Memecoins Styled After US Election Candidates Fail to Capture Attention

Tokens named after Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris have, along with the broader crypto market, plummeted.

Memecoins that were once valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars are failing to capture attention, as investors shift towards animal-themed tokens.

Tokens named after Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris have plummeted, along with the broader crypto market.

Attention has now turned to cute and comical pictures of animals, with several memecoins being named after pets.

The trend comes as Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, assures followers that his family will launch a new crypto project, which he suggests will have more staying power than memes.

Investors hoping to ride former President Trump’s ups and downs in the attention economy have been burned before.

Neiro token hits $300m

Several memecoins that depict a Shiba Inu called Neiro have soared in value.

A Neiro token on the Ethereum blockchain led the pack, hitting a market value of almost $300 million earlier this week after launching on July 31.

Memecoins are tokens that trade solely on popularity and sentiment, with no function or use.

Earlier this year, memecoin trading exploded on Solana, with the dogwifhat token surging to a $4.5 billion market value.

There is no guarantee that the new attention will hold, as few memecoins manage to capture attention for longer than a few weeks.

Investors get burned

The market shift comes as several memecoins that claimed to be associated with US presidential candidate Donald Trump burned investors in recent weeks.

In June, former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli touted the memecoin DJT as being created together with Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump.

Campaign insiders told DL News at the time that there was no family connection to DJT. The token plummeted 92% on Tuesday amid accusations of insider selling.

A token called Restore the Republic, which was rumoured to be connected to Donald Trump Jr.’s crypto project, soared to a market value of $155 million on Wednesday.

It crashed 95% on Thursday after the former president’s son warned of “fake tokens claiming to be part of the Trump project.”

Who is Neiro?

Neiro is the newly adopted dog of Japanese kindergarten teacher Atsuko Sato.

Sato previously owned another Shiba Inu called Kabosu, whose picture was used for Dogecoin, the original memecoin. Kabosu passed away in May. Sato said in an X post that she does not endorse any Neiro token.

Neiro's popularity has helped boost the value of several other animal-themed memecoins. Among them is a token that is named after another of Sato’s pets, a cat called Ginnan.

Another is a token that is named after a three-month-old Shiba Inu called Fuku, who appeared together with Neiro in one of Sato’s blog posts.

Dozens of other animal-themed tokens have hit multi-million-dollar market values over the past week.

Political memecoins fall

The worst performer among established political memecoins is Boden, a humourous token that is styled after President Joe Biden.

After hitting a market value of $650 million in April, it now trades at a value of about $6.5 million.

Tokens on the other side of the political spectrum also fared poorly.

MAGA, a token that is styled after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, is down 80% from its June peak market value of $775 million.

Even newer memecoins, such as KAMA, which plays on Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, also failed to hold their ground.

KAMA is down 50% over the past fortnight.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.