Whales can’t get enough meme coins as FLOKI explodes 950%

Whale transactions above $100,000 rose in meme coins as social volume confirmed retailers are making a comeback.

Meme coins have regained the market’s attention after improving market conditions. New data even points to synchronized whale purchasing and social hype between the tokens.

Activity remains concentrated around FLOKI, PEPE and SHIB.

Whale activity and social hype

According to Santiment, meme coins dominated major investor activity this week, driving profits in whale trades of more than $100,000 among projects with market caps of more than $500 million. FLOKI included the largest increase. Ethereum-based FLOKI rose as much as 950%, followed by PEPE at 620% and BNB-based FLOKI at 550%.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) was also in the top ten, up 111%, amid renewed interest from whales in meme coins as the crypto market started the year off to a strong start.

In addition to whale activity, social data points to growing retail enthusiasm for the meme coin sector. Santiment reported a sharp increase in social volume around tokens such as PEPE, POPCAT and MOG, coinciding with strong price increases and a speculative recovery in the market capitalization of meme coins.

Even established names like the OG Dogecoin (DOGE) and SHIB, as well as other popular tokens like Pepe (PEPE), Popcat (POPCAT), and Mog Coin (MOG), are seeing renewed momentum, indicating that community-driven hype is once again pulling traders back after a challenging 2025.

A comeback?

Meme coins remained one of the most followed crypto stories last year, but that popularity didn’t translate into performance. Despite the dominant attention from investors, CoinGecko found that these tokens posted an average full-year loss of 31.6% in 2025, with most leading assets down between around 45% and more than 80%. The weak yields indicated that speculative enthusiasm cooled towards the end of the fourth quarter as investors became more cautious.

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After the end of the meme coin mania in November 2024, the share of these assets within the broader altcoin market steadily declined, eventually reaching an all-time low in December 2025. At that time, meme coins accounted for just 3.2% of the total altcoin market capitalization, down from 11% in November 2024. However, recent data shows that assign That sentiment may now be changing, as the leading companies posted double-digit gains last week.

DOGE’s price rose almost 20%, while SHIB rose more than 23%. PEPE and BONK also gained 51.4% and 45% during the same period.