Meme coins have become a real phenomenon in the modern cryptocurrency market. From coins based on popular memes to large-scale financial initiatives, these digital assets have become a powerful element of Internet culture.

Dogecoin was a pioneer, ushering in a new era in the history of cryptocurrencies. Its success paved the way for other coins such as Shiba Inu and Floki Inu, which not only increased the popularity of meme coins but also offered new features such as NFTs and educational platforms.

The meme coin phenomenon demonstrates how an active community, trends, and technology can change the way the world thinks about finance. In this article, we will look at how meme coins have become a part of online culture, their advantages and risks, as well as potential development prospects.

History of meme-coins

Despite all the popularity and variety of meme-coins today, the emergence and launch of the first meme-coin was initially quite unnoticeable. The first meme-coin in history was Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency inspired by the popular meme “Doge” starring the Shiba Inu dog. Initially, this token was launched as a joke, but it began to quickly gain popularity online thanks to its fan base and its exclusivity factor. Dogecoin was the first cryptocurrency that did not have a high underlying value or functional applications, but at the same time showed an abnormal level of price growth and popularity, even outside the crypto community. Dogecoin was the first project to successfully combine an active community with online culture, laying the foundation for the development of the entire meme-coin industry.

The success of the pioneer was replicated by the Shiba Inu token. Shiba Inu is another token dedicated to the meme dog, which, despite all the rules of the crypto market, managed to gain popularity and capitalization due to the work of the fan community. The support of the hype topic by celebrities and the active work of fans allowed meme-coins to gain global popularity and abnormal performance on crypto exchanges.

This abnormal behavior of the crypto market reflected the powerful influence of Internet culture on the financial industry at the time. The history of meme-coins can only be compared to the best marketing campaigns of the decade, but all the popularity and hype was provoked by the users themselves. Posting memes related to these tokens, discussions on forums, and the desire to keep up and be in trend played a major role in capturing the imagination and wallets of meme-coin fans.

The result of Dogecoin's emergence: Floki and Pepe

However, the development of meme-coins did not stop in 2013, and their distribution is only gaining momentum. If earlier meme-coins were a catalyst and the result of the work of a large community of fans, today there are hundreds of little-known meme-coins created by people who are very far from the cryptocurrency industry in general. The easy availability of tools and platforms that allow anyone to create their own token step by step has opened up access to meme-coins for enthusiasts, but also significantly helps unscrupulous users. We will not focus on the hundreds of tokens that have existed or exist today, but will consider those projects that have been able to develop and are still afloat.

Floki Inu (FLOKI)

Floki Inu (FLOKI) is another dog-themed meme coin that calls itself a “movement” rather than a meme coin. This token was created by members and fans of the Shiba Inu (SHIB) community. And as ridiculous as it may sound, Elon Musk is also involved. According to the original source, this coin was created and named after the pet of the space billionaire Elon Musk, namely, a Shiba Inu dog (don't you see the parallel with Dogecoin?).

Elon Musk is a well-known Dogecoin fan, despite his public denials of owning SHIB. The Floki Inu token is no longer just a meme-coin, but a whole set of cryptocurrency projects, from its own NFT to a crypto education platform. The most famous projects are:

• NFT gaming metaverse called “Valhalla”

• A trading platform for NFTs and digital goods called FlokiPlaces

• Cryptocurrency education platform called Floki Inuversity

The community of fans of this coin calls itself the “Floki Vikings” in honor of Floki (Musk's dog), which in turn was named after the Viking character. Floki Inu is very active in supporting the activity of its fans, and has even been included in the top 10 LunarCrush social interaction leaderboards several times. The Floki Inu project also cooperates with CryptoCart. This partnership allows cardholders to purchase goods in more than 1700 stores through a partnership with CryptoCart.

Pepe Coin

Built on the Ethereum blockchain, the Pepe token has grown in popularity since its debut in April 2023. With a current market capitalization of more than $10 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of around $3 billion, the Pepe token is based on the mega-famous frog Pepe in the cryptocurrency world. But the token's function is not just to “capture” the memory of the frog's meme.

The token's anonymous founders have created a digital asset with a huge total issue volume of 420,690,000,000,000 tokens. Despite the fact that the token's website states that “the coin has no intrinsic value or expected financial return,” the Pepe token has managed to attract the attention of millions of cryptocurrency enthusiasts across all social networks. This was the beginning of a dedicated community that looks forward to any news about the token and always supports the project.

There are also hundreds of other tokens, some of which turned out to be scams, some of which were created in honor of an event, and hundreds of tokens that are not known to a large audience.

Advantages and risks of the meme-coin

Launching a successful meme-coin project that won't disappear in a few days requires the joint work of many specialists: marketers, programmers, blockchain specialists, designers, etc. But still, dozens of one-day projects appear every day, which can only exist thanks to the proliferation of high-quality, professional meme-coins that build a dedicated community and infrastructure around them to create new meme-coins.

Coins are organically redistributed from less experienced participants to more experienced ones. Experienced participants gradually increase the number of liquid tokens in their investment portfolio, while other participants fill their portfolios with random tokens. Therefore, even if the author of the coin did not put much meaning into his meme-coin, the release and development of the project may be interesting for a layer of professionals and traders, enthusiasts, and other stakeholders.

Choosing a meme-coin on the ether or another blockchain as an investment has both positive aspects and significant risks, so it is important for investors to make an informed decision when choosing meme-coins to fill their investment portfolio.

The main advantages of meme-coins include the following:

• Low financial entry threshold and availability of meme-coins on most popular crypto exchanges.

• High potential profitability due to periodic price spikes

• Significant community support and influence of influencers on the coin's popularity

However, investing in meme-coins has its risks:

• Unstable price due to high volatility

• Lack of real utility or technological value of such memorial coins

• The risk of losing your investment due to a sudden drop in value, or scam by the authors of the coin

Price instability is most noticeable due to high volatility. The value of any token can rise by hundreds of percent and then plummet in a matter of days. For example, the price of Dogecoin, after its peak in May 2021, plummeted by more than 70%, causing significant losses to investors. But in the case of Dogecoin, its price increased by more than 100%, but many people sold their coins and lost money on it. The lack of real utility or any technological value makes the value of meme-coins directly dependent on trends and the popularity of the coin among investors.

The future of meme-coins: Trends and prospects

Meme coins have already become a unique phenomenon in the cryptocurrency world. They combine internet culture, enthusiast communities, and marketing innovations. From the emergence of Dogecoin to modern projects such as Floki Inu and Pepe Coin, meme coins have consistently demonstrated the ability to attract the attention of a wide audience and unite thousands of people into fan communities.

Despite all of the above, meme coins remain unpredictable and risky for investors. High volatility, lack of technological application, and a significant dependence on trends add to the risks to the long-term sustainability of such assets. The drop in Dogecoin's value after its peak in 2021 is an example of how quickly the market situation can change.

Therefore, the future of meme coins directly depends on their ability to improve their functionality and integrate into other areas, such as DeFi or NFT. Investors should take a balanced approach to the choice of such assets, as their success depends on many factors, not just hype or real value and community support. But despite all the nuances, meme coins have revolutionized the cryptocurrency world, showing that any idea with sufficient community support can outperform even popular, sticky projects.