How Meme Tokens Are Changing the Cryptocurrency Industry

The first meme token, DOGE, was created as a joke. Its developer had no intention of advancing the project and was openly upset when the coin began to be pumped.

However, between 2020 and 2021, DOGE’s price against Bitcoin surged 85 times, from 15 to 1,287 satoshis. Such an achievement is something few other cryptocurrencies could boast. This sparked the interest of profit-seekers in the concept of meme tokens. What started as a novelty has grown into a full-fledged industry, bringing some unexpected elements to the crypto economy.

A New Driver of Demand

In 2013, the only reason people bought DOGE, the sole meme token at the time, was to join a community with a unique culture that mocked the seriousness of cryptocurrencies. Despite its lack of purpose, DOGE was purchased precisely to make a statement: a way to express skepticism about the idea of cryptocurrency itself.

This motive still defines meme tokens today. Buying them can be a way of showing allegiance to a particular idea. One notable recent example is the LUIGI token, named after Luigi Mangione, a suspect in the murder of United Healthcare’s CEO, Brian Thompson. On its first day of trading, the LUIGI/SOL pool on the Raydium platform saw its price increase 626-fold, trading volume reached $107.6 million, and token holders hit 26,800, according to GeckoTerminal.

In traditional crypto projects, teams often create roadmaps outlining technical and social goals and the problems they aim to solve. Still, many enthusiasts rarely read white papers or understand the technical and economic intricacies of a cryptocurrency before purchasing it. Admitting a lack of understanding was seen as a sign of unseriousness.

Meme tokens legitimized this approach. For them, demand is purely driven by community interest. If you can create an engaged community, buyers will follow. Thanks to the widespread adoption of meme tokens, it’s now acceptable across the crypto industry to purchase assets based purely on hype, without understanding the fundamentals. After all, everyone does it.

Cryptocurrencies Without Premining

Another crypto principle disrupted by meme tokens is premining — the allocation of a portion of cryptocurrency issuance to developers or early investors.

• Ripple was one of the first to adopt this approach, pre-mining its entire issuance before launching its ledger, leaving most coins under the control of Ripple Labs to this day.
• Ethereum is a notable example of premining as well. At its launch, 72,009,995 ETH were allocated to 8,903 addresses in the genesis block. This concentration of assets gives large holders significant influence over block validation and content, as no one holds sums comparable to those of early investors. Considering that there are only slightly more than 120 million ETH in existence today, this imbalance remains a point of concern.

Platforms for launching meme tokens rejected premining entirely. Instead, the full issuance of meme tokens was made available on the open market.

By late 2024 to early 2025, this approach was adopted by platforms simplifying token launches in other segments of the crypto industry, such as DeSci and AI agents.

I believe that crypto users will increasingly favor tokens distributed fairly on the open market, where no one holds a privileged position. This shift could redefine how cryptocurrencies are perceived and adopted. Meme tokens paved the way for this trend.

Cryptocurrencies Without Tracking

An unexpected use case for meme tokens is their lack of association with AML (anti-money laundering) tracking.

At Rabbit Swap, we occasionally encounter situations where a customer’s crypto transfer triggers AML checks from our liquidity provider, who then refuses the transaction and returns the funds. This can happen even if the customer obtained their crypto legally, but it passed through questionable hands earlier. Once flagged, many providers refuse to accept it.

Interestingly, we’ve never seen meme tokens flagged by AML trackers. They aren’t taken seriously as a payment or transfer method, making them one of the easiest cryptocurrencies for transactions. If Alice wants to send funds to Bob without hassle, she can buy meme tokens, send them to Bob, and he can sell them. To hedge against their volatility, holders can short meme tokens. Derivatives for the most popular tokens are traded even on major centralized exchanges. Of course, they are also available on decentralized derivatives platforms like dYdX. On this platform, anyone can initiate perpetual contract trading for any cryptocurrency asset, including meme tokens.

Back to Basics

Meme tokens have introduced unique characteristics to the crypto space:

• Community Expression: Buying and holding meme tokens can represent affiliation with a specific subculture or ideology — even controversial or criminal ones. Unlike most platforms, meme tokens provide a space where individuals can express fringe views without the risk of being “canceled.” The high trading volumes of these tokens often reflect widespread support for the ideas or cultural phenomena they embody.
• Fair Distribution: Meme tokens demonstrate the possibility of equitable market-based distribution without privileged access.
• Censorship Resistance: Meme tokens facilitate peer-to-peer transactions without oversight or interference.

Does this sound familiar? It should!

These principles echo those originally declared for Bitcoin:

• At one time, buying Bitcoin symbolized belonging to a community of people who had realized, ahead of others, that we could create an alternative to the corrupt fiat financial system.
• There was no premining in Bitcoin. The coins from the genesis block are technically impossible to transfer, and starting from block 1, anyone who wanted to mine could do so — everyone had equal opportunities.
• The censorship resistance of transactions is explicitly emphasized in many statements of Bitcoin’s creator.

Could it be that meme tokens are the new Bitcoin?