The crypto market has seen a sharp decline over the past 24 hours, with meme coins taking the biggest hit.

According to CoinGecko, the total crypto market cap fell by over 15%, while the market cap of meme coins dropped by more than 12% to $113.32 billion as whales exited their positions.

Meme Coin Market Reacts to Whale Sell-Offs

The total crypto market cap dropped to $3.42 trillion on January 8 as most leading cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, recorded losses.

The declines among the top meme coins have been particularly severe. Popular meme coins such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu witnessed large drops on the 24-hour chart, pushing down the meme coin market cap.

DOGE was trading at $0.33 after dropping 8.5% over the past 24 hours. Simultaneously, Shiba Inu recorded a fall by over 7% over the same period.

It appears the overall downturn in the meme coin market was caused by whales exiting their positions. 

According to the crypto analytics platform Spotonchain, one such whale deposited 210 billion Pepe tokens, worth around $3.95 million, into the Kraken exchange. Over the past two days, the whale sold around 427 billion Pepe coins.

“Overall, this whale deposited 427 Billion PEPE to Kraken at an average price of $0.00001987 ($8.49 Million) over the past 2 days, leaving 1 Trillion PEPE ($18.5M) behind with an estimated total profit of $2.15 Million (+8.67%) from this second PEPE trade,” Spotonchain said.

 This move could have further amplified the bearish sentiment. Pepe also posted losses of over 10% on the 24-hour chart. 

Pepe became the third-largest meme coin as it rode high on social media hype and viral trends. Still, the recent sale could mean that major investors are recalibrating their positions.

Similarly, a different whale sold 74.483 billion MOG tokens for 177,736 USDC. This large-scale liquidation further signals that the meme coin market may be losing its appeal. 

As these whales continue to offload their positions, the resulting selling pressure has probably had a cascading effect on the prices of meme coins, contributing to the overall market downturn.

At the same time, another whale bought $18 million worth of meme coins over the past day, including WIF and POPCAT. However, the whale’s purchases did not boost the meme coins, as the price charts of both coins were in red.

Nevertheless, it needs to be noted that meme coins have always been volatile. While they often attract attention due to their meme-driven culture, their price movements are notoriously unpredictable. 

As the dust settles, some may view this drop as a buying opportunity, as the coins could rebound later.