One of the trickiest parts of investing in cryptocurrencies is the need to evaluate the actual value and utility it brings about. As the cryptocurrency landscape becomes saturated with meme coins, which often don’t have real value and are highly speculative, it has become even more difficult for investors to determine which cryptocurrencies are worth investing in.
What are the top meme coins in which you can invest? What’s the next meme coin that’s going to make it big? In this article, we’ll look into the top ten meme coins in the cryptocurrency market now.
Key Takeaways:
- A meme coin is a type of cryptocurrency with no inherent value or utility. They are often themed around internet memes, which are images from social media platforms that can be humorous in nature.
- Meme coins are highly speculative and have no intrinsic value. Therefore, plenty of risks are associated with this field of cryptocurrency, particularly for investors.
What Are Meme Coins?
Meme coins are a type of cryptocurrency that are often created as a joke or to mimic popular internet memes. They are usually not intended to have any real-world utility or value beyond their use in online communities and are often highly speculative investments. Meme coins are typically launched through initial coin offerings (ICOs) or decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and their value is determined by supply and demand on various cryptocurrency exchanges.
Meme coins differ from cryptocurrencies primarily due to their lack of utility. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) were created to tackle problems of centralization, serving as a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment method. Ethereum (ETH), on the other hand, is a platform that allows developers to create a series of decentralized applications (DApps), and has flourished because of the growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) DApps created on it.
Meme coins are usually hyped for a short period of time. Some popular examples of meme coins include Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and SafeMoon. While these coins may have gained a lot of attention and hype on social media, it’s important to remember that investing in cryptocurrency, especially meme coins, can be very risky and volatile. As with any investment, it’s important to do your research and consider the potential risks and rewards before putting your money into a meme coin.
What Contributes to Meme Coins’ Notoriety?
Meme coins gained popularity through the support of influencers in the cryptocurrency industry, celebrities and investors whose actions drive the price higher during a short period of time. In general, meme tokens or coins are often seen as jokes circulating on social media platforms, and their prices typically crash after surging.
One instance of this phenomenon was in May 2021, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo with the caption, My Goats: Max and Bitcoin. As soon as the post came online, a meme token, AquaGoat, surged nearly 300% within hours.
In a similar scenario, Elon Musk tweeted that any scandal involving him would become known as “Elongate.” Some time later, the ELONGATE token was launched — and developers claim that they’ve donated $3 million from their profits.
Since meme coins have little to no inherent value and are lacking in fundamentals, the primary trading aim is to sell short when their price surges. While meme coins are notorious for pump-and-dump schemes, there are still a few that might be worth your time.
Meme coins are indeed volatile and highly speculative, yet there are investors who refuse to sell them. So, which meme coins are genuinely worth your attention?
Dogecoin (DOGE) | The Original Meme Coin
DOGE is the original meme coin, created as a joke in 2013 based on the “Doge” internet meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog logo. Two software engineers, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, created this open-source cryptocurrency from a Litecoin fork. Later on, it caught investors’ attention after Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, posted several tweets on social media praising it.
Dogecoin uses Scrypt technology, which features a block time of one minute, and the coin has an unlimited supply. Therefore, you can mine it anytime by joining a mining pool. The first use of Dogecoin was as a reward on Reddit and Twitter for creating and sharing quality content.
As of this writing, DOGE has a market cap of $10,461,072,313 and is priced at $0.07501.
Shiba Inu (SHIB)
Shiba Inu (SHIB), known as the DOGE killer, was launched in August 2020 by an anonymous founder known as Ryoshi. Like Dogecoin, SHIB garnered significant attention from the market when it received mention from prominent figures such as Musk and Vitalik Buterin, founder of Etheruem.
The token has recently gained market attention again, due to the announcement of its Layer 2 plans. This development is meant to expand the SHIB ecosystem, enabling faster and cheaper transactions.
SHIB is run by a Scrypt-based mining algorithm. The SHIB token has a limited supply of 1 quadrillion.
As of this writing, SHIB has a market cap of $5,340,365,480 and is priced at $0.00000901.
Pepe (PEPE)
PEPE was launched on Apr 17, 2023, and the project describes it as the “most memeable meme coin in existence.” It’s based on the Pepe the Frog meme, which was created in 2005 by Matt Furie.
Upon its launch, PEPE experienced a price surge of more than 4,000x. One of the most prominent purchases was by a user who purchased 5.9 trillion PEPE with $250, which grew into $1 million upon the PEPE price increase. This naturally attracted the market’s attention, resulting in more investors jumping on the bandwagon. The subsequent demand then contributed to further price increases.
The max supply of PEPE is just over 420 trillion.
As of this writing, PEPE has a market cap of $1,026,077,392 and is priced at $0.00000114.
SpongeBob (SPONGE)
SpongeBob SquarePants is a popular animated television series that has been on the air since 1999. The show follows the adventures of a sea sponge named SpongeBob and his best friend, a starfish named Patrick, who live in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom. The show is known for its quirky humor, colorful animation, and memorable characters, including the greedy Mr. Krabs, the grouchy Squidward, and the villainous Plankton.
