The crazy logic of Meme coins: Why can meme images be worth billions of dollars

How a Shiba Inu Rewrote the Crypto Market

In May 2021, an absurd event occurred—an “joke coin” born in 2013 suddenly jumped into the top ten by market cap. The surge of Dogecoin left everyone stunned. This token, featuring only a Shiba Inu avatar and no technical innovation, surpassed a market cap of $85 billion. Why?

The answer isn’t hidden in a white paper but in every “To the Moon” comment, in countless shared memes, and most importantly, in the cultural identity spontaneously formed by millions of holders.

How It Survived

In 2013, two programmers, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, made a joke—creating Dogecoin to mock the speculative frenzy of cryptocurrencies at the time. They chose a popular internet Shiba Inu as the logo and set the issuance to unlimited, which was seen as a satire of the entire crypto movement.

But something strange happened. Reddit users began tipping interesting posts with Dogecoin. The community spontaneously organized charity events. They even crowdfunded sponsorships for NASCAR drivers and the Jamaican bobsled team. No white paper, no technological breakthroughs—just pure community enthusiasm. Dogecoin lasted ten years and once soared to $0.74.

Elon Musk’s tweets certainly ignited the fire, but what truly kept it alive were the holders who daily created memes and hosted online events. While other altcoins disappeared into history, Dogecoin remained. That’s the power of cultural stickiness.

The Later Success Formula

If Dogecoin was a happy accident, then Shiba Inu (SHIB), born in 2020, was an intentional copycat. It calls itself the “Dogecoin Killer” but used the exact same formula—adorable Shiba Inu images, the slogan “SHIB Army,” and making every holder feel part of the movement.

As a result, SHIB’s price skyrocketed 120,000 times in 2021, reaching a peak market cap of $36 billion.

In 2023, an even crazier token appeared—PEPE. Based on the “Sad Frog” meme, this token had no backing, no funding, no team. Relying solely on viral spread among netizens, its market cap broke through $7 billion within two weeks.

Patterns began to emerge: Meme Coin prices aren’t driven by code but by how widely their cultural symbols are recognized, used, and shared. Just like Disney profits from Mickey Mouse, these projects turn memes into tradable cultural assets. The broader the symbol’s reach, the more valuable it becomes.

What You’re Getting Wrong

Many newcomers buy Meme Coins and constantly urge project teams in communities to “pump” the price. But if you understand the essence, you’ll see that this path is fundamentally flawed.

Meme Coins are completely different from stocks or Bitcoin. Stocks are backed by company performance; Bitcoin by blockchain technology. But Meme Coins’ “fundamentals” are community consensus and cultural dissemination. At most, the project team might initiate some activity, but the real “whales” are the holders like you.

Look at PEPE: no founders, no operational team—just netizens spontaneously creating memes and spreading images on Twitter and Telegram. When you share PEPE memes or joke about how funny the frog is, you’re actually “empowering” it. Every share increases the value of this cultural symbol.

Conversely, if the community only waits for the project team to pump the price, it’s like a group guarding a fish pond that can’t reproduce itself—eventually, they’ll run out of resources. Just look at the hundreds of new Meme Coins born daily on Pump.fun; 99% won’t last a week. Why? Because they only have code, no culture, and no community willing to spread them.

Attention Is Money

In this era, attention is the most scarce resource. Meme Coins essentially turn your focus, discussion, and sharing into tradable assets—“attention securitization.”

Platform algorithms favor interesting content. Meme Coins are inherently designed for social media. A funny meme spreads faster than a 300-page white paper; a phrase like “To the Moon” triggers more FOMO than technical specs. When you post a PEPE meme in your circle, you’re actually helping it capture others’ attention, which ultimately translates into buying pressure.

Meme Coins on Solana and Base are especially active because of fast transaction speeds and low fees, making them more suitable for retail high-frequency trading and dissemination. Technology is just infrastructure; the real engine is the “social currency” created by the community.

If You Really Want to Play

These three things are more important than just watching K-line charts:

First, choose symbols you truly identify with. Don’t buy Meme Coins you don’t understand. If you find a meme boring, don’t expect others to spread it. PEPE’s holders are mostly Gen Z who grew up with this frog meme—they spread it out of genuine liking.

Second, be a disseminator, not just a speculator. Instead of asking every day “When will it pump,” think about how to make more people know this meme. Create a funny meme, write a joke, comment under a trending topic. Every creative share you make adds value to your holdings.

Third, approach investing with an entertainment mindset. Meme Coins are “cultural lotteries.” While they have more cultural value than pure gambling, they remain highly speculative. Never invest more than you can afford to lose. Treat it like buying a ticket to an amusement park—having fun is the most important, making money is just an extra bonus.

The End

When memes turn into cryptocurrencies, it’s really internet culture doing an “IPO.” Every surge of a Meme Coin is a grassroots cultural “raid” on traditional finance.

But remember: without dissemination, there’s no value. The white lies spun by project teams or the hype from KOLs are less powerful than the meme you’re about to post on social media. Instead of waiting for others to “pump,” open your drawing app now and create cultural symbols for finance that belong to this era.

In the attention economy, everyone is their own whale.