Memecoin

On January 2, Shiba Inu (SHIB) rose nearly 10% and was quoted at $0.00000779. After a brief false breakout above $0.00000779 on the hourly view, traders are watching $0.00000766 support; a firm daily close near or above this area could open a retest of $0.0000080.

At the start of the new year, analysts highlight a renewed meme coin surge led by Dogecoin, Pepe, Floki, Maxi Doge and Pepenode. Dogecoin has bounced above the $0.13 level, while Pepe has posted gains of around 32% in 24 hours and nearly 50% over the week. Low-cap projects like Maxi Doge and Pepenode have raised millions of dollars in presales, with some market commentators suggesting potential for outsized returns in the current bull market phase.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) climbed 11%, lifting its market cap to $4.54 billion and putting it ahead of Toncoin at $4.16 billion. According to CoinMarketCap, SHIB traded at $0.000007661 with 24-hour volume up 64.18% to $156.39 million, while over 173 million SHIB were burned in the last 24 hours.

On January 2, Pepe (PEPE) jumped about 35% over 24 hours to around $0.000005647, its highest since mid-November, per CoinGecko. Analysts on X, including James Wynn and curb.sol, set bullish market-cap targets ranging from over $10 billion to $69 billion. With RSI near 83, traders also flagged overbought risk and potential pullbacks.

On Jan. 1, 2026, Shibburn reported SHIB's 24-hour burn rate jumping 10,728.80%, with about $172 million sent to burn addresses. Ripple unlocked 1 billion XRP in three tranches at the start of January 2026, per Whale Alert. The digest also notes Bitcoin's first post-halving red year, diverging from the prior four-year cycle.

On Friday, the memecoin sector’s market capitalization climbed 8% to $39.45 billion, adding $3 billion in a single day as PEPE gained 23.6%, BONK rose 10% and DOGE advanced 8%. At the same time, open interest and derivatives volume for leading memecoins expanded sharply, with PEPE’s OI up 77% to $441 million and total daily derivatives trading volume across memecoins reaching $4.75 billion.

Dogecoin has surged more than 9% in the past day to reach $0.13, while the broader meme coin market value has climbed about 8% to nearly $40 billion and trading volumes have risen over 32%. At the same time, the meme-focused Maxi Doge token has attracted almost $4.5 million in its ongoing presale, offering 71% APY staking and a token price of $0.000276 as it targets highly leveraged traders.

PEPE rallied 26.9% over the past 24 hours alongside a 300% jump in daily volume, while Bitcoin edged back toward the $90k resistance. Friday's session close is flagged as pivotal for swing traders, with a daily close above $0.000005 viewed as a bullish structure shift and $0.0000062 cited as the next resistance level.

On New Year's Day, trader Vida reportedly earned over $1.5 million by trading around an abnormal $26 million bid wall on Binance for the small-cap token BROCCOLI714. Vida shifted from an arbitrage hedge to directional longs and later shorts as Binance's circuit breakers distorted spot-futures prices and the bid wall disappeared. The episode raised questions about the source of the orders and how the exchange's risk controls functioned under extreme conditions.

On January 2, 2026, Bitcoin traded in a tight range near $85K as traders weighed the next major move and assessed a possible bullish setup for 2026. Market participants also observed weakening Bitcoin dominance and growing strength in Ethereum, while PEPE drew attention as it chased past valuation milestones set by SHIB and DOGE. Whales were reported to have accumulated significant BTC throughout 2025, fueling expectations of a large rally ahead.