US traders were again at the forefront of meme token trading during the latest wave of official memes. High liquidity and large influencers meant most of the volume for memes originated with US-based traders.
Meme token trading is generally borderless, with the exception of the UK. During the last few high-profile launches, the leading activity came from traders based in the USA, followed by German-based wallets.
Data gathered by the Artemis app shows US-based traders led in activity for three of the recent official meme tokens – TRUMP, CAR, and LIBRA. While the tokens were highly risky and caused significant losses due to insider sniping, US traders did not give up on the trend and were still the first to make high-stakes bets.
No matter the head of state, the United States wants in on the action.
US addresses were top traders of head of state memecoins, followed by Germany and Canada.
Olaf Scholz next? pic.twitter.com/8KZnhXyzgJ
— Artemis (@artemis) February 17, 2025
An appetite for risk and a focus on the Solana ecosystem drove US-based demand. The USA retains a lower adoption index for crypto, but is the biggest source of liquidity and trading activity.
US-based traders also switched to memes, which for now have no local limitations. The shift to the Solana meme market follows previous trends where coin and token projects excluded US-based persons from speculative trading. Currently, US-based memes are still unregulated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), helping to drive adoption with little worry of subsequent sanctions or project freezes.
As usual, US trading hours were among the most active for all crypto activity. On Solana, US hours volume far surpassed European and Asian trades, revealing the main source of liquidity for meme tokens.
Solana (SOL) ecosystem trading was the most active during US daytime trading hours. | Source: Dune Analytics
Meme tokens and crypto in general are adopted in other regions, but few other countries can have the spare funds to generate hype and trade at scale. While emerging markets have a wider crypto adoption and growth, US-based trades boost liquidity for multiple sectors.
The trend is reflected by the usage of the Raydium.io site, where US-based users make up over 45% of all volume. The Solana meme culture, complete with US-based influencers, is driving the high-level trading. TRUMP also tapped the ‘Made in USA’ trend, which further drove adoption.
Country tokens suffer deep losses
Country-based official tokens took significant losses, after CAR and LIBRA started their trading history with sniping and controversies. Country tokens are still a small emerging collection of memes, valued at a total of $36M.
At this rate, country memes do not reflect the scale of their claims to represent entire large-scale economies. Most new country memes even lag behind less serious tokens created for fun.
One of the reasons may be the teams behind country and official tokens, who are often willing to snipe or preserve a big portion of the supply for insider trading.
Solana has the biggest influence on ‘Made in USA’ assets
Solana (SOL) has one of the biggest weights in the market capitalization of ‘Made in USA’ coins and tokens. More than 17% of all SOL volume are in direct pairs with the US dollar, based on the activity on Coinbase.
SOL continued to unravel after the losses of LIBRA and other recent memes, sliding under $180. SOL sank to $178.54 in the early US open hours, deepening its losing trend in the new week.
‘Made in USA’ tokens are still valued above $458B, becoming one of the biggest sectors in crypto. The category launched on January 20, and has mostly retained its value, starting out at $444B.
Despite the recent trading frenzy, overall activity is slowing down, as the Solana token casino is falling out of favor. One of the arguments for Solana memes was the lack of contagion, as each new project rug pull did not affect others. However, the acceleration of rug pulls and losses slowed down enthusiasm for token adoption.
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