The past year has been especially rough for memecoins, with the top 10 tokens in the category down by an average of 63.73% from their peak. Leading cryptoanalysis platform, Lookonchain, broke down how the top memecoins have performed in the past 52 weeks, revealing their highest drawdowns and the extent of their recoveries.

Lookonchain’s analysis covered crypto assets like DOGE, SHIB, PEPE, WIF, and BONK, as well as FLOKI, BRETT, POPCAT, BOME, and MEW. The platform highlighted the 52-week high and low of each memecoin, showing how much each token fell during the period.

BONK led the pack with the highest drawdown in the past year, plunging 96.63%. The memecoin tumbled from a 52-week high of $0.00004704 to $0.0000001763 before bouncing back to $0.00001664. BONK’s recovery means its cumulative drawdown in the past year shrank to 64.63%.

Remarkably, only DOGE, out of all the top 10 memecoins, avoided an 85% loss in the past year. The dog-themed memecoin lost 74.64% by dropping from a 52-week high of $0.2266 to a $0.05747 low. Meanwhile, the leading memecoin recovered part of the loss and rallied to $0.09532 during Lookonchain’s analysis, reflecting an overall drawdown of 57.93% in the past year.

The wide swings in memecoin prices underscore the extreme volatility of this sector of the cryptocurrency market. It further highlights the speculative nature of the category and explains why it’s considered the most volatile among the various crypto asset classes. Many memecoin developers create them primarily for speculation. As a result, many analysts consider them as cryptocurrencies without significant use cases.

On the surface, Lookonchain’s analysis paints a bearish picture for memecoins, considering the 63.73% average drawdown across the top 10 listed tokens. However, it’s important to remember that even with such figures, the memecoin sector has shown signs of life recently. Operating at a 63.73% loss shows memecoins have climbed back from a previous average of 92.85% drawdown at the depths of the bear market.

Such figures as the current average drawdown give hope to memecoin community members, who are likely accustomed to the sector’s volatile nature. They believe in the possibility of a total recovery while also recognizing the risks involved in memecoins trading.