Dogecoin Barks Up Huge Gains as Bitcoin Climbs and Meme Coins Show Signs of Life

Leading meme coin Dogecoin (DOGE) is up more than 17% on the week as the broader crypto market rebounds amid Bitcoin’s rise to nearly $95,000 this week.

The move has propelled the DOGE price back above $0.15 for the first time since early December, with the coin topping $0.155 earlier Tuesday. It recently changed hands at $0.146, dipping alongside other major coins in recent hours.

Dogecoin’s move coincides with consecutive trading days of positive inflows for the relatively new DOGE ETFs, which brought in $3.9 million in total inflows across January 2 and 5, according to data from SoSoValue.

Alongside the leap from DOGE, the meme coin category as a whole is up more than 24% on the week, according to data from CoinGecko. That rise is buoyed by a 56% jump from Pepe (PEPE) and 27% boost for Shiba Inu (SHIB)—strong outperformances when compared to crypto majors like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have gained 4.8% and 9.2% respectively during the same period. 

Popular Solana-based tokens like Bonk (BONK) and Pudgy Penguins coin PENGU have also added 52% and 41% during that time, as well, as meme coin metrics begin to shift positively on the speedy layer-1 network. 

The network powered a meme coin trading frenzy in 2024 and early 2025, but saw a decrease in token deployments and trading volumes on popular meme coin launchpads like Pump.fun and LetsBonk in the final months of last year—a sign of decreasing interest in the sector.

For example, token deployments (or new token creations) routinely surpassed 25,000 per day in September. But as the year drew to a close, the mark was only eclipsed three times in the final three months of 2025, according to the Meme Coin Wars dashboard on Dune. 

But as prices rebound, interest in the risky asset class has started to improve, backed by an increase in daily token launches. Thus far in 2026, every day with the exception of January 1 has had at least 25,000 token creations. 

Other data has improved as well, with launchpad volumes once more eclipsing $100 million per day compared to November lows of $57 million. Beyond launchpads, volumes associated with already established memes like Fartcoin (FARTCOIN), and Dogwifhat (WIF) have jumped more than 48% in the last 24 hours, eclipsing $1 billion in total volume each, according to CoinGlass. 

Sentiment appears to be improving around meme coins, as well. Data shared by social mindshare tracking and analytics site Kaito AI lists memes as the top mindshare gainer among crypto topics on X over the last week. 

Similar X data synthesized from analytics platform Cookie.fun supports that claim, showcasing individual meme coins PEPE, BONK, and DOGE among its top 10 mindshare movers over the last week.