Meme coins are one of the strangest trends to emerge from the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. While most crypto projects have ambitious goals and are trying to solve difficult problems, most meme coins embrace the speculation in the crypto market and proudly proclaim that they are not concerned with utility or launching products.
We’ll be highlighting the 10 best meme coins to buy based on various factors such as market capitalization, staying power and availability on both centralized and decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges. We’ll try to cover both the newest meme coins with potential as well as projects that have already established their position in the crypto market.
The 10 best meme coins to buy
Before we continue, we should make it clear that meme investing is extremely risky and you should be prepared to lose a part of or even the entirety of your investment if you do decide to buy meme coins as an investment. Most meme coins are highly volatile and don’t have much in the way of fundamentals — their price tends to fluctuate simply based on sentiment.
Without further ado, here’s our meme coin list:
- Dogecoin – The first and biggest meme coin
- Shiba Inu – A meme coin with a budding ecosystem
- Pepe – The meme coin that created the 2023 meme coin bull market
- Floki Inu – A meme coin focused on utility
- Baby Doge Coin – A meme coin inspired by Dogecoin
- Dogelon Mars – A meme coin paying tribute to Elon Musk
- Bad Idea AI – A meme coin focused on AI
- Kishu Inu – Meme coin with 2% reward for holders
- Samoyedcoin – A meme coin looking to boost the Solana community
- Bonk – A meme coin airdropped for free to Solana users
1. Dogecoin – The first and biggest meme coin
Dogecoin is arguably the first meme coin, and it was created all the way back in December 2013 by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. Despite now commanding a market capitalization in the billions of dollars, Dogecoin was initially created as a joke and a parody of the extreme speculation that’s present in the cryptocurrency market.
The coin’s name “Dogecoin” is a tribute to the famous “doge” meme, and its branding is entirely based on the viral image of a Shiba Inu breed dog.
In terms of technology, Dogecoin is a fork of the Luckycoin cryptocurrency. Luckycoin is a fork of Litecoin, which is in itself a fork of Bitcoin. Essentially, this means that Dogecoin is quite similar to Bitcoin in terms of its technological foundations. Dogecoin’s security is maintained via a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism, and the coin is merge-mined alongside Litecoin.
In contrast to Bitcoin and Litecoin, which both impose a limit on how many coins can exist, DOGE’s maximum supply has no upper limit. Every year, 5 billion new DOGE is introduced into circulation. Regardless, Dogecoin is still likely one of the best meme coins to buy, as it has demonstrated a lot of staying power over the last decade.
Notably, Dogecoin has been embraced by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who says DOGE is his favorite cryptocurrency.
2. Shiba Inu – A meme coin with a budding ecosystem
Shiba Inu is a meme coin issued on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-20 token. Anonymously launched by a developer using the alias “Ryoshi,” Shiba Inu made its debut in August 2020. Notably, the project’s lead developer, Shytoshi Kusama, also plays a significant role within the Shiba Inu narrative.
Shiba Inu has a very large token supply of one quadrillion, which translates to a very low nominal price per SHIB token. However half of this supply was gifted to Ethereum’s creator, Vitalik Buterin (who is not associated with the project). Later on, Buterin decided to donate a small portion of his SHIB holdings and burn the rest of his tokens.
Upon its introduction, Shiba Inu positioned itself as the “Dogecoin killer.” Essentially, it emerged as a meme-driven token aiming to integrate Ethereum-enabled features like decentralized finance.
The Shiba Inu project has also created Shibarium, a layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum. The platform is designed to offer a cheaper alternative to the Ethereum mainnet, and implements a mechanism that burns SHIB tokens with every transaction completed on the platform.
3. Pepe – The meme coin that ignited the 2023 meme coin bull market
Pepe burst onto the cryptocurrency scene in April 2023, attracting an immense surge of attention due to a big price rally amidst an otherwise quiet crypto market. This sudden price increase single-handedly rekindled the cryptocurrency market’s enthusiasm for meme coins, a category that had become much less popular during the 2022 bear market. As of now, Pepe still remains one of the best meme coins in the crypto market.
