Meme Coins — What’s the All the Hype About?
The meme coin sector combines trends, laughs, and blockchain technology to create a new way for people to join the decentralized economy. Meme coins like DogeCoin have been around for a long time. Today, there are a variety of these projects in use. These tokens expand the meaning and capabilities of meme coins to new heights. Here’s some valuable insight into the hype surrounding meme coins.
What is a Meme Coin?
A meme coin is simply a cryptocurrency that is built around a popular meme. Memes are images passed through social channels that represent some element of a cultural system. Interestingly, the first meme in print was published in 1921 in the satirical magazine The Judge, published by the University of Iowa.
History of Memes
The world’s first published meme featured two pictures of the same man. In the picture on the right, he looks strong and confident. The photo on the left shows the same man awkward and looking much weaker. The caption reads, “What you think you look like when a flashlight is taken” under the savvy gentleman, and under the nerdy fellow it reads, “How you look.” Hilariously, much hasn’t changed with memes over the last century.
The term meme first appeared in Richard Dawkins’s book “The Selfish Gene” in 1976. It’s derived from the Greek term mimema, which means imitated. In the book, he described a meme as a “unit of cultural information spread through imitation.”
Online Memes
The first meme to go viral online featured a dancing baby in 1996. Interestingly, dancing baby was not created to be a meme originally. It was meant to demonstrate the abilities of the new CGI software by Kinetix Character Studio. The speed at which memes could be passed on via the internet only made the desire for these hilarious and sometimes controversial images rise.
Benefits of Meme Coins
Meme coins capture this century-long tradition and combine it with ROI opportunities. Today’s meme coins do more than simply provide users with entertainment. These projects operate as fully decentralized financial systems. The main goal of today’s meme coins is to make cryptocurrencies, a subject that can be boring to most, more lighthearted and fun. To that extent, the projects have been a success.
History of Meme Coins
The history of meme coins begins with the Dogecoin project. Dogecoin started as a joke between Reddit users before becoming one of the best-known cryptos in the market. The creators behind Dogecoin wanted to make a satirical cryptocurrency that made light of the growing number of hardcore Bitcoiners.
Shortly following the launch of the coin, the price of Dogecoin shot up 300% before rescinding back down. This pump helped the developers confirm that there was a real demand for their fun-filled crypto project. Only days later, the project would see its first community test when the Dogecoin wallet was hacked. The attackers made off with millions in Dogecoin.
Save the Doge
Rather than take the loss as a sign to pack up, the community mobilized. The “Save the Doge” campaign was a volunteer donation push to repay those who took losses in the hack. The project was a huge success and in days, all those who lost Dogecoin were repaid.
Keeping in line with the good nature of Dogecoin, the developers decided it was best to donate some of the profits they had secured. This decision launched Dogecoin’s impressive humanitarian campaign. Dogecoin has accomplished some amazing things with the help of its community.
The platform sponsored the Jamaican Bobsled team for one year. They also helped fund a clean water initiative in Kenya before supporting an autistic child program. In the program, rescue dogs are used to help those suffering.
Back in the Spotlight
Dogecoin was thrust back into the spotlight following the Gamestop trading fiasco. In this incident, a group of Redditors had noticed large hedge funds naked shorting stocks. They realized that if they drove the prices up for these assets, the hedge funds would have to pay whatever the price.
In the end, the group found that the trading apps such as Robinhood were protecting the interest of these funds. As such, they shifted their efforts to the crypto realm. The group started promoting Dogecoin heavily as a censorship alternative. These actions led to some major celebrity support from the likes of Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg, and more.
Many Aspects of Bitcoin
The coins founder Jackson Palmer took many of the coin’s technical aspects directly from Bitcoin. He explained that it only took him around 3 hours to create Dogecoin mainly because he simply took Bitcoin coding and swapped instances of Bitcoin for Dogecoin. However, the project isn’t a direct copy of Bitcoin. There are some aspects that Palmer altered.
For example, Dogecoin uses a varied PoW algorithm. This decision was made to prevent Bitcoin miners’ usage on the network. At that time, there was a lot of concern surrounding mining centralization. The first ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) miners had been introduced by Bitmain.
These miners were thousands of times more powerful than GPU miners. They also cost thousands to purchase. Palmer succeeded in his plan originally as it would be years before Dogecoin ASIC chips hit the market.
A First Generation Meme Coin
Dogecoin is a first-generation cryptocurrency. As such, it doesn’t support smart contracts and DeFi functionalities. Its primary purpose is to operate as an electronic peer-to-peer cash system. Consequently, it has very limited functionality compared to today’s advanced networks.
Today’s Meme Coins
Today’s meme coins are more immersive projects that provide more ROI opportunities. For example, the Shiba Inu project integrates a multi-token approach complete with DeFi functionalities. The developers intend to create the ShibSwap exchange to further support their project.
This layout falls in line with today’s fourth-generation blockchains. The next generation of meme coins is sure to support staking, lending, and NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Together, these technologies will enable meme coin traders to secure more profits while still having fun.
