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Memecoins have gone from being a joke to a major cultural phenomenon that has managed to influence politics, economics and even public sentiment.

Let’s figure out how memecoins have transformed from an ironic speculative asset to politics, presidents and billion-dollar scams.

A joke that went too far

The first is considered to be DOGE. It was created by Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer in 2013.

At that time, the topic of crypto was too serious, so they decided to create a humorous response to Bitcoin and the arrogant market – a coin with a funny dog.

Who knew that it would instantly start gaining popularity? It was first used as a tipping currency on Reddit, and in just two weeks, it had more daily transactions than Bitcoin.

The success of DOGE was inspiring, and within a month, this trend was picked up by YeCoin, a reference to Kanye West, MaxCoin, a reference to Max Kaiser and more.

This entire category of coins began to form based on references to someone or something famous.

Ethereum and the ICO boom revitalized the market, but memecoins remained in the shadow of more serious projects.

UnderDOGE – The original memecoin branch

Currently, DOGE is considered a hype coin, but it has a responsive community at heart. The coin was positioned as a challenge, a contrast, an underdog or perhaps ‘underDOGE.’

And this community often supported charitable initiatives and other underdogs.

You may not have heard about it, but they raised money to send a team from Jamaica to the Olympics, to train dogs for children with disabilities, to build wells in Kenya and to finance the participation of an outsider driver, Josh Wise, in Nascar.

It created a feeling of kindness and unity and allowed even outsiders to stand a chance.

This is also a part of the project’s manifesto – to do good every day, to put benefit above technical perfection and people above competition and profits.

In 2021, DOGE became mainstream. Thanks to Musk’s activity, the token was picked up by the masses.

For example, Mark Cuban – owner of the NBA team Dallas Mavericks – integrated Dogecoin into his business – he allowed fans to pay for tickets and merchandise with DOGE.

Source: CoinGecko

At its peak in 2021, DOGE’s market cap was over $80 billion, which is more than some US banks.

Of course, the combined market cap of all memecoins is now much smaller than $80 billion, but this example shows how one celebrity can instantly turn an underdog into a star.

DOGE is a joke that didn’t go as planned – but it’s still a joke. But when the community wants more, projects have to grow and develop.

Shiba is another underdog – or better yet, a response to one. It’s an already scaled project that has integrated the ShibaOS blockchain solution into the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure.

It was created as an Ethereum-based competitor to DOGE.

This is an example of how an entire ecosystem can be created from a meme – the project became a platform with its own blockchain, decentralized exchange (DEX), token system, non-fungible token (NFT), decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), metaverse and burn mechanism.

It could certainly be a technical knockout for DOGE. However, even though Elon pumped up SHIBA, DOGE still remains higher in the ratings and hearts.

Or let’s take a look at Floki Inu, a memecoin named after Elon’s Shiba Inu. It has also become an example of scaling into an ecosystem with a game, NFT, metaverse and more.

By the way, this is not the first time that Musk’s tweets not only pump cryptocurrencies but also give rise to new memecoins.

Memecoins got a chance to become technically advanced projects. But did all coins want to grow up?

Trash coins

We believe that the popularity of NFTs has pushed memecoins into a different branch of development.

They have opened up that side of Web 3.0 where the technical component is not important, but storytelling, irony, virality and community are.

Memes and post-irony evolved into NFTs and carved out their place in the crypto world – and with that, a swarm of digital hooligans kicked down the door to Web 3.0.

Solana made the launch fast and easy. Now you can do anything with tokens – even turn a photo of a manhole into an NFT. It’s that simple.

Could you imagine in 2018 that a beer token would be created one day? Not for a specific brand but for beer in general.

That it would instantly trend on social media, raising millions in pre-sales and listing on top exchanges in record time?

Web 3.0 projects are increasingly turning to quests as a way to improve user engagement, and the numbers speak for themselves.

As Zealy shared on their blog, two of their partners gained over 10,000 new members in just one week through a single partnership quest, proving how collaborative campaigns can fuel rapid community growth.

This aligns with Claimr’s recent analyses, which show that quests boost audience retention by an average of 43% and increase user activity by over 63%.

These mechanics are especially effective in meme and gaming communities.

Projects like BEER or ecosystems such as Kyoto Blockchain and Qorpo World have leveraged platforms to attract tens of thousands of new users within days, showing how gamified interactions can drive real traction, even without deep utility.

A bit later, the BEER authors decided to replicate their success by launching the WATER token. Although users were already burned by the pump-and-dump experience they had with BEER, it still worked.

Messi, Ronaldinho and Suarez’s participation in the advertising campaign played a certain role, but they were more of a supporting factor.

Rather, it was a matter of FOMO – people wanted to get in at the start and quickly get out on high.

But the project wasn’t completely useless – the authors invested in creating several water collection facilities in Africa.

