Bitcoin may be the first cryptocurrency to exist and is also the leading cryptocurrency as of now. Yet, there are now more than 1,600 existing cryptocurrencies like Cardano, Ethereum, Solana, and a lot more. Each cryptocurrency has different characteristics and utilization; each was called differently as well, like altcoins and meme coins.
As of now, a lot of different kinds of coins have gained popularity and are known to be part of the top cryptocurrency. Just like what happened to Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE), in which both were created as a joke, because of its popularity, a lot of people had been investing in meme coins without really knowing their purpose. Meme coins were most likely to be more volatile than the other regular cryptocurrency; their values are highly affected by the news and popularity about it and not really the innovation and utilization. There are a lot of differences between meme coins and regular cryptocurrencies regarding their value, market cap, purpose, volatility, and many more. You can start an investment and begin trading yourself by joining a crypto community on the Bitcoin Prime trading platform.
Meme Coin
Although meme coins are almost created as a joke, investors and developers firmly believe that meme coins should be taken seriously. Meme coins are usually the cryptocurrencies that gain popularity in a short period of time. Most of the time, the popularity comes from influencers or even celebrities that promote them on social media platforms. Also, since anyone can just make their own type of cryptocurrency, a lot of developers try to release their own version of cryptocurrency, in which most are a spinoff of Dogecoin.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major types of cryptocurrency were invented for a major purpose as well, and that is to solve real-world financial problems like removing the third party on transactions, secured transactions, and low fees on transactions, to name a few. And their goal is to be normalized and be widely accepted by merchants, to use decentralized currency in our day-to-day lives, and to revolutionize a different kind of industry.
Meanwhile, meme coins, unfortunately, don’t have a real-world purpose as of now, and most were created to make quick money. Some of the meme coins gained popularity because they are promoted by investors and influential celebrities, which heavily pumps up their prices; the promotion usually happens on social media in which a lot of fans and individuals see the posts of the celebrities. It could be their first-hand experience of investing in cryptocurrency or just a satire post. Nevertheless, followers are always hyped up whenever someone influential posts about cryptocurrency.
Usually, a price surge happens whenever there is a post from an influential person or a celebrity. Once that happens, many investors tend to sell their meme coins to make a quick profit out of the surge. Since meme coins have no real purpose as of now, experts believe that they wouldn’t last for a few years or even decades. And if investors chose to move on with regular cryptocurrency memes, coin value would most likely plummet.
Dogecoin
Dogecoin was created back in December of 2013. It was developed by Jackson Palmer, a manager at Adobe Inc. in Sydney, Australia. It is an open-source and peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. Regardless it is considered a meme coin because of its dog logo and its name. Dogecoin’s blockchain technology still has good things about it since it has an underlying technology resembling Bitcoin’s blockchain technology. Dogecoins are best known for its algorithm, which uses a scrypt, and its low prices with an unlimited supply.
By 2017, Dogecoin was one of the alternative cryptocurrency or meme coins to have gained value, but it stopped in 2018, losing much of its value, yet still have solid supporters who trade and use it to tip content on social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit.
By 2019, Elon Musk, CEO of an electric car company, has tweeted about Dogecoin. Fans raged and thought he was endorsing it. It is then followed by a rise in its value. With that tweet, Dogecoin’s value and popularity in the market changed; Elon had continued tweeting satirically about Dogecoin. However, eventually, he seriously involved himself in the cryptocurrency Dogecoin.
Dogecoin is now in the top ten rankings, with a market capitalization of $32 billion, which was way higher years ago in where it was ranked 48 and had a $339 million market value.
Shiba Inu
Shiba Inu is another type of cryptocurrency that has a dog logo and its name inspired by it as well, and it was created just recently August 2020. An anonymous developer by the pseudonym, Ryosi decided to develop Shiba Inu on the Ethereum blockchain because he believes that it is already secure and well established. It has a total supply of 1 quadrillion, yet Ryoshi admitted that they do not hold any of their coins in which half of their supply is locked on their liquidity pool using decentralised exchange Uniswap, while the remaining are sent to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Shiba Inu was made as an alternative to Dogecoin, yet in a span of a short time, it was able to surpass Dogecoin in the rankings. In which Shiba Inu ranks top eight along with the other major cryptocurrency. Shiba Inu coins gained popularity on the Robinhood trading app. It is also hyped in social media platforms, where it is always compared to Dogecoins.
With meme coins heavily relying on their popularity for their value, it involves much more risks than the regular and major cryptocurrencies. Most of its investors are knowledgeable that its success is also heavily dependent on its growth and community instead of its utility. The influential people that speak about them is also a big factor in their price swings, which holds a lot of risk in investing in meme coins.
On the other hand, it is not bad to explore and invest in alternate coins or meme coins; joining a strong community in the crypto market is a nice way of learning more about the industry.
