Share this article
Bitcoin, Ether Prices Ease as SHIB Drives Gains in Meme Tokens
A rally in meme tokens such as dogecoin and shiba inu is primarily driven by Asian traders in response to bullish sentiment around ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), one trader said.
Updated May 29, 2024, 4:57 p.m. Published May 29, 2024, 10:34 a.m.
- Bitcoin and ether prices fell slightly while meme tokens saw significant gains.
- The surge in meme coins such as shiba inu, was probably driven by Asia-based traders and linked to the excitement around the potential for a pro-crypto shift by U.S. regulators.
Bitcoin and ether prices fell a little more than 1% in the past 24 hours as crypto markets remained mostly muted after last week's rally.
With major tokens such as Solana's SOL, XRP and BNB Chain's BNB little changed, the meme coin sector drove the biggest gains for traders among categories tracked by CoinGecko, including shiba inu climbing as much as 12%. The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), an index of the largest tokens that omits stablecoins, lost 0.5%.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
A surge in dogecoin and SHIB started during European afternoon hours Tuesday as stocks of videogame retailer GameStop (GME) rose up 19% in premarket trading, a signal that has historically led to gains in meme tokens.
"Popular memes are running primarily due to Asian traders entering the market again - most tend to see their prices rise most significantly during Asian trading hours, during the middle of the night US time," Rennick Palley, founding partner at crypto fund Stratos, said in an emailed statement.
"This is a follow-on effect to excitement around the ETH ETF and US regulatory shift to becoming more pro-crypto," Palley added.
As previously reported, meme tokens such as pepe and mog (MOG) have rocketed as much as 100% in the past week as a beta bet on the Ethereum ecosystem. This is on the back of U.S. listing approvals for a spot ether exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Bitcoin, meantime, remains in a bearish trading range despite recent volatility, according to FxPro senior market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich.
"A clear exit and daily close above $70,000 will break this bearish pattern. Until then, the classic development is a pullback to the lower range at around $68,000," he said in a Telegram interview.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Traders mull the bottom as bitcoin returns to week's lows below $86,000
One analyst isn't quite ready to call a bottom, but says bitcoin is surely in an oversold condition.
What to know:
- Bitcoin's early rally Wednesday seems a faint memory as the price has returned to the week's lows.
- Precious metals continue to get bid, with silver rushing to yet another new record and gold closing in on an all-time high.
- One analyst cautioned against reading too much into the current bitcoin price action due to year-end positioning and tax considerations.
Top Stories
