Meme coins like Dogecoin have gained increasing popularity this last year. Bets placed on internet jokes are now as common as one placing sports bets. With each passing day, more meme coins flood the market. Most destined for a rug pull that will see the coin crash and burn. Never to be seen or heard from again.
But some of these meme coins have held on. Coins like Dogecoin experience continued support despite the immense price crash the coin has seen. Holders remain bullish on the coin and refuse to sell their coins. And now this entire part of the crypto industry that started as a joke is now as serious as other projects. Meme coins are now worth an enormous $33 billion.
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Interesting to note that most of this growth has happened in the span of one year. With some meme coins growing as much as 2,500 percent in a single day. This means that crypto jokes are no longer just jokes. Jokes are now worth money in the crypto space.
The Rise Of Dogecoin And The Meme Coins
Dogecoin itself is the definition of a meme coin. This coin was started as a joke by two developer friends and they never expected it to go anywhere. Doge was another background coin that no one paid much attention to. It was memes and jokes in the community. The icon for Dogecoin is a literal dog. But this did not deter ardent supporters like Elon Musk.
Musk has always been very vocal about his love and support for the coin. Tweeting countless times about the project. But it was only in the current bull market that Musk’s tweets started to really affect the price of the coin. Every time Musk tweeted about Doge, the price ballooned.
Total crypto market cap above $1T as meme coins takes $33 billion of it | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com
By March of 2021, Dogecoin had already risen an alarming 21,000 percent. As the price surged, more people became interested, and more investors bought in.
With this came the influx of other meme coins. The popularity of Doge seemed to have sparked an increased interest in the mind of crypto holders. And so, people started looking to other meme coins that had not rallied yet to be the next Doge.
Going off the popularity of Doge, coins like Shiba Inu and SafeMoon followed. Growing tremendously in short periods of time.
Meme Coins Market Capitalization
The entirety of the meme coins market cap currently sits at $33 billion. With Dogecoin contributing about $28 billion of this market cap. While other coins seem to be doing good going off the fact that they are jokes, they are far behind Doge.
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The second highest coin by market cap is Shiba Inu. Mostly known as SHIB by holders, this coin comes in second with a market cap of almost $4 billion.
According to CoinGecko, there are currently 55 meme coins active in the market. But only 19 out of these coins have a market capitalization currently listed.
Featured image from Analytics Insight, chart from TradingView.com