Although the PEPE market frenzy has scalmed since the intense activity in May, it comfortably maintains its position as the third-largest meme coin concerning market capitalization. At present, its valuation stands at an impressive $504 million.
The Pepe project has not concerned itself with introducing new features or products. It’s important to note, however, that PEPE was never promoted as a utility token. The team has been transparent about PEPE’s status as a “useless” meme token right from the outset.
4. Floki Inu – A meme coin focused on utility
Much like Baby Doge Coin, Floki Inu emerged as another meme coin project during the rampant speculation surrounding Dogecoin and Shiba Inu in 2021. The naming inspiration for Floki stems from Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu dog, with the origin traced to the TV show “Vikings”. This is why the Floki Inu coin has a Viking-themed visual identity.
In contrast to numerous meme coins that debuted in 2021 but later became completely irrelevent, Floki Inu has demonstrated remarkable resilience. Its market capitalization remains noteworthy at $203 million, securing it a respectable 134th position among all cryptocurrencies.
The Floki Inu project has embraced a strategy similar to Shiba Inu, introducing a suite of products intended to improve the FLOKI token’s utility. Examples include a 3D NFT collection, a decentralized finance tool called FlokiFi Locker, and a Metaverse game named Valhalla.
5. Baby Doge Coin – A meme coin inspired by Dogecoin
Baby Doge Coin was introduced in 2021 as a meme coin that attempted to ride the wave of excitement surrounding Dogecoin, which is evident from its name. As of now, BABYDOGE maintains an impressive market capitalization of approximately $166 million.
Unlike most other meme coins, the Baby Doge Coin is attempting to provide BABYDOGE with added utility to make it stand out in the already crowded meme coin sector. So far, the project’s strategy has successfully positioned it as one of the top meme coins.
The Baby Doge Coin team has introduced a decentralized exchange (DEX) known as Baby Doge Swap and launched an NFT collection on the Ethereum blockchain. This approach is quite similar to Shiba Inu, the second-largest meme coin in terms of market capitalization.
In terms of its tokenomics, Baby Doge Coin incorporates an automatic burn mechanism and enforces a 5% transaction fee that is redistributed to BABYDOGE holders.
While this feature could be beneficial for passive BABYDOGE holders, the 5% fee unfortunately also deters the active utilization of the BABYDOGE token. Simply put, not many people will want to transact with a token that penalizes all transactions with a 5% fee.
6. Dogelon Mars – A meme coin paying tribute to Elon Musk
Dogelon Mars is yet another example of a meme coin launched in an attempt to capitalize on Elon Musk’s endorsement of Dogecoin in 2021. While it’s not exactly a major project, Dogelon Mars still maintains a significant market capitalization of $73 million.
Unlike what we can see with Baby Doge Coin and Floki Inu, the Dogelon Musk project doesn’t seem to emphasize giving utility to the ELON token. In fact, the only “product” highlighted on the project’s website is a comic series.
The Dogelon Mars project is primarily relying on community engagement and social media marketing, aligning with the approach taken by the Pepe coin project.
7. Bad Idea AI – A meme coin focused on AI
Bad Idea AI is one of the newest meme coins featured on our list. As the name suggests, Bad Idea AI is primarily exploring artificial intelligence (AI) technology. According to the project, they’re trying to “forge an alliance” between humans and AI. The project says it’s planning to create a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) where both people and artificial intelligence agents can participate and collaborate, or perhaps even compete with each other.
According to the project, their experiment could result in many different scenarios. For example, AI agents could introduce very effective new ways of harnessing DAOs to achieve a variety of goals. It’s also possible that human-dominated DAOs and AI-dominated DAOs could clash.
While it’s hard to imagine that a meme coin project will provide any valuable contributions to the extremely complex subject of the relationship between humans and AI, Bad Idea AI could capture a lot of attention in the crypto market if the hype surrounding artificial intelligence continues to persist.
8. Kishu Inu – Meme coin with 2% reward for holders
The Kishu Inu meme coin is issued on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-20 token. The name Kishu Inu is derived from a Japanese breed of dog called Kishu. Kishu Inu implements a 2% fee on all transaction fees and redistributes it to KISHU token holders.
