Memecoin season never really ends, it just changes mascots. After a spring dominated by DOGE and PEPE, July’s leaderboard has shuffled again—this time putting penguins, Telegram tap-miners, self-deprecating tokens, and a brand-new Layer-2 frog in the spotlight.

PENGU: Pudgy Penguins Take Flight

Launched on Solana in December 2024, PENGU spent months waddling sideways before exploding 70 % this week to a two-month high near $0.016. The catalyst was a viral clip of Pudgy Penguins plushies in a Walmart aisle synced perfectly with Blackpink’s “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du.”

Social reach aside, analysts also credit a Cboe filing for a Pudgy-branded metaverse ETF that would earmark 2.5 % of assets for PENGU purchases should it clear the SEC.

Spec desks eye the $0.02 pivot as the next hurdle. Clearing it on convincing volume, the token will be in the mid-$0.03 zone. Longer-range models are suddenly whispering $0.07–0.08 by New Year’s Eve: lofty but not insane if Solana’s TVL keeps rising and the ETF rumor sticks.

Pullbacks toward $0.012 have found buyers all quarter, making that the level bulls are defending with an almost mother-penguin ferocity.

NOT: Telegram Taps Turned a TON of Liquidity

NOT is the on-chain reward token for Notcoin, the Telegram mini-game that had millions of users furiously tapping screens in May 2025.

Since listing, price action has been less frantic: NOT hovers around $0.0019 after meeting stiff resistance at two-tenths of a cent.

Still, on-chain data shows whale wallets accumulating beneath $0.002, betting that fresh Ton-based launches—an airdrop platform and a play-to-earn arena—will send new users back to the mint button.

Changelly’s quant desk projects a July trading band of $0.00135–0.00192, with a broader 2025 ceiling near two cents if Telegram rolls out a native wallet to its 900 million-plus user base. Traders are keeping an eye on daily active wallets: spikes there often front-run price moves by a day or two.

USELESS: Self-Sabotage Sells

USELESS Coin—yes, that is the ticker—hit an all-time high of $0.281 on July 2 before sliding back to $0.263.

With nearly one billion tokens circulating, that puts the tongue-in-cheek project just shy of a $260 million market cap: respectable territory for a coin that mocks its own existence.

Bulls argue the joke hides clever tokenomics: every swap reroutes 3 % to a burn wallet and 2 % to a community-chosen charity, creating a slow-drip supply sink and a feel-good narrative.

Trading-Beasts’ projection grid gives USELESS a 2025 range of $0.22–0.29, implying the current pullback might be more pause than top. If volume holds above $10 million per day, expect dip-buyers to guard the quarter-dollar line.

Little Pepe: A Frog on Its Own Layer-2

Meanwhile, presale darling Little Pepe (LILPEPE) has raised over $3.5 million and is halfway through Stage 4 at $0.0013.

This new token is more than just another green frog, shipping with its own EVM-compatible Layer-2 built specifically for meme coins, promising near-zero gas, anti-MEV protections and built-in NFT launch tools. Early backers liken it to “Base, but for degens.”

Marketing leans hard into Gen-Z humour—think Shrek-green graphics and Discord raids—but the tech pitch has caught the eye of several mid-tier exchanges, one of which quietly confirmed a post-presale listing slot.

Presale analysts floating 100x talk (to $0.13) sound hyperbolic, yet the playbook worked for BONK and WIF last cycle. The key metrics to monitor are presale completion speed and Layer-2 test-net throughput: if both keep beating milestones, demand on listing day could outstrip supply in comedic fashion.

Meme coins live and die by narrative, not fundamentals. If Pudgy plushies keep trending, if Telegram rolls out a native wallet, and if Little Pepe’s Layer-2 launch hits its milestones, July could deliver another round of eye-watering gains—and just as savage reversals.