PART00, Introduction

Imagine that your favorite online emoticons suddenly become a tradable digital currency. Doesn’t it feel absurd and interesting?

PART00, Introduction

Imagine if your favorite online emoticons suddenly became tradable digital currencies. Wouldn’t it feel absurd and interesting?

They seem to be the product of a joke, but from time to time they can climb to a market value of billions of dollars, which makes many people say they don’t understand. The value of these digital assets is largely driven by jokes on the Internet, the popularity of social media and the consensus of online communities. Does it sound a bit like a grand joke?

But this is MeMe coin, a strange phenomenon born from Internet humor that can stir up waves in the financial market. In fact, these seemingly unserious digital toys are attracting a lot of money and attention at an astonishing speed. This article will take you into the wonderful and crazy world of MeMe coins, and learn more about their origins and possible future.

PART01. Starting with “Doge”: The Origin of MeMe Coin

MeMe coins, as the name suggests, are cryptocurrencies inspired by Internet memes. They are often born with a sense of humor and entertainment, which is fundamentally different from traditional cryptocurrencies that claim to be disruptive technologies or solve practical problems. You may see all kinds of animal heads, popular memes, and even celebrities printed on these digital currencies. They seem to exist just to make you laugh and see if they can stir up some waves in the market.

However, it is this seemingly "unorthodox" quality that has become the unique charm of MeMe coins. They do not have a complex mining mechanism and total quantity limit like Bitcoin, nor do they try to build a huge decentralized application ecosystem like Ethereum. The value of MeMe coins often comes from the consensus of the community and the viral spread of social media. A popular emoticon, a tweet that resonates, or even just a joke, may make an obscure MeMe coin instantly popular, and the price will rise accordingly. This phenomenon may seem difficult to understand at first glance, but it just reflects that in the digital age, social and cultural factors are increasingly influencing the financial market. People's curiosity about new things, their desire for community belonging, and their dream of getting rich quickly are all reflected to some extent in the world of MeMe coins. This may also indicate that in the future financial field, entertainment, community participation, and viral spread will become a force that cannot be ignored, attracting a new generation of investors who may not be interested in traditional financial instruments.

If we talk about the originator of MeMe coin, it must be Dogecoin.

This cryptocurrency, created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in late 2013, was originally created as a joke. Palmer first publicly mentioned Dogecoin on November 28, 2013, jokingly tweeting "Invest in Dogecoin, I'm sure it's the next big thing." The inspiration came from the "Doge" emoticon that was popular on the Internet at the time - a picture of a Shiba Inu head with bright colors and funny fonts and inner monologues. Palmer then created the Dogecoin.com website, and Markus completed the development of Dogecoin in just three hours, most of which was spent on changing the client's text to Comic Sans font. The two founders probably didn't expect that this joke project would quickly become popular and gain amazing attention and users in just a few weeks.

In the early days, Dogecoin was mainly used for "rewards" on social media platforms such as Reddit and Twitter. Users could use a small amount of Dogecoin to reward creators who posted interesting or valuable content. This relaxed and joyful atmosphere attracted a group of loyal followers and formed a vibrant community. Unexpectedly, the early community of Dogecoin also showed a philanthropic spirit. For example, in 2014, they raised $25,000 for the Jamaican bobsleigh team that failed to obtain enough funds to participate in the Sochi Winter Olympics, and donated $30,000 to the clean water project in Kenya.

It is worth mentioning that before Dogecoin, Billy Marcus created another cryptocurrency called Bellscoin in 2013, which was inspired by Nintendo's game Animal Crossing. Dogecoin is actually forked from Bellscoin's code.

In 2021, Elon Musk mentioned DOGE on Twitter many times, pushing it into a global craze. The price once soared by more than 8,000%, and the market value exceeded 88 billion US dollars. This initial project was created with the intent to mock Bitcoin, and the founders had no interest in making money, but rather to fill the Internet with something positive.

However, it seems that fate enjoys playing tricks on people. After the founders left the project, some community members began to maliciously manipulate the price for profit. In 2015, the price of Dogecoin was maliciously manipulated by a group called "808coinclub" on the Payeer exchange, and the price soared to 0.004