The Kishu Inu project has created a number of products, including the Kishu Swap DEX, the Paw Print token-tracking app, the Kishu Crate NFT marketplace and the Kishuverse NFT minting platform.
Similarly to what we can see with Baby Doge Coin, Kishu Inu’s transaction tax is a double-edged sword.
While the tax can be beneficial to long-term KISHU inu holders, it actually reduces the chances of KISHU being used. A user that wants to transact with crypto has no reason to choose KISHU, since there’s plenty of other tokens on the market that don’t charge an arbitrary transaction fee on top of the transaction fees required by the blockchain network.
9. Samoyedcoin – A meme coin looking to boost the Solana community
Samoyedcoin is a meme coin project that says it’s focused on supporting the Solana ecosystem. The SAMO token is of course issued on Solana, which allows users to transact with very fast speeds and negligible fees. This gives it a leg up in terms of efficiency compared to Dogecoin and meme tokens issued on the Ethereum blockchain.
The Samoyedcoin team claims that the project is aiming to evolve from being just another meme coin to becoming an “experimental community coin”. The holders of SAMO tokens can access VIP Discord channels and events. The team is also planning to launch a DAO where SAMO token holders will be able to decide which initiatives the Samoyedcoin project should prioritize.
Samoyedcoin coin also has an NFT collection on the Solana blockchain, which includes 5,525 unique PFP NFTs depicting the Samoyed dog breed adorned with various traits.
10. Bonk – A meme coin airdropped for free to Solana users
Bonk is a meme coin create on the highly scalable Solana blockchain platform. It gained significant attention during its initial release in late 2022 when it was airdropped at no cost to the members of the Solana community. As stated on the Bonk website, the project’s goal is to diminish the influence of venture capital investors within the Solana network and restore control to ordinary people.
According to the developers of Bonk, the coin has been incorporated into over 130 different products spanning areas such as gaming, betting, decentralized finance, and NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). For instance, the Bonk community has developed a variety of games where participants can both spend and earn BONK tokens.
Moreover, users have the option to invest their BONK in a range of decentralized finance instruments to generate returns, take part in risk-free lotteries, and other activities.
Although there was a lot of enthusiasm for Bonk at launch, the token has since seen a decline in its significance. At present, its market capitalization stands at only $14 million, reflecting a loss of much of its initial relevance.
The bottom line – Be careful when investing in meme coins
Most meme coins don’t have much in the way of fundamentals — even the projects that claim to be focused on giving utility to their meme tokens are usually just launching re-branded versions of products that already exist.
Investing in meme coins could be potentially lucrative if you have good timing and a keen eye for which projects have a good chance to survive. However, we don’t recommend buying meme coins if you have a low risk tolerance and aren’t prepared to lose a significant chunk of your investment in case you make a wrong bet.
If you’re interested in taking a closer look at the meme coin market, make sure to check out our article exploring the next meme coin to explode.
FAQs
What is a meme coin?
A meme coin is a cryptocurrency that’s predominantly based on memes and internet humor instead of technology or utility. Some of the most popular examples of meme coins include Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Pepe.
How to buy meme coins?
If you want to buy established meme coins such as Dogecoin or Shiba Inu, you can use a centralized cryptocurrency exchange such as Binance.
If you’re looking to buy upcoming meme coins, the best place to get them is to use decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges. This is because anyone can list a token on decentralized exchanges, giving users access even to tokens that are in their early stages of development. Meanwhile, centralized exchanges usually have a more strict criteria for the tokens they list.
What is the most famous meme crypto?
The most famous meme cryptocurrency is Dogecoin. One of the biggest reasons behind Dogecoin’s popularity is that this meme cryptocurrency has been publicly embraced by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Which meme coin will reach $1?
The meme coin that is the most likely to reach a price of $1 is Dogecoin, which already came close to this milestone when it hit a price of $0.73 in the first half of 2021. Other meme popular meme coins such as Shiba Inu have a much larger supply, which means that it’s almost impossible for them to ever reach $1.
