Several striking trends have emerged in the world of futures trading for cryptocurrency over the last few months, especially when one looks at the stark contrast between the almost steady volume of futures contracts tied to some of the major cryptocurrencies (i.e., blue chips like Bitcoin [$BTC] and Ethereum [$ETH]) and the now-there-one-second, gone-the-next explosion in futures tied to that new breed of cryptocurrencies (i.e., memecoins).
Blue-Chip Cryptos: A More Stable Decline
The overall trading volume of futures across the major cryptocurrencies has seen a marked decrease of late, particularly for Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, unlike the situation with their memecoin counterparts, these blue-chip assets have not seen a corresponding dip in demand. On the contrary, they have been in high demand for an extended period, which is a testament to their strong market presence and solid investor base.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Bitcoin, has seen its futures volume drop from a peak of $98.4 billion to $54.4 billion, marking a 45% decrease. Despite this pullback, Bitcoin remains a major market force, with trading volumes still staying strong months after reaching their November highs. While the volume drop is certainly noticeable and may even appear a bit alarming at first, it looks more like a step toward some kind of market consolidation with price levels that developers and investors can live with, rather than any kind of pronounced sell-off or exit by investors.
In the same way, Ethereum, the cryptocurrency that ranks second, has suffered a decline in futures volume—17% from $43.4 billion to $36.2 billion. Ethereum has also seen its volume recede from a peak; however, it too displays a pretty steady demand from traders and investors. Its value proposition mostly comes from its use as a platform for decentralized applications (dApps), and from its commanding position in the smart contract arena, which keeps it on the radar of both retail and institutional investors.
Attention has recently turned to Solana ($SOL) because of its growth in decentralized finance (DeFi) and the NFT space, but the futures volume tied to the altcoin fell drastically. It was down 47%, coming in at $7.9 billion after previously hitting $14.7 billion. Now, while that is a steep decline, you have to remember that Solana has a pretty big cloud hanging over it due to network outages and other technical problems that have dogged the project and that may have temporarily reduced trading activity. Still, Solana remains a top-10 (by market cap) player in the crypto space, and our dedicated team of analysts sees potential for it to move higher.
Memecoins: Explosive Growth Followed by Quick Declines
In striking contrast, coins that are based on memes, such as Dogecoin ($DOGE) and Shiba Inu ($SHIB), have seen explosive growth in futures volume that, just as quickly, they’ve seen those gains evaporate. The speculation that drives memecoins is well-known and well-documented. Traders jump in and out of memecoins at the latest fad—they’re basically trend-based trades— and once the trend fades, so do the gains.
With its meme status and endorsements from high-profile folks like Elon Musk, Dogecoin has a sort of following that’s almost cult-like. But that didn’t help it when, over just 24 hours, futures volume plummeted from $20.0 billion to $3.0 billion—an 85% drop that’s more reminiscent of a market correction than of trading activity associated with the kind of coin that a certain someone on Instagram tends to promote. In short, don’t put your life savings into Dogecoin, and if you put anything in it, treat it like you would any other adventure you might go on, with the potential for fun to the max but also for loss.
In much the same way, other well-liked memecoins, such as WIF and SHIB, encountered considerable falls in their futures volume. WIF (likely a reference to a now-defunct futures trading platform) had a 69% drop, from $2.87 billion to $0.90 billion, while SHIB had an almost unbelievable 90% crash, down to $0.28 billion from $2.72 billion. This appears to be yet another example of the short-lived nature of excitement surrounding memecoins.
Other memecoins, such as PEPE and BONK, also saw steep declines, with futures volume for PEPE plunging 78% from $7.37 billion to $1.59 billion and futures volume for BONK cratering 92% from $1.99 billion to $0.16 billion. These figures highlight a principal feature of the memecoin market: large-volume speculative surges, followed by equally sharp downturns once the excitement fades.
Comparing futures volume across blue chips and memecoins shows a stark contrast in how interest is sustained.$BTC: $98.4B → $54.4B (-45%)$ETH: $43.4B → $36.2B (-17%)$SOL: $14.7B → $7.9B (-47%)#BTC & #ETH saw moderate pullbacks but remained in high demand for months after… pic.twitter.com/lWMXcwT7dE
— glassnode (@glassnode) February 10, 2025
The Nature of Speculation
The trend with memecoins indicates a wider theme in the cryptocurrency world: the dominance of speculation and the drama of some assets going up and down, really fast. Memecoins don’t move on any sort of fundamental developments or long-term technological progress (if they did, they’re too young to have fans like Dogecoin does). Instead, price movements are entirely about us, the community of traders, influencers, and would-be influencers. We pump them up and then, when our allotment of fun is over, we dump them. A post about the overall trend of memecoins on Cointelegraph puts it bluntly: “Price surges often have little to no actual basis and are, rather, a product of the power of the meme.”
When compared to them, blue-chip cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have a number of advantages that contribute to their greater resilience in the futures markets. The advantages these digital coins possess are use cases that are substantial and far-reaching, communities that are both well-established and robust, and networks—sustaining their coins—that are under continuous, well-directed, and substantial development. Indeed, even when volume numbers take a big hit, Bitcoin and Ethereum look to be holding up very well at the moment. Why? Because institutional investors and big traders have made a decision to stand pat.
Conclusion: A Tale of Two Markets
To sum up, the futures market for cryptocurrencies shows two distinct trends. The first and more interesting trend is the relatively stable, if not entirely sustained, interest in blue-chip assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. Even if the volumes pulled back a bit recently, these blue-chip assets appear to have long-term demand from both individual and institutional investors. The second trend that the futures market shows is in the direction of memecoins. Interest in these tokens is unavoidably speculative, and so the volumes attached to them drive sharp but temporary surges in overall market volume.
These contrasting trends emphasize the contrasting kinds of investor behaviors within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Although blue-chip assets are often seen as safer, more reliable investments, memecoins represent the high-risk, high-reward side of the market. They embody a kind of investment that, in a mature financial system, is usually relegated to the domain of in-your-face, high-payoff poker. Like something out of the Wild West, the memecoin market thrives on the kind of sensation that raises your blood pressure one minute and makes you feel good about your decision the next. And compared to other markets around the world and even in our own backyards, the crypto market has the potential to offer the kind of payoffs that might make a caper film seem pedestrian.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
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Source: https://nulltx.com/a-stark-contrast-futures-volume-trends-between-blue-chips-and-memecoins/