What is a meme coin?

A meme coin is a cryptocurrency that visually looks like a funny picture or an animated meme. The point of the meme coin is that the coin is depicted as a meme, a funny image that reflects the life of users who like this meme and send it to each other. What are meme coins, if we discard the meme part? It’s just crypto. It operates just like any other cryptocurrency: it is based on the blockchain, works with the Proof-of-Stake or Proof-of-Work algorithm, and can be bought and sold. Some even create NFTs based on meme coins.

The definition of a meme coin is inextricably linked to the online community that supports the coin. Investors must be interested in the coin, they must believe in it, otherwise, no one will care for the coin and the public’s attention to it will quickly fade. You may support the interest through newsworthy events. Elon Musk, for example, allowed Tesla car buyers to pay for their purchases with cryptocurrencies, one of which was the Dogecoin meme coin. The volatility of the coin is also responsible for the public’s interest — a meme token is rarely tied to a real asset that exists on the other side of the screen. Therefore, meme coins are most often useless, and many investors buy them to quickly make a profit on the difference in buying and selling rates, get rid of them and get their money.

Can a meme coin solve any user problems, like Bitcoin and altcoins like Ethereum do? The answer is no. It was created just for fun, to make money, and not to serve a real and important purpose. This is how any meme currency differs from cryptocurrency in general.

Pros and cons of meme coins

What are the advantages and disadvantages of meme currencies?

Pros

They are great for learning about crypto and how it works;
Lucky investors can earn a decent amount of money on the change in the exchange rate of such a currency;
Purchasing a meme asset gives you access to the community of like-minded people organised around this asset;
If creators invest well in the marketing of the project, while not expecting to make money on it by committing fraudulent manipulations, the value of the meme currency will grow. This means that you can make money from it without making any effort;
Meme coins are cheaper than cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. It is a fairly inexpensive entry into the crypto field for users who are just starting to explore it.

Cons

Coins are extremely volatile, therefore investors who invest in them risk their money big time. However, many professional investors are sure that profits and risks are not symmetrical; you can lose money on Bitcoin but recoup on Dogecoin. And it actually works!
Some users find meme currencies technologically complex, and not all developers of blockchain-based solutions can work with them;
Unfortunately, you can find fraudsters among blockchain enthusiasts who can create meme coins to make money off deceived investors. Fraudsters are not new to the cryptocurrency universe, but you need to be especially careful when dealing with meme coins;
Meme tokens’ liquidity pools can be limited, and small groups of users can control large amounts of meme cryptocurrency. This makes coins particularly susceptible to schemes that unscrupulous coin holders (not issuing companies or developers) can use;
Meme coins may not have an issuer, that is, a company that issues coins to the market, or even a developer community that would be responsible for the security of the currency, its updates and governance mechanisms.

How to buy and sell meme coins

How do you invest in meme coins? Well, just like in any other currency. You register on any exchange you trust (it could be Coinbase, Binance, Gemini or Kraken — they are the largest at the moment), upload documents confirming your identity to your account (this, unfortunately, is almost a necessity), and choose the coin you would like to buy. You check the price of meme coins and compare them with each other. Then you transfer money (for example, dollars from your bank card) to the wallet automatically created inside the exchange and make a purchase. You can exchange the purchased meme currency for other cryptocurrencies.

How to make a meme coin

How do you create the next meme coin that will explode the cryptocurrency market?

Pick a meme name. The more direct the link between the token name and the meme, the better for you. This will affect the level of recognition of the future coin, so this step must be taken with all due attention. You can draw up an original logo or use ready-made memes at your own risk.
Prepare a website for the coin. Top meme coins are always promoted, not just released to the market. Therefore, you will have to spend money on marketing, website creation and design. The promotion of a coin directly affects its popularity among investors. What will they check out to find out exactly what you have to offer? Your website, exactly. So the portal must be prepared in advance, and not created as a kitchen-table effort in a couple of minutes.
Create your coin. It is developed in the same way as any other cryptocurrency. You create a blockchain-based smart contract, which guarantees the safety of the coin and its availability, connect to the MetaMask platform (you can connect to its competitor DxSale or other services — MetaMask is simply the most popular one), top up your wallet on it, enter the characteristics of the future token, and make the first transaction. To avoid inflation, meme token developers include a Can Burn option. To be able to issue an unlimited number of coins in the future, you can select the Can Mint function. “Pause” will make it possible to pause and restart the token, “Blacklist” allows you to block users, and with “Deflation” you can specify the fee for the transaction.
Add the coin to Trust Wallet. Open the wallet, click on the “+” sign, and add a user token. Change the network to Smart Chain and enter the coin’s address, name and other data.
Create a liquidity pool. You can do this through any AMM protocol like Uniswap.
Start your project. You can attract the primary attention of the audience through listing on the exchange, that is, the release of the coin on the exchange, where users can buy and sell it. After the listing, you will be able to add the coin to aggregators like Coingecko and CoinMarketCap. But this involves additional work: you will need to create the token documentation and its white paper. And, of course, to promote the next meme currency, you will need competent marketing. You can integrate your coin into an existing project and promote it through media personalities and viral content on social networks, especially on TikTok.