As you can see, trash coins have become a separate branch.

Around the same time, CZ spoke out about the unhealthy development of memecoins on X – he was worried that they were becoming weird and said that it would be better to concentrate on more useful projects.

PolitiFi

Memecoins work because of humor, unexpectedness, emotions and a rebellious spirit.

Humor perfectly conveys messages and is easy to remember because when a person laughs, they unconsciously remember the message of the joke.

Note that instructions and wisdom are often presented in ironic form as are political or discriminatory messages and conspiracy theories.

Humor and memes have already influenced politics. Remember Brexit, or even better, the Cambridge Analytica scandal?

Social networks are filled with targeted messages and memes, very well tailored to each group of users.

Memecoins allow you to turn every joke about an opponent into a coin and not worry about censorship.

Undoubtedly, propagandists would not miss the chance to take advantage of this because it is the perfect camouflage.

In addition, with the help of memecoins, you can financially stimulate voters – link the success of a politician or movement with the financial success of the holder. They win, you earn.

Elon was able to give away millions for votes, and this was not recognized as bribery – so why not?

Perhaps this is what QAnon – a conspiracy movement whose ideas are related to Trump – decided. Because such a token actually exists.

Interestingly, in 2022, journalists exposed a scheme where QAnon leaders were selling a number of coins to supporters, promising mega-profits.

The coins were allegedly backed by either an American bank or a Kazakh gold mine, but in reality, it was a simple ‘rug pull.’

Let’s Go Brandon is a euphemism that means ‘F*** Joe Biden.’ It went from being a protest slogan to the LGB coin and its obscene version FJB.

It was publicly picked up by the young Republican congressman Madison Cotton, and then the token became a partner of one of the NASCAR teams.

But as soon as the team refused the partnership, the token collapsed sharply and the congressman was accused of fraud. He had to donate his profits to charity to clear his reputation.

But this case did not scare away politicians – on the contrary, it attracted them. They understood that if you can create a hate coin, then you can also create a praise coin.

And again, it was the Republicans who did it.

The crypto community was a very important audience for Donald Trump’s campaign during the elections, so his personal token TRUMP (MAGA) has existed since 2023 and helped the candidate promote narratives.

He must have been used to taking more from life and decided to double his success, so after the victory, the official Trump Token (TRUMP) on Solana was released.

This is the first time that the US president has personally supported a memecoin. What could have gone wrong?

The failure of his and Melania’s tokens did not stop Donald, so he tried to promote the coin again. One big trader believed in Donny and lost $207,000 as soon as the price collapsed again.

Javier Milley, on the other hand, wasn’t prepared for his reputational losses.

When his alternative cryptocurrency for Argentina, Libra, suddenly lost liquidity, Milley’s posts about its support evaporated. But the Internet remembers everything.

Hate coins

The Let’s Go Brandon hate token was very niche and died as a scam. But what if a really big celebrity creates it?

In February 2025, Ye (formerly known as Kanye) blew up the X social network with the news of a memecoin launch.

He didn’t stop with anti-Semitic posts and swastika merchandise, so he called the new coin Swasticoin, and on March 15, he reposted the YZY contract address.

The community was torn. Some people expressed support for the Nazi setting. And finally, some users spoke out against it.

Representatives of the human rights group Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism expressed criticism, noting that Ye is promoting the symbol and not destigmatizing it, and it is strange that traders don’t approve, yet still invest in it.

Indeed, such a position seems hypocritical, to say the least.

Neither Swasticoin nor LGB are the first hate coins. As we already noted, you can find anything on Solana.

Solana simplified the launch so much that a person with basic knowledge of crypto can deploy a token using instructions from YouTube. This is how hate tokens appeared.

We found more than 30 questionable tokens on DEX Screener and GeckoTerminal.

Luckily, screeners began to censor the issuance, and a representative of the Solana Foundation stated that he was looking for ways to filter or ‘sanction’ hate tokens.

What does the future hold for memecoins

As you can see, almost anything can be tokenized – emotions, beliefs, prejudices and even hate. What began with innocent memes spiraled into symbols of extremism.

It’s no longer a joke – it’s a tool that shapes politics, culture, public perception and ideals.

When the boundaries of what is permissible are expanding, who knows what will happen to memecoins?

Perhaps there will be more sarcastic memecoins about Trump’s tariffs – TarrifAgeddon, CTO (Chief Tariff Officer), PT (Penguin Tariff), GOT (Game of Tariffs) and more.

Or maybe one day marketers will start using them as a situational marketing tool.

---

Yaroslav Kalynychenko is the head of marketing at Generis Web3 Agency and an expert in promoting crypto, fintech and innovative digital solutions.

 

Generated Image: Midjourney

The post From a Joke That Went Too Far to Radical Ideology – How Did the Memecoin Paradigm Change appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

HodlX Guest Post  Submit Your Post

 

Memecoins have gone from being a joke to a major cultural phenomenon that has managed to influence politics, economics and even public sentiment.

