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The cryptocurrency market is set to enter the last quarter of the financial year, and memecoins have already been the star performers.

What happened: A plethora of tokens inspired by dogs and cats have netted massive returns to their holders year-to-date.

Interestingly, Solana SOL/USD has taken the lead over Ethereum ETH/USD, the traditional home of world-beating memecoins.

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Cat-themed Popcat has been the market's best performer this year, exploding an eye-popping 12882% this year. The coin became the latest entrant to the billion-dollar memecoin club, with a 13% spike in the last 24 hours.

Dog-themed dogwifhat occupied the third spot in top gainers list, lifting 1108% since 2024 began. The token reclaimed its $2 billion market capitalization with a 15% jump in the last 24 hours.

Overall, the total market capitalization of Solana-based memecoins surged to nearly $8 billion as of this writing, according to data from CoinGecko.

Blockchain Cryptocurrency Gains YTD +/- Price (Recorded at 11:45 p.m. EDT) Solana-Based Popcat (POPCAT) 12882.01% $1.05 dogwifhat WIF/USD 1108.91% $2.07 Bonlk BONK/USD +44.90% $0.00001933 Ethereum-Based Pepe PEPE/USD +521.07% $0.000008726 Floki FLOKI/USD +292.63% $0.0001444 Shiba Inu SHIB/USD +45.03% $0.000015

Ethereum, which saw the first wave of memecoins, underperformed in comparison, although popular frog-themed cryptocurrency Pepe witnessed massive upsides, rising 521%.

Canine-themed Floki, which initially launched on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token, also soared 292% year-to-date. Today, the coin is also available on BNB Chain BNB/USD.

However, traditional heavyweights like Shiba Inu and Dogecoin DOGE/USD were restricted, increasing by just 45% and 23%, respectively.

Note that Dogecoin operates on a separate chain, with the underlying technology derived from Litecoin LTC/USD.

The overall memecoin market was worth nearly $48 billion as of this writing, with Dogecoin's dominance at 33%.

Price Action: The memecoin frenzy appeared to rub on Solana’s native token, SOL, as the coin rose 3.51% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Ether was muted, with marginal gains of 0.50% as of this writing.

Photo by Avi Rozen via Shutterstock

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