Benzinga | Dec 2, 2021 11:24AM EST

Traders Added $150B To The Market Cap Of AMC, GME And 48 Other 'Meme Stocks' In 2021: Report

Without a doubt, market participants can agree on the fact that 2021 was the year of the meme stock.

What Happened: According to a report from Bloomberg, traders added more than $150 billion to the market cap of stocks like GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME), AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC) and 48 other stocks that "can be used as a proxy" for the meme stock craze.

Some of these stocks were placed on a "restricted trading list" by Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ:HOOD) because of their volatility, reported Bloomberg.

After a Reddit-fuelled rally sent AMC and GME soaring early in the year, retail traders kept the momentum going in communities such as WallStreetBets, which led to sustained positive price action through the year.

The meme-craze wasn't limited to just the stock market, with retail interest in meme-based cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) and Floki Inu (CRYPTO: FLOKI) skyrocketing.

As of Thursday morning, Dogecoin has a market cap of more than $28 billion, while Shiba Inu has a market cap of more than $25 billion.

Much of this value can be attributed to retail interest in the meme stock and meme-crypto movement. Earlier this year, data revealed Reddit users had become more interested in crypto than meme stocks.

Only a month later, this trend had been reversed after Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and the broader crypto market came crashing down.

"We continue to see the rotation out of crypto and back into stocks favored by the Reddit crowd," Lev Borodovsky, editor of The Daily Shot newsletter, wrote in an email to CoinDesk at the time.

Price Action: Thursday morning at publication, AMC traded up 1.40% at $28.97 and GME was up by 0.38% at $180.52.

The overall crypto market was down 3.26% in the last 24 hours. BTC traded down 4.32% at $56,456.39 and DOGE traded down at 3.31% at $0.2101.

Photo: Clay Banks on Unsplash