2026’s Crypto Craze: From Memecoins to RWAs – The Trends Dominating Now
Crypto's relentless evolution never sleeps. While traditional finance still debates blockchain's merits, the space has already pivoted from speculative memecoins to real-world asset (RWA) tokenization – with billions flooding both sectors. Here's what's hot (and what's hype) in January 2026.
Memecoins: The Roaring Comeback No One Predicted
Doge and Shiba clones are back, but this time with utility wrappers – because apparently 'wen lambo' wasn't enough. Trading volumes doubled since Q3 2025, proving irony remains crypto's most durable use case.
RWAs: Wall Street's Trojan Horse
Tokenized treasuries now represent 12% of all stablecoin reserves. BlackRock's BUIDL fund hit $5B AUM in 90 days – turns out TradFi loves blockchain when it means cheaper settlements.
The Verdict: Same Circus, New Acts
Whether it's dog-themed coins or digitized bonds, crypto's real trend remains unchanged: follow the money. Even if half of it still comes from degenerate gamblers and VC tourists.
Two Biggest Crypto Trends to Watch Right Now
Per the latest Santiment Report, the crypto crowd seems to be supporting a number of new developments. These emerging crypto trends have been compiled through social media commentary, signaling what investors believe to be the biggest trends to watch out for in the near future. In this wake, investors’ rotations towards memecoin top the charts first, as coins like Pepe, Popcat, and MOG are gaining significant momentum as of late. At the same time, dormant coins like SHIB and DOGE are also rallying, hinting at renewed interest towards memecoins.
The Santiment update outlined how, despite the bearish sentiment prevalent in markets, these memecoins rose to new highs, signaling renewed interest and HYPE dominating the space.
Another trending development is crypto-crowd interest towards real-world asset tokenization. Santiment was quick to note how RWAs are rising up on the radar with institutional interest surging towards this narrative. Referencing solana as the main component of this change, The portal stated how RWAs are emerging as a hot element for institutional liquidity and diversified crypto exposure.
The Third Trend
Lastly, Santiment shared how ETFs are now emerging as one of the leading factors drawing the crowd deeper into the world of cryptocurrency. With big banks queuing up to launch crypto ETFs, markets are now signalling the dormant era of low crypto activity is about to end soon.
According to social volume data, the crypto crowd's interests have risen toward:
Memecoins: Tokens like PEPE, POPCAT, and MOG posted strong price gains and a speculative rally pushed the meme sector’s market cap up sharply, which caught traders’ attention after a rough… pic.twitter.com/t3FLYckU0b
