4 Tips for Trading Memecoins with GeckoTerminal

With memecoin season currently in full swing, new tokens are arriving literally every few seconds.

Of course, this deluge of deployments—tens of 1,000s of new memes a day—means 1) trying to keep up here can be dizzying, and 2) over 99% of these new projects will fail to survive.

If you want to try your hand in this high-risk degen environment, it’s safety first. Approach every token like it won’t survive, don’t invest with money you can’t afford to light on fire, double-check new projects’ socials, etc. 

Yet beyond sound practices, there are also good tools you can use to make navigating memecoins simpler and safer, and one of my favorite resources here is GeckoTerminal. Below, let’s walk through my four main tips if you’re new to the platform. 

1. Check the “Categories” page

On the left side of the GeckoTerminal website, you’ll see a Categories tab in the “Dashboards” dropdown menu. Click into this page to find curated Trending Categories lists, like Pump.fun tokens or Animal tokens, or scroll all the way down to surf through the All Crypto Categories list. This way you can easily hone in on trending meme verticals. 

2. Try the homepage filters

In the middle of the GeckoTerminal homepage where the POOL info begins, you’ll see a “FILTER” button for customizable searches or three preset search options: Very Early Degens, Mid-caps on Rocket, and Large-caps to the Moon.

For instance, click into the “Very Early Degens” preset to find a list of tokens that are younger than 48 hours and have +30 transactions, +$10,000 worth of liquidity, and a fully diluted value of at least $80,000. You can fine-tune these parameters to adjust your searches as well. 

This filtering makes it simple to find new memecoin launches on Solana, Base, and beyond. But remember: just because a token is new and pumping doesn’t make it a good opportunity. The vast majority of brand new tokens will amount to nothing after an initial pump or two if that, and many will pan out as outright rugpulls. Tread cautiously.

If you do find an early project you want to track but aren’t ready to make a decision on yet, consider creating a Watchlist via the GeckoTerminal sidebar. You can make as many lists as you like and categorize them however you want for future reference. 

3. Check the GT Score analysis

So let’s say you find a brand new token on GeckoTerminal, and it looks interesting enough. Should you ape?

First things first, click into the token in question to be taken to its dedicated activity page like is shown above. Toward the bottom left of the page, below the volume, liquidity and market cap stats, you’ll see a GT Score ranking. Click on that button, and you’ll arrive at an automated safety breakdown like so:

Of course, the closer to 100, the more basic safety guarantees you can count on. These scores evolve with time, especially for newer projects, but be wary when you see lower scores. 

I recommend clicking into the provided Scan options here to do deeper analysis. For instance, SolSniffer indicates that the new $NOTAI token shown above has the ability to freeze holders’ assets, so that’s certainly one kind of high-risk red flag you’ll want to watch out for. No aping here!

Doing this kind of basic due diligence is key because it can help you avoid some big headaches. For instance, the $NOTAI token did end up cratering shortly after launch, and the red flags GeckoTerminal surfaces can make avoiding these sorts of problematic projects much easier. 

4. Use the “Swap” button

What if you find a token you feel good about, how to proceed? When you click into a token’s dedicated activity page on GeckoTerminal, you’ll see a Swap button below and to the right of the ticker and current price info. 

Clicking this button will take you directly to the source of that trading pair, like Raydium, Aerodrome, etc., where you can swap as you please. Alternatively, you can copy the contract address with the clipboard button next to the ticker and copy it into your preferred DEX aggregator platform, e.g. Jupiter. 

This shortcut makes it so 1) you don’t have to resort to guesswork or manually hunt for trading pairs across multiple platforms, and 2) you can quickly hop into or out of trades!