How to find new meme coins early

How do you find new and promising meme tokens before the whole market does? You have to learn how to analyse assets. You need to take into account the level of risk and potential of the coin: about 90% of the newly appeared meme tokens are fraudulent projects, and the remaining 10% with a strong team and developer community is a completely logical investment.

What should you look out for?

The development team takes a large number of coins from those that are put on the market. Or a large volume (even 50% of tokens) is offered to a celebrity in the crypto world. This is a red flag — these coins can flood the market at any time.
Guaranteed ownership of the liquidity pool by the developers. In this case, all tokens in the liquidity pool can be deleted at once. Check project liquidity providers before investing in it.
High transaction fees. If they are not transparent, if you do not understand how they come about, then you better not invest in this currency.
Lack of long-term direction of the coin. The fact that the developers have an understanding of how the coin will develop is a great sign for investors. With long-term plans and documentation, you will know whether the creators of the coin are interested in “pumping up” the value and blowing up the coin, or not. Furthermore, be sure to check out the qualifications and experience of the developers themselves! If the Internet knows almost nothing about the creator of the coin, this is a bad sign.

List of the best meme coins

What are the most popular meme coins now? We found ten of the most interesting and eye-catching coins and looked at them under a magnifying glass. It turned out that about half of the meme coins on our list are somehow connected with Elon Musk.

Dogecoin. Its popularity is explained by the fact that Elon Musk, the creator of Tesla and SpaceX, believes in it. He was even going to launch a satellite funded by Dogecoin and make this cryptocurrency the first blockchain coin in space. However, this hasn’t happened yet. Still, even those who have nothing to do with the world of cryptocurrencies know about Dogecoin, and the price of the coin rises every time Elon Musk tweets something about blockchain. Moreover, when Elon bought Twitter, the value of Dogecoin increased by 10%.
Shiba Inu. The currency attracted attention in 2020. Since then, it has been considered the “DOGE killer”: the coin is managed by the community, does not hide account data, and inspires user trust. Perhaps that is why in 2021 the coin rate rose by 21,000%. Now the currency is about to introduce the Shiba Lands platform, where you can buy virtual real estate for use in the metaverse.
Baby Floki. This is one of the new meme coins, named after Elon Musk’s dog. Every time Elon tweets about his puppy, the value of the coin goes up. Analysts are favourable to the coin and believe that by 2030 its rate will grow by almost 4 times.
Akita Inu. Another coin bearing the name of a dog breed. The strength of the coin is in its community, which the developers have focused on from the very beginning of working on it. The token itself (like many others) is based on the Ethereum network.
Samoyed Coin. Yes, this one is also named after the dog breed! The coin is built on the Solana blockchain, and its creator is the co-developer of this blockchain, Anatoly Yakovenko. The second co-developer of the token, however, is Sam Bankman-Fried, the owner of the infamous FTX cryptocurrency exchange. Still, the coin serves as a tool to draw attention to Solana, on which most smart contracts are based.
Monacoin. This coin was launched in 2013 alongside DOGE. On the “cover” is a Japanese cat. As a marketing promotion, the creators of the coin used a TV advertising campaign aimed at the Japanese audience.
Dogelon Mars. The token uses Dogecoin and its backing from Elon Musk as its driving force. At the same time, DOGE itself has nothing to do with the technology on which Dogelon Mars was built. The creators of the coin are simply trying to replicate the success of DOGE by using branding tools to attract a younger audience. The coin is unlikely to outlive Dogecoin because it largely profits from its popularity and Elon Musk’s plans to send DOGE into space.
Dogedash. The currency is used in the game about a dog that overcomes obstacles and is given as a reward for performing certain actions. The creator of the coin is a Grammy nominee and creative director Paul Caslin.
Dogs of Elon. Another direct reference to Elon Musk! These coins are used in the NFT world and make up a collection of NFTs that can be traded on the OpenSea platform. The Dogs of Elon ecosystem also includes a game where you can earn money and a service that allows coin holders to place their tokens in the cryptocurrency universe. In the future, the developers of Dogs of Elon want to launch their own NFT exchanging and trading platform.

Hoge Finance. Launched in 2011, the token is built on the Ethereum blockchain. It is part of an ecosystem where, in addition to the coin, there is, again, a collection of NFTs. Why is this cryptocurrency still popular? The creators of the coin decided that they would generously reward its holders for refusing to sell Hoge Finance coins, issue only a trillion tokens (and no more), and burn 1% of each transaction. Because of this, the coin is already considered quite rare, and its holders make good money on their Hoge Finance coins. This strategy works — a large number of users are interested in buying the token.