Introduction
Meme coins are meme-inspired cryptocurrencies. 2021 was their year. With Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu leading the pack with their massive returns on investments. So, what exactly are these meme coins? And why are they rising so much?
What are meme coins?
Meme coins are tokens inspired by popular memes on the Internet. Dogecoin was inspired by a popular Doge meme. These coins are highly volatile and gain traction only due to their popularity in the community. Once the trend is gone, so is the value.
Meme coins are short term hence most veteran traders avoid them. Meme coins in no way are a confidence-boosting coins for trading even if you have learned to produce unbeatable crypto signals through technical analysis.
Top meme coins in 2022
Once DOGE and SHIB became popular in the community, several other meme tokens emerged in the market. Here’s a list of some popular meme tokens.
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Dogecoin was developed in 2013 as a joke cryptocurrency just to grab the eyeballs. It gained massive popularity once Tesla & SpaceX founder Elon musk mentioned the coin in his tweet. The coin works on the Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism without an upper limit on its maximum supply.
Shiba Inu (SHIB)
Shiba Inu (SHIB) appeared as a major contender for the DOGE. So much so that it is also called the ‘dogecoin killer’. It was released in December 2020 and gave a massive return afterward. Contrary to Dogecoin, it comes with a limited supply. However, SHIB is trying to move away from its only-meme no-utility image through an evolving ecosystem.
Dogelon Mars (ELON)
Quite clearly, this cryptocurrency is inspired by Space X CEO Elon Musk. Because it was Elon Musk who greatly popularised dogecoin, this seems like a recognition of that contribution. ELON is a fork of dogecoin and has a limited coin supply of 557 trillion.
Akita Inu (AKITA)
Why should the Shiba breed have all the fun? That’s why other Japanese dog breeds have got their coins as well. AKITA is one such coin. It was launched in the second month of 2021 on Uniswap as an ERC-20 token. Its total supply is 100 million only.
Is it safe to invest in meme coins?
Meme coins have given skyrocketing returns to their holders within a very short span of time. A major chunk of casual investors got attracted to the world of crypto due to that only.
- Bad Tokenomics: But truth be told, tokenomics of meme coins is haywire. There’s no control either on supply or its inflationary tendencies. A well-established cryptocurrency as a rule has a full-fledged whitepaper along with a robust ecosystem. Most meme coins lack that. However, DOGE and SHIB were built on Litecoin & Ethereum blockchain respectively.
- Speculative Pricing: these meme coins hold no real value or utility. They are driven by market speculation and community interest. Once their value as a joke goes down the drain, so does their value. However, the team behind SHIB is trying to evolve a Shiba Inu ecosystem as well. They have introduced SHIB NFT art and a game as well.
- Easy Scams: The biggest risk however comes from the scams. It is easiest for the scammers to shroud their project as a meme project. There needs to be no real utility which they anyways don’t plan to deliver. The squid game (SQUID) token is a prime example of such a scam. Once the official Squid game team claimed it’s not theirs, the project was rug-pulled.
Conclusion
Meme coins are the riskiest. You can take a bet on them considering their larger-than-life returns. Also, their dirt-cheap price, in the beginning, makes them an easy investment option. So, if you are willing to take a $50 risk, you might make thousands of it if the project really becomes popular.
