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Ask CryptoVantage: What Are ‘Meme Coins’?
Recent years have seen an incredible rise in the use and recognition of memes. These are mostly images, videos, or texts that are copied and spread through the Internet and social media.
Memes are interesting because they’re made for entertainment purposes but also provoke thoughts on all sorts of topics ranging from politics to religion and now finance with meme coins.
Memecoins have been all the rage in 2021 with talks of the likes of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu taking over the headlines and inspiring an uprising of other obscure little-known meme coins. But what exactly makes up a meme coin or what is it that differentiates a meme coin such as Dogecoin from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
In this article, we discuss meme coins and how they are shaping the crypto industry.
What is a Meme Coin?
Just as a regular meme is based on a trending topic, parody, or joke, meme coins are created out of a joke or as a parody of trending social phenomena. Dogecoin’s founders for instance unintentionally created the foundation of meme coins by programming a cryptocurrency that was meant to be a joke about a Shiba Inu meme character that was popular online back in 2013.
The founders of Dogecoin were poking fun at how the crypto space is full of speculators who would jump on any project as long as it was crypto-related. With Dogecoin as an example, it is clear to see that one of the main factors that separate a meme coin from a regular coin is the fact that meme coins are not built with utility in mind.
Examples of Meme Coins
While meme coins might be based on jokes, they come with a serious community of investors who make a lot of money from the rising value and popularity of the meme coin.
Dogecoin for instance has gone as far as attracting the attention of world-class billionaires such as Elon Musk who tweeted that “Dogecoin is the people’s cryptocurrency.”
With that one tweet, Dogecoin’s price skyrocketed and continues to rise with the support of the likes of Elon Musk and others such as MarkCuban.
Shina Inu (though a newcomer to the meme coin sector) has also galvanized the support of many crypto investors to the extent of even surpassing the market share of Dogecoin at some point.
Other examples of meme coins that are increasing in popularity in the crypto space include Dogelon , Safemoon, TigerKing, and Hoge Finance to mention a few.
There’s also things like Squid Coin, a Meme coin that scammed users out of millions of dollars.
Conclusion
Meme coins are essentially jokes that have turned into cryptocurrencies. They are based on well-known memes and jokes that proliferate the internet. You can use a meme coin for fundraising in regards to startups, use them as a teachable moment among other revelations.
Similar to regular crypto, meme coins can be used to buy goods and services as well as other varying decentralized finance activities. As meme coins continue to surge, it is anyone’s guess whether they will last longer or they are all about hype.
In short, there may be some potential short-term value in meme coins but it’s hard to imagine they will hold long-term value like Bitcoin or Ethereum. It’s crucial to be very cautious when investing in any sort of Meme coin.