Let’s figure out how memecoins have transformed from an ironic speculative asset to politics, presidents and billion-dollar scams.

A joke that went too far

The first is considered to be DOGE. It was created by Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer in 2013.

At that time, the topic of crypto was too serious, so they decided to create a humorous response to Bitcoin and the arrogant market – a coin with a funny dog.

Who knew that it would instantly start gaining popularity? It was first used as a tipping currency on Reddit, and in just two weeks, it had more daily transactions than Bitcoin.

The success of DOGE was inspiring, and within a month, this trend was picked up by YeCoin, a reference to Kanye West, MaxCoin, a reference to Max Kaiser and more.

This entire category of coins began to form based on references to someone or something famous.

Ethereum and the ICO boom revitalized the market, but memecoins remained in the shadow of more serious projects.

UnderDOGE – The original memecoin branch

Currently, DOGE is considered a hype coin, but it has a responsive community at heart. The coin was positioned as a challenge, a contrast, an underdog or perhaps ‘underDOGE.’

And this community often supported charitable initiatives and other underdogs.

You may not have heard about it, but they raised money to send a team from Jamaica to the Olympics, to train dogs for children with disabilities, to build wells in Kenya and to finance the participation of an outsider driver, Josh Wise, in Nascar.

It created a feeling of kindness and unity and allowed even outsiders to stand a chance.

This is also a part of the project’s manifesto – to do good every day, to put benefit above technical perfection and people above competition and profits.

In 2021, DOGE became mainstream. Thanks to Musk’s activity, the token was picked up by the masses.

For example, Mark Cuban – owner of the NBA team Dallas Mavericks – integrated Dogecoin into his business – he allowed fans to pay for tickets and merchandise with DOGE.

Source: CoinGecko

At its peak in 2021, DOGE’s market cap was over $80 billion, which is more than some US banks.

Of course, the combined market cap of all memecoins is now much smaller than $80 billion, but this example shows how one celebrity can instantly turn an underdog into a star.

DOGE is a joke that didn’t go as planned – but it’s still a joke. But when the community wants more, projects have to grow and develop.

Shiba is another underdog – or better yet, a response to one. It’s an already scaled project that has integrated the ShibaOS blockchain solution into the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure.

It was created as an Ethereum-based competitor to DOGE.

This is an example of how an entire ecosystem can be created from a meme – the project became a platform with its own blockchain, decentralized exchange (DEX), token system, non-fungible token (NFT), decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), metaverse and burn mechanism.

It could certainly be a technical knockout for DOGE. However, even though Elon pumped up SHIBA, DOGE still remains higher in the ratings and hearts.

Or let’s take a look at Floki Inu, a memecoin named after Elon’s Shiba Inu. It has also become an example of scaling into an ecosystem with a game, NFT, metaverse and more.

By the way, this is not the first time that Musk’s tweets not only pump cryptocurrencies but also give rise to new memecoins.

Memecoins got a chance to become technically advanced projects. But did all coins want to grow up?

Trash coins

We believe that the popularity of NFTs has pushed memecoins into a different branch of development.

They have opened up that side of Web 3.0 where the technical component is not important, but storytelling, irony, virality and community are.

Memes and post-irony evolved into NFTs and carved out their place in the crypto world – and with that, a swarm of digital hooligans kicked down the door to Web 3.0.

Solana made the launch fast and easy. Now you can do anything with tokens – even turn a photo of a manhole into an NFT. It’s that simple.

Could you imagine in 2018 that a beer token would be created one day? Not for a specific brand but for beer in general.

That it would instantly trend on social media, raising millions in pre-sales and listing on top exchanges in record time?

Web 3.0 projects are increasingly turning to quests as a way to improve user engagement, and the numbers speak for themselves.

As Zealy shared on their blog, two of their partners gained over 10,000 new members in just one week through a single partnership quest, proving how collaborative campaigns can fuel rapid community growth.

This aligns with Claimr’s recent analyses, which show that quests boost audience retention by an average of 43% and increase user activity by over 63%.

These mechanics are especially effective in meme and gaming communities.

Projects like BEER or ecosystems such as Kyoto Blockchain and Qorpo World have leveraged platforms to attract tens of thousands of new users within days, showing how gamified interactions can drive real traction, even without deep utility.

A bit later, the BEER authors decided to replicate their success by launching the WATER token. Although users were already burned by the pump-and-dump experience they had with BEER, it still worked.

Messi, Ronaldinho and Suarez’s participation in the advertising campaign played a certain role, but they were more of a supporting factor.

Rather, it was a matter of FOMO – people wanted to get in at the start and quickly get out on high.

But the project wasn’t completely useless – the authors invested in creating several water collection facilities in Africa.