The show has been popular with audiences of all ages and has spawned numerous spin-off series, movies, and merchandise. It has also been the subject of many internet memes and has become a cultural phenomenon. SpongeBob has been praised for its positive messages about friendship, loyalty, and perseverance, as well as its ability to appeal to both children and adults with its humor and wit.
As of this writing, SpongeBob is priced at $0.00240000.
ArbDoge AI (AIDOGE)
AIDOGE is a token belonging to the Arbitrum community. The airdrop of AIDOGE began on Apr 15, 2023, for users who have previously qualified for the Arbitrum (ARB) airdrop. There’s a total supply of 210 quadrillion AIDOGE.
Users have till May 15, 2023 to claim their AIDOGE. The remaining AIDOGE that hasn’t been claimed after the expiration date will then be used as incentive for the AIDOGE ecosystem and early contributors, and some of the tokens will be burned.
The project seeks to further engage the ArbDoge AI community by running a Lucky Drop program. Every time a user buys AIDOGE via Camelot, they’ll receive a Lucky Drop ticket, giving them a chance to win an ARB prize. The probability of winning depends upon the amount of AIDOGE purchased by the user.
As of this writing, AIDOGE is priced at $0.000000000411023.
Explain this Bob (BOB)
BOB provides a form of utility that is distinctly different from that of other meme coins. It’s a Twitter bot built on OpenAI, and when users tag/reply to tweets with @explainthisbob, the bot will help to explain the tweet in a simpler manner.
With a maximum supply of 690 billion, BOB has been experiencing a significant increase in price. This is partially due to the interaction that Elon Musk has with Bob.
Given that AI is the new narrative, we can foresee BOB providing value to the Crypto Twitter community, which could be a key factor in maintaining its upward price action.
As of this writing, BOB is priced at $0.00009057.
Floki Inu (FLOKI)
Launched on Jul 10, 2021, FLOKI is a multi-chain ERC-20– and BEP-20–compliant token. It differentiates itself from other meme coins with its suite of real-life use cases.
Floki has three main utilities: Valhalla, FlokiPlaces and FlokiFi. Valhalla is a play-to-earn metaverse, and FlokiPlaces is a marketplace that allows users to purchase physical goods with FLOKI, hence generating demand for the token. FlokiFi is a decentralized exchange (DEX) on which FLOKI holders can swap their digital assets into their desired cryptocurrencies. FlokiFi recently launched the FlokiFi Locker, which allows users to safely lock up their cryptocurrencies.
As of this writing, FLOKI has a market cap of $373,082,216 and is priced at $0.00003810.
The Dangers of Meme Tokens
Meme coins are highly speculative, and have no intrinsic value. Therefore, plenty of risks are associated with this field of cryptocurrency, particularly for investors.
In addition, they’re highly volatile, and pump-and-dump schemes are a common occurrence among them. Therefore, investing in meme coins might be more exhausting than investing in traditional financial markets, as no regulation is implemented. However, investors can take advantage of the wild price movement to have fun and ride the wave following the social media buzz.
If you intend to invest in meme coins, you’ll need to monitor their price movement closely by taking advantage of the surge in demand. As always, don’t invest more than you can afford to lose. Investors should understand how market corrections work — instead of jumping on the bandwagon when cryptocurrencies are at their all-time highs. Trend reversals take place all the time, and they can occur in a split second.
While most of the established financial markets have recovered post-pandemic, meme coins beg to differ. If your risk tolerance is low, an investment in meme coins might be the last thing you need in your portfolio.
MongCoin (MONG)
MONG is a cryptocurrency that was created by a group of developers in Mongolia. MONG is an abbreviation for “Mongolian Coin”. It is a decentralized, open-source blockchain platform that aims to provide a secure, fast, and low-cost way for people in Mongolia to send and receive payments.
MONG can be used for a variety of purposes, such as online purchases, remittances, and peer-to-peer transactions. The platform uses a consensus mechanism called “Proof of Stake” to validate transactions and maintain the integrity of the blockchain.
While MONG is primarily focused on serving the Mongolian market, it is available for anyone to use and trade on various cryptocurrency exchanges. As with any cryptocurrency, it is important to carefully research and understand the risks before investing in MONG or any other cryptocurrency.
As of this writing, MONG is priced at $0.000000191702.
The Bottom Line
Compared to established cryptocurrencies, meme coins are relatively new in the crypto market. Dogecoin and its peers have strong growth potential. Savvier investors can take advantage of these crypto coins, riding the price momentum from bottom to top.
Despite their potential, meme coins are still a risky investment due to their focus on meta humor and community attention, rather than financial performance.
Diversifying your portfolio is a way to reduce market risk in a given sector. As with other investments, if you invest in meme coins, make sure to take the risks into account.