP and PENGU — were trading below their issue price at the time of the study.
Across the full life cycle, 50% of meme coins launched during the Solana meme coin era had already completed the trip from issuance to ATH and then to a 95% decline, taking 456 days on average. By day 1000, about 90% of tokens had fallen 95% from peak.
81% fell more than 90% from ATH, and only five got back
A Sankey chart in the report broke down what happened after the top. Only 19% of meme coins avoided a 90% drawdown from ATH. That means 81% did fall at least 90% from peak.
Within that 81%, just 3% later reclaimed their all-time high. In the sample, that came to five tokens, or 3.3% of the full set.
Most do not get a second real top
The report also looked at the difference between a local top and the final top. For traders, the practical problem is obvious: in a violent market, it is hard to know whether a coin is pausing before another leg up or printing the last meaningful high it will ever see.
Historically, the study said, meme coins rarely produce more than one real top.
Roughly two-thirds of Solana-era meme coins never posted a meaningful rebound. They rose once, peaked within days, and never came close to that level again. The remaining third took months on average to reach ATH.
On-chain activity shows the same pattern
Coin Metrics also ran a similar exercise using on-chain activity, measured by the number of active Solana addresses holding at least $1.
The pattern was close to what the price data showed. Before activity reached its peak, local tops were rare. After the first peak, recovery was also rare. At present, major meme coins have less than 7% of their peak number of active addresses.
Speculation may be shifting, not ending
The report closed with a broader question: if the data look this bleak, does that mean the Bonk era is breaking down and meme coin speculation is coming to an end?
Its answer was no. The migration of meme coin trading to other platforms suggests the trade is evolving rather than disappearing. The study said there is little evidence that the asymmetric payoff profile of meme coins consistently rewards bets built on extremely low hit rates. But treating meme coin speculation as if it depends on rational market participants making sober long-term investment decisions misses the point.
Market participants broadly understand that meme coins are usually poor long-term investments, the report said, yet that has not stopped new traders from entering the “trenches.” Speculation is deeply rooted in market culture, regardless of the underlying rail. Blockchain is not unique in producing that behavior, though it does let these markets spread efficiently and without permission.
As more assets move on-chain and become financialized and tokenized, the article said, new forms of gambling-style speculation are likely to keep appearing in unfamiliar ways.