From Dogecoin to $Trump: everything you need know about the wild world of meme coins

TA few days before his inauguration as US President Donald Trump took an unusual step. He launched $ Trump, the so -called memes, which fans and speculators could buy in the hope that she would receive value. Initially, according to the crypto-price website, $ Trump increased from a cost from 7 to 75 dollars per coin. Two days later, he fell to about $ 40 – as soon as the first lady Melania Trump launched her own memony, $ Melania. Even the pastor at the Trump inauguration ceremony, Lorenzo Sewell, was covered in the Mem Monet, promoting the $ Lorenzo version on the same day.

So what are coins of memes, and why are everyone and their vicar are suddenly awarded?
Memic coins are a type of digital asset based on memes – usually what has become viral online. The most famous is Dogecoin, inspired by the popular meme with the Shiba Inu dog, which speaks in Comic Sans. But Dogecoin is slightly different from the many recent memes of memes, says Simon Peters, a crypto -analyst on the Etoro trading platform. Launched in 2013, Dogecoin has its own blockchain – the technology of a decentralized book that underlies cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Most other memes are “tokens”, which means that they work at the top of the existing blockchain and therefore require little technical development.

These tokens are very easy to do; There are millions of them. The only real goal of most coins of memes is speculation: users create or buy them in the hope that their cost will take off so that they can earn a lot of money very quickly.

It sounds profitable, what a catch?
In fact, the vast majority of people lose money. Most coins of memes are unstable and short -lived. According to Peters, they are also susceptible to the so -called “pump and discharge” or “stretching rug” scheme. This is when the creators keep many tokens for themselves, they deceive the project on social networks to attract other buyers and increase the cost, and then drop all tokens – flood the market and lead to the collapse of the price. “Then everyone goes to another,” says Carol Alexander, a professor of finance at the University of Sussex. Given that the crypto -market is largely unregulated, investors receive little, if anything goes wrong.

There are no regulatory organs, there are no fences, there is a ill -wishes …
All this did not push people away, and over the past year there was a boom in the coins of memes. Alexander compares it with the previous quirk around NFTS, another type of crypto -acting (you can remember that people pay millions of pounds for digital images of monkeys). There are several reasons for recent interest. In January 2024, there was a PUMP.FUN launch, a platform that allows someone to easily create a memony (although it was blocked for UK users in December after warning from financial behavior management). The election of crypto-friendly Trump could also encourage the community. But the key driver Meme Conins, Alexander says, is rather a social problem: “Young people who are disappointed, want to try to get rich quickly.”

What explains why they are based on Internet jokes or humor mode…
Really. At the time of writing, several best coins are a mem -monetary -reference; The shiba inu breed is a special point of contact. Others include PEEPE token, based on a frog memo-multfilm, sometimes associated with alt-right, and Token Gigachad, referring to the alpha male meme. The subjects of the memes also tried to bring viral glory to the growth of crypto -acting: in December Hali Welch, better known as “The Hawk of the Tua -Golsushka” after the viral video about her links to oral sex, launched the Token Hawk, which immediately lost 95% of its value).

This is Bitcoin and memes In fact, the same?
Although Meme Coins have their own foundations in cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, the early Bitcoin developer Mike Hirn says that they have little in common with the original crypto -youth vision. He left the Bitcoin community in January 2016, because he did not agree with the direction in which it was sent. He wanted cryptocurrency to be used as a real alternative to traditional finances, and not just a speculative asset. Memov coins are a continuation of this trend, he says: “This is mainly the form of gambling and a more enhanced version of the stock market, but with less connection with anything specific.”

For me it does not sound more insane than the site betting site …
Then we consider the story of the New Zealand artist Andy Ayry, who taught the AI ​​language model and set up an account X, @Truth_Terminal to share his thoughts. Airi describes the bot as a teenager who “does not have social awareness about when to be rude and when not to be.” The Terminal of Truth especially loved to publish about Goatse, unsafe meme, which has become part of the early Internet knowledge.

AI gained interest in memes after interaction with crypto -counting records on X, and Ayry installed a crypto -whisper on his behalf. Then everything became strange. Inspired by the posts of the bot, the stranger-Eryri says that he does not know who was creating a token on the topic of the goat on Pump.Fun and sent a little to the Terminal of Pravda. The terminal “Truth” promoted token in his account, and “all hell has developed,” says Airi. The market capitalization of token – the total value of all tokens – has grown. According to CoinmarketCap, in its most valuable, about a month after the launch, it reached more than $ 1.2 billion.

Later, AI participated in another coin of memes, Fartcoin, based on a rather attractive meme (again, Air says he does not know the creator). Fartcoin reached a peak market capitalization of more than $ 2.3 billion.

So Was Ayrey in Quids?
Not so simple. All the experience was presented by Air with some problems relating to memes. He found that their value on paper massively overshadowed what he could get for them from a low liquidity. As soon as he sold tokens, their value will decrease and negatively affect others that the tokens held. In the end, he concluded a private deal with a couple of investors on the grounds that they would not throw Fartcoin on the market. He admits that it was funny to talk with finances and tax authorities about the “liquidation of Perdan.” He believes that this is part of the appeal for Meme coins fans. “The more people are angry with this, especially in traditional finances, the more people think that Fartcoin is ridiculous, and Fartcoin rises,” he says.

Who then earns money?
According to Alexander, the main people who make money on cryptography are institutional investors – trading companies that use strategies that will not be allowed with regular shares trading. “All major professional traders make billions out of this, and ordinary people lose their money,” she says.

And Trump?
Alexander sees his coin Mema as a little different from many coins is that it has a potential alternative function in addition to speculation: users buy it to show their support to the president. Thus, this is similar to the “fans token”, like those produced by sports teams and players. Token Trump caused criticism from a conflict of interest; Among other problems, Trump owns one of the organizations collecting trade fees. Alexander thinks that motivation for the coin is simple: “It just shows that he can do such things,” she says. “He can do everything he likes, and knows it.”