Popcat is the larger and more liquid of the two, trading near $0.042 for a market capitalization around $41 million as of August 2026, while MEW sits near $0.00034 for roughly $30 million. On brand assets the ranking flips: MEW owns original intellectual property and has an animation studio building a series around it, while Popcat is built on a viral photograph of a real cat named Oatmeal. Choosing between them is really a choice between depth and optionality.
Both are Solana tokens, both peaked in late 2024, and both are down more than 95% from those highs. They are more correlated than their communities like to admit.
Two Different Kinds of Meme
Popcat came first, launching in December 2023 around the 2020 "pop cat" meme, the animated open-mouth GIF that spread through Discord servers and a clicker website. Its appeal is pure recognition. Millions of people had seen the image years before they saw the ticker, and Popcat became the first cat-themed token to cross a $1 billion market capitalization.
MEW arrived in March 2024 with something closer to a screenplay. A cat wakes up in a city run by dogs, lives among rats, and faces off against SHIBEX, the dog-controlled corporation that sets the rules. The character was commissioned rather than borrowed, which means the project owns the rights and can license, animate and merchandise it without a copyright holder appearing later. Popcat's underlying image belongs to the cat's owner, a distinction that never mattered while the token was rallying and matters a great deal to any brand strategy built on top of it.
That difference in origin explains the strategies. Popcat leans on recognition and liquidity. MEW leans on building something the meme can grow into.
The Numbers Side by Side
| Metric (August 2026) | MEW | Popcat |
|---|---|---|
| Price | ~$0.00034 | ~$0.042 |
| Market capitalization | ~$30M | ~$41M |
| All-time high | $0.01288 (Nov 2024) | $2.06 (Nov 2024) |
| Drawdown from high | ~97% | ~98% |
| Total supply | 88.89B | ~980M |
| Supply circulating | 100% | 100% |
| Launched | March 2024 | December 2023 |
| Owns its IP | Yes | No |
Figures for both tokens are tracked on CoinGecko, and the Popcat listing shows the same shape of chart with a different decimal point. The supply gap is the reason the prices look so different: a $0.042 Popcat and a $0.00034 MEW are within 40% of each other in total value, which is the number that actually matters.
Supply Design and What Holders Own
Neither token has emissions, unlocks or inflation, so both trade at a market capitalization equal to their fully diluted valuation. From there the designs diverge in detail rather than in principle. MEW's launch put roughly 90% of supply into a liquidity pool with the LP tokens burned and airdropped 10% to Solana wallets, with nothing reserved for the team. The full breakdown of that structure sits in the MEW tokenomics analysis, and the short version is that neither dilution nor liquidity removal is possible.
Popcat's distribution followed the same broad memecoin template, with liquidity locked and no team vesting. What neither project has is a mechanism: no staking, no burns, no revenue, no buyback. Holding either one is a bet on attention, with the only structural difference being what each brand can be turned into if attention returns.
Which One a Trader Should Care About
Depth decides this for short-horizon traders. Popcat carries deeper order books and tighter spreads across venues, which means less slippage on size and cleaner execution during volatility. MEW's thinner book cuts both ways: it slips more on entry and it moves faster when flow arrives, which is what produces the outsized percentage days that draw traders in.
Correlation is the second consideration. Both tokens respond to the same driver, which is Solana risk appetite and rotation into the cat category. Watching how Popcat has traded against WIF and BONK makes clear how little diversification a MEW-plus-Popcat position actually provides. Anyone holding both should treat it as one concentrated bet on cat-themed Solana memecoins rather than as two positions, and should read the scenarios in the MEW price outlook with that in mind.
Optionality is where MEW pulls ahead. An animated series, a licensing pipeline and merchandise are things a brand can own. A meme photograph reaching a wider audience benefits the token only indirectly, and the project cannot control or monetize it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Popcat bigger than MEW?
Yes, by market capitalization and by liquidity. Popcat holds roughly $41 million against MEW's $30 million as of August 2026, and its order books are deeper across most venues. Popcat also reached a higher peak valuation, having been the first cat token past $1 billion.
Which cat coin has better long-term potential?
MEW carries the stronger structural argument because it owns its character and has a production partnership to build media around it. Popcat carries the stronger liquidity and recognition. Neither has revenue, so both remain attention-driven assets with high failure risk.
Are MEW and Popcat correlated?
Heavily. Both are Solana memecoins that rise and fall with the same rotation into and out of the cat category, and both peaked within weeks of each other in November 2024. Holding both concentrates a single thesis rather than spreading risk.
Can you trade both with leverage?
Both trade on spot and perpetual futures markets, so directional and hedged positions are possible on either. Thin depth on MEW makes leverage riskier there, since a modest order can move the mark price more than the same order would in Popcat.
Picking a Side in the Cat Trade
The comparison comes down to what a trader is buying. Popcat is the liquid, recognizable expression of the cat trade, better suited to size and to short holding periods. MEW is the smaller, thinner, more narrative-driven one, with an actual brand asset behind it and a longer runway if the animation work lands.
Both remain small, volatile and dependent on a sector that has spent two years contracting. Whichever side of the trade appeals, size it as speculative capital and define the invalidation level before entering.
Trade MEW on spot or take a leveraged view with MEW perpetual futures on LeveX. Head to Crypto in a Minute for more head-to-head token breakdowns.