As you can see, trash coins have become a separate branch.

Around the same time, CZ spoke out about the unhealthy development of memecoins on X – he was worried that they were becoming weird and said that it would be better to concentrate on more useful projects.

PolitiFi

Memecoins work because of humor, unexpectedness, emotions and a rebellious spirit.

Humor perfectly conveys messages and is easy to remember because when a person laughs, they unconsciously remember the message of the joke.

Note that instructions and wisdom are often presented in ironic form as are political or discriminatory messages and conspiracy theories.

Humor and memes have already influenced politics. Remember Brexit, or even better, the Cambridge Analytica scandal?

Social networks are filled with targeted messages and memes, very well tailored to each group of users.

Memecoins allow you to turn every joke about an opponent into a coin and not worry about censorship.

Undoubtedly, propagandists would not miss the chance to take advantage of this because it is the perfect camouflage.

In addition, with the help of memecoins, you can financially stimulate voters – link the success of a politician or movement with the financial success of the holder. They win, you earn.

Elon was able to give away millions for votes, and this was not recognized as bribery – so why not?

Perhaps this is what QAnon – a conspiracy movement whose ideas are related to Trump – decided. Because such a token actually exists.

Interestingly, in 2022, journalists exposed a scheme where QAnon leaders were selling a number of coins to supporters, promising mega-profits.

The coins were allegedly backed by either an American bank or a Kazakh gold mine, but in reality, it was a simple ‘rug pull.’

Let’s Go Brandon is a euphemism that means ‘F*** Joe Biden.’ It went from being a protest slogan to the LGB coin and its obscene version FJB.

It was publicly picked up by the young Republican congressman Madison Cotton, and then the token became a partner of one of the NASCAR teams.

But as soon as the team refused the partnership, the token collapsed sharply and the congressman was accused of fraud. He had to donate his profits to charity to clear his reputation.

But this case did not scare away politicians – on the contrary, it attracted them. They understood that if you can create a hate coin, then you can also create a praise coin.

And again, it was the Republicans who did it.

The crypto community was a very important audience for Donald Trump’s campaign during the elections, so his personal token TRUMP (MAGA) has existed since 2023 and helped the candidate promote narratives.

He must have been used to taking more from life and decided to double his success, so after the victory, the official Trump Token (TRUMP) on Solana was released.

This is the first time that the US president has personally supported a memecoin. What could have gone wrong?

The failure of his and Melania’s tokens did not stop Donald, so he tried to promote the coin again. One big trader believed in Donny and lost $207,000 as soon as the price collapsed again.

Javier Milley, on the other hand, wasn’t prepared for his reputational losses.

When his alternative cryptocurrency for Argentina, Libra, suddenly lost liquidity, Milley’s posts about its support evaporated. But the Internet remembers everything.

Hate coins

The Let’s Go Brandon hate token was very niche and died as a scam. But what if a really big celebrity creates it?

In February 2025, Ye (formerly known as Kanye) blew up the X social network with the news of a memecoin launch.

He didn’t stop with anti-Semitic posts and swastika merchandise, so he called the new coin Swasticoin, and on March 15, he reposted the YZY contract address.

The community was torn. Some people expressed support for the Nazi setting. And finally, some users spoke out against it.

Representatives of the human rights group Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism expressed criticism, noting that Ye is promoting the symbol and not destigmatizing it, and it is strange that traders don’t approve, yet still invest in it.

Indeed, such a position seems hypocritical, to say the least.

Neither Swasticoin nor LGB are the first hate coins. As we already noted, you can find anything on Solana.

Solana simplified the launch so much that a person with basic knowledge of crypto can deploy a token using instructions from YouTube. This is how hate tokens appeared.

We found more than 30 questionable tokens on DEX Screener and GeckoTerminal.

Luckily, screeners began to censor the issuance, and a representative of the Solana Foundation stated that he was looking for ways to filter or ‘sanction’ hate tokens.

What does the future hold for memecoins

As you can see, almost anything can be tokenized – emotions, beliefs, prejudices and even hate. What began with innocent memes spiraled into symbols of extremism.

It’s no longer a joke – it’s a tool that shapes politics, culture, public perception and ideals.

When the boundaries of what is permissible are expanding, who knows what will happen to memecoins?

Perhaps there will be more sarcastic memecoins about Trump’s tariffs – TarrifAgeddon, CTO (Chief Tariff Officer), PT (Penguin Tariff), GOT (Game of Tariffs) and more.

Or maybe one day marketers will start using them as a situational marketing tool.

---

Yaroslav Kalynychenko is the head of marketing at Generis Web3 Agency and an expert in promoting crypto, fintech and innovative digital solutions.

 

Generated Image: Midjourney

The post From a Joke That Went Too Far to Radical Ideology – How Did the Memecoin Paradigm Change appeared first on The Daily Hodl.