#Meme板块涨近5% From "Shiba Inu Meme Pack" to a hundred-billion-dollar market cap: Classic cases and the underlying logic of Meme coins

In the crypto world, there is a type of asset that is both absurd and real, both ridiculed and pursued—these have no white paper, no technical team, and even no clear purpose, yet they can create a market value of hundreds of millions of dollars within days. They are Meme coins (meme tokens).
Today, we won't discuss "how to buy" or "how to make money," but instead, from an objective perspective, revisit some representative Meme coin cases to understand why this phenomenon keeps recurring.

Case 1: Dogecoin (DOGE)—How a "Joke" Became a Legend?
Birth date: 2013
Origin story: Australian programmer Jackson Palmer joked on Twitter, "There should be a coin called Dogecoin." He then forked Litecoin's code with a friend to create DOGE, with the popular "Doge Shiba Inu" meme as the avatar.
Core features: Infinite issuance (fixed addition of 5 billion coins annually)
Initial positioning as "online tipping"
Community slogan: "1 DOGE = 1 DOGE" (emphasizing equality, opposing price speculation)
Turning point: Starting in 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk repeatedly posted on social media supporting DOGE, calling it the "people's cryptocurrency."
In 2021, DOGE's market cap once exceeded $90 billion, surpassing century-old companies like Ford and Boeing.
💡 Phenomenon interpretation:
DOGE's success is not due to technology but a combination of community culture + celebrity effect + emotional consensus. It proves that in the digital age, "a good meme" can also rally millions of users.

Case 2: Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB)—The Counterattack of the "Dogecoin Killer"
Birth date: 2020
Original intent: Anonymous developer "Ryoshi" claimed that creating SHIB was to "satirize the frenