Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says the memecoin boom will probably be dead in 6 months

Bitwise co-founder Matt Hougan believes the end of the memecoin boom is imminent after the niche’s close ties with Melania, Libra, and the Lazarus Group. The executive claimed that the niche already has a replacement in institutional Bitcoin adoption and other DeFi aspects such as tokenization.

Bitwise co-founder Matt Hougan has predicted the extinction of the memecoin boom after the niche’s close links with malicious activities from criminal enterprises such as the Lazarus Group. According to the official, the Lazarus Group using memecoins to launder stolen ETH will kill the sector within 6 months.

Matt Hougan believes the extinction of memecoins will expand crypto to institutional utility

Hougan explained that the death of the memecoin ecosystem will not doom the industry. It will pave the way for new crypto utilities through massive institutional Bitcoin adoption, corporate stablecoin integration, and widespread tokenization. The executive also highlighted that the sinking of memecoins could spark a rebirth in DeFi.

What crypto is digesting right now is the end of the  memecoin boom. The combination of Melania, Libra, and the Lazarus Group using memecoins to launder stolen ETH will kill it dead. Maybe not today, but within 6 months.

Matt Hougan

According to blockchain analysts Bubblemaps, the LIBRA and MELANIA memecoins projects had suspicious links that saw single wallets profit over $2.4 million from MELANIA.

The profits then ended up in a different wallet that on-chain analysts linked to MELANIA’s creator. The analysts believed that the later wallet funded the creator of LIBRA known as DEfcyK. DEfcyK is the same entity that cashed out $87 million before the token’s value plummeted. Like MELANIA, LIBRA’s launch was hijacked by insiders who acquired the token early and cashed out millions before regular investors could blink.

Bybit, a major cryptocurrency exchange, was hit by the largest crypto heist in history. The hackers siphoned over $1.5 billion in digital assets after compromising Bybit’s cold wallet. The hack was executed by the North Korean hacking collective, Lazarus Group. On-chain analysis reveals the group has been using memecoins to launder the stolen funds, prompting Matt Hougan’s comments.

Lazarus Group leveraged the Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.fun to deploy the QinShihuang token for laundering activities after sending 60 SOL to an anonymous wallet. According to on-chain analyst Atlas, the attackers created hype around their newly launched memecoin, attracting speculative traders looking for quick profits. Cybersecurity researcher ZachXBT also reported that the group distributed several memecoins on Pump.fun.

Memecoins dip amid ongoing crypto meltdown

The crypto market has recently been experiencing a meltdown amid ongoing economic uncertainties. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the performance of top memecoins in recent days has been dismal but appears to be making a slight recovery. Dogecoin, the largest memecoin by market cap, is down 16.45% in the last seven days but has surged by 3.78% in the last 24 hours. 

Shiba Inu has registered a 5.62% surge in the last day, bringing its seven day loss to 6.74%. On the other hand, Pepe is down 12.25% despite an 8.79% increase in the last 24 hours.

Trump’s memecoin OFFICIAL TRUMP has declined by 22.81% in the preceding seven days. Unlike other top memecoins, the crypto asset has remained relatively unchanged in the last 24 hours.

Despite Matt Hougan’s beliefs about the dying crypto boom, memecoin ETFs could become a reality in the near future. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently acknowledged it had received ETF applications for Dogecoin. The acknowledgement does not mean the commission has approved and it doesn’t guarantee that it will. However, the memecoin ETF application is undergoing a regulatory review process and the commission will either reject it or accept it after completing the review process.

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