The extensive majority of these coins never get off the ground. Others grab attention from the very beginning and then fall apart after the creator sells its shares without warning. And minority coins retain their value for a longer period of time.
Meme coins have no real purpose beyond acting as a tool for financial speculation. Their price fluctuations are therefore almost entirely a reflection of the attention they attract—the collective belief, for whatever reason, that the price will either rise or fall.
The forces behind the meme-coin boom are similar to those that fueled the meme-stock craze of 2021, says Albert Choi, a University of Michigan law professor who has published research on meme stocks. That’s when amateur investors on Reddit began shorting GameStop and other unpopular stocks; while in 2024, the circulation of viral posts in cryptocurrency social media circles is sending meme coins soaring. “As [people] “To recognize a growing trend on social media, the strategy is to try to catch the wave before it actually happens,” Choi says.
The potential for gains and losses are amplified in cryptocurrencies, Choi says, because meme coins are free of any fundamental value. Unlike stocks, whose value is theoretically tied to the performance and prospects of the underlying company, meme coins have no anchor to prevent prices from free-falling. “The problem with cryptocurrencies is that if we don’t know what the fundamental value is, what’s the countervailing and corrective force going to be?” he says.
Previously, complexity and development cost were the limiting factors that prevented people from flooding the market with meme coins in the unlikely event of striking it opulent. But Pump.Fun has flipped that equation. “With platforms that allow people to launch meme coins without coding knowledge, the barrier to creating supply is virtually zero,” says Kahlil Philander, an assistant professor at Washington State University who specializes in gambling. “Now, the opportunity to create awareness has become more expensive.”
The need for attention among small-time meme creators became even more acute when celebrities stepped in. In May and June Caitlyn Jenner, Andrew TateAND Jason Derulo everyone released their own coins.
At the time, rapper Iggy Azalea launched a coin via Pump.Fun: MOTHER, which reached a valuation of $200 million in two weeks. Azalea relentlessly promoted the coin to her 7.7 million followers on X, with a flood of provocative images AND meme posts.
“I just say what I want to say and what I think is funny,” Azalea told WIRED in June. “Part of my strategy is to stay in the conversation. I like to provoke, to troll, to say things that are a little provocative. I like to say things and move in a way that I know can be a meme.”
In a market crowded with hundreds of thousands of coins—including those of Azalea and her notable peers—the creators of meme coins are forced to play tricks of increasing craze to try to get people to choose their coin. “Inhibition behavior and celebrity accounts are almost exactly the same thing,” Philander says. “It’s a source of attention.”
Even celebrities are fighting to keep the attention of meme-coin investors hungry for another spectacle. MOTHER is now traded at a quarter of the peak pricedespite Azalea’s attempt to create a usable coin that is now accepted as payment by a telecommunications start-up in which it has a stake.
Meanwhile, Ayala is quietly planning your comeback. The $DARE coin has long since lost all of its gains from the immediate aftermath of the crash, so it needs a way to revive interest in the project. Its supporters are counting on him.
“Mikol, what are your plans for the future?” asked one Telegram channel member for Monet in August. “Take us to the moon.”