Top Dogecoin Competitors
Dogecoin is by far the most popular and successful meme coin in the market but it’s not alone. There are a lot of other cool meme coin projects that are gaining momentum in 2022. Here are some of Dogecoin’s biggest competitors and what makes each of them worth checking out.
Shiba Inu
First on the list is Shiba Inu. This unique crypto entered the market in 2020 with a splash. Interestingly, it saw endorsement from some famous influencers and entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk.
The premise behind Shiba Inu is simple. Make it easy to purchase billions of tokens so that anyone can hold on to these tokens as the community attempts to push the value to a dollar. One of the main aspects of Shiba Inu was that it was more scalable than Dogecoin. It also introduced DeFI features such as staking to the meme coin market.
Full DeFi Community
Shiba Inu was the first meme coin to be introduced as part of a larger DeFi ecosystem. This strategy is more popular than ever today. Notably, the project was headed by an anonymous development team who labeled the project a “social experiment.”
Shiba Inu includes a host of cool features that make it more usable than its predecessors. For one, there is the ShibSwap exchange. This non-custodial DEX enables a user to convert their SHIB and other ERC-20 tokens for low fees in a P2P manner. The non-custodial nature of the exchange has helped it remain secure and private.
A Larger Environment
SHIB is the main utility token for a larger token ecosystem. SHIB is designed to enable users to pay fees and interact with network features. SHIB is what most traders hold.
There is another token called LEASH. LEASH is a synthetic built to hedge the price of Doge on the ETH blockchain. Interestingly, the token rebates to 1000/1 the price of DOGE at 6:30 AM UTC.
The final token in the ecosystem is called Bone. It’s used to stake and secure passive returns. This DeFi asset is the latest addition to the Shiba Inu Community.
Dogelon Mars
Another interesting project that follows the long tradition of Shiba Inu-inspired tokens is Dogelon Mars. This token was designed to be the first interplanetary currency to hit the market. The developers pitched it to Elon as the currency for his mission to mars. The concept seeks to capture the momentum of the mars mission and the previous success of DOGE.
Dogelon Mars token holders would be able to use the token to make purchases at all of their favorite interplanetary vendors. Yes, the project has a comical view of the future but it’s worth noting that Elon does plan to go to Mars sooner than later. As such, it would be cool to take cryptocurrencies to the red planet.
Comic Relief
The developers have accompanied their space-age plans with a collectible NFT comic series. The comic focuses on a space traveler by the same name as he traverses through the galaxy in search of adventure. The NFTs are depicted in a traditional comic format which adds to their entertainment value.
You have to hand it to the Dogelon they took the concept of a meme coin to the stars. Today, the project is still recognizable by meme coin collectors as one of a long line of Shiba Inu-inspired projects that gained fame.
Tamadoge
There are never too many Shiba Inus in the market according to meme coin develops. As such, this next project is yet another DOGE clone in terms of using the same adorable meme dog. From there, the similarities wean off because Tamadoge is part of a larger play to earn ecosystem.
The project has been in the eye of traders with the developers completing a multimillion-dollar crowdfunding event on OKX successfully. The Tamadoge meme coins are both collectibles and have utility. You can breed your Tomadoge dogs with others to create new and rare types.
Dog Fights
The main goal of the game is to feed and battle your Tamadoge. The more victories you make and the more TAMA tokens you win. Notably, the system automatically tallies up your wins and pays out rewards at the end of the month. Notably, the developers have big plans for the project in the future.
According to company documentation, the team seeks to integrate augmented reality and the metaverse into the game. AR is a hybrid between virtual reality and your everyday surroundings. These systems enable you to interact with digital items while going about your normal day.
As such, the integration of these technologies would make the game more immersive and open the door for even more earning opportunities. No specific date has been revealed for the integration as of yet.
Toon Finance
Toon Finance is an original concept that wants to expand the P2E ecosystem. The premise behind the meme coin project is to create a SHA256-backed metaverse. SHA256 is the consensus algorithm used by Bitcoin.
The project includes a host of features to help the user make the most of their gameplay. You can trade cryptos, NFTs, and even bridge assets across blockchains using this system. Token bridges help to provide more liquidity.
Space Battle Grounds
The Toon Finance NFTs will also be game characters in the Space Battlegrounds game. Winners of these battles are eligible for prizes including airdrops and collectible NFTs. The top performers are eligible for additional prizes and tokens. Another major advantage of Toon Finance is that it leverages community voting which gives the average user a say on the network’s future developments.
Life’s a Big Meme
Given the current state of the world, it’s nice to see light-hearted and fun projects emerge. Meme coins may never replace the USD but they don’t need to fulfill their purpose. These tokens help introduce people to the concept of cryptocurrencies and open their minds to what it means to be a currency in the first place.
As such, meme coins play a vital role in new user onboarding and the overall morale of the market. For these reasons, you can expect to see even more meme coins in the future.
