Meme Coins: Signs of a Comeback?

Since the meme coin frenzy ended in Nov 2024, meme coins slowly faded out of the market. By Dec 2025, their share within the altcoin market dropped to a historical low. Basically, nobody cared anymore.

In the past, whenever meme coins reached this level of irrelevance, a new meme season eventually followed.

In Nov 2024, meme coins were at peak, made up ~11% of the altcoin market cap, by Dec 2025, it fell to ~3%

Over the last few days, as major meme coins started pumping, this ratio has begun to move up again.

This doesn’t mean “meme season is confirmed.” It simply means the conditions that usually appear before meme rallies are forming again.

I’ve been tracking LINK closely and while the chart structure looks healthy, the real signal is coming from what’s happening under the surface making LINK more attractive in the long term.

Recently, two major developments have significantly strengthened Chainlink’s fundamentals and are quietly attracting smart money.

First:
In December 2025, Grayscale launched a US-based LINK ETF. Since launch, there hasn’t been a single day of net negative outflows. That’s not a small detail especially in this kind of market.

Second and much bigger:
In October 2025, SWIFT integrated Chainlink’s CCIP.
This integration allows SWIFT to connect with 70+ blockchains.

FYI, SWIFT is the global banking messaging network used by Banks worldwide to move Trillions of dollars every single day.

Most of the market expected a Ripple–SWIFT connection. Instead, institutions chose Chainlink as the interoperability layer, not XRP. LoL

MSCI just rugged Polymarket bettors. LoL 😆

People were betting that MicroStrategy would be delisted from the MSCI index, odds hit 80%.

That didn’t happen, MSCI confirmed it will not remove MicroStrategy or other crypto treasury companies from its indexes.

Sharp Drop in Ethereum Validator Exit Queue 👀

For the first time since July, Ethereum’s validator exit queue has almost vanished, sitting at just 32 ETH.

This means very few validators want to leave the network right now.

Meanwhile staking demand is picking up. More ETH is being locked in, fewer validators are cashing out.

Net result, confidence in Ethereum is improving, and long term conviction looks stronger than it has in months.

Just as crypto shows signs of healing.

The World:

🇺🇸: U.S. may impose 500% tariffs on countries buying oil from Russia, including India, China, and Brazil

🇨🇳: CHINA ISSUES A STARK WARNING TO THE UNITED STATES “If you want war, war will come. If you seek to destroy China, you will be destroyed.”

🇷🇺: Russia has deployed a submarine and naval assets to escort the oil tanker Marinera (formerly Bella 1) across the North Atlantic

🇩🇰: Denmark warns it will defend its territory if the US targets Greenland. Tensions in the Arctic are heating up.

War, trade war, oil, geo political tensions all at once.

Markets Right Now 🌚

Retail is still missing

Bitcoin’s 30 day retail demand is negative, meaning small investors haven’t jumped in yet. No FOMO, no crowd chasing the move.

From  long term perspective, this is usually the phase where whales and smart money builds position. Retail comes later, when prices already feel safe.

If you DCA $100 per week into Bitcoin starting now, you can stack 0.1 BTC in ~2.5 years.

If you wait 2 years and then start the same DCA, it will take 5 years to reach 0.1 BTC (~2032)

If you wait 5 years, the same goal will take 12 years (~2043)

Same strategy, same amount.
Only difference is when you start.

Bitcoin is not an investment, it's a store of value. The sooner this is realized, the clearer it becomes that Bitcoin is never overvalued.

CZ just posted "Super Cycle incoming." Do you trust him?

Gm

Quick update on Bitcoin's move.

Right now, Bitcoin isn’t moving because of strong buying or selling. Price is being pushed around mainly due to leverage liquidations.

Both longs and shorts are getting wiped out. That’s why we are seeing sharp wicks up and down.

Funding rates are flipping quickly between positive and negative. This shows confusion, the phase is less about trend and more about clearing leveraged positions.

At the current liquidation levels, longs are clearly more crowded than shorts.

long liquidation heat concentrated at $85k - $89k, creating a heavy downside magnet.

Funding is still positive, but the problem is there isn’t much upside liquidity left. That usually means the market looks for an easier move.

If this continues, a flush to clear over exposed longs wouldn’t be surprising.

BOJ interest rate to be announced on 23 January and there is 97% chance of no rate hike.

Markets are already pricing in status quo. Liquidity expectations stay unchanged, yen pressure remains and risk assets won’t get a shock unless BOJ surprises with a 'Hawkish tone.'

Bloomberg report says the 10/10 collapse event shook confidence so badly that most investors either exited the market completely or limited themselves to just Bitcoin and Ethereum.

That capital never really rotated back into alts.

This explains why even after strong development and fundamentals, most altcoins are still sitting near their lows. Clearly not a tech problem, it’s a capital trust problem.

Also, the altcoin rally window has shrunk to just 20 days.

Solana trolled Starknet for having just 8 daily active users.

Still, Starknet somehow managed to hit 'All Time Highs' in TVL and app revenue.

The 8 Starknet users be like:

Since the October drop, Ethereum has failed to reclaim and stabilize above the 200 EMA, a critical resistance line capping upside momentum.

This is now ETH’s third attempt to reclaim it.

The altseason breakout season only starts when Ethereum sustain above this zone and takes the lead. Failure here could stretch the consolidation or trigger more downside.

A new CME gap has formed around $3,325, and it is still unfilled.

At the same time, the previous CME gap near $3,000 remains open as well

Unfilled CME gaps often act as price magnets. As long as these gaps stay open, they remain important downside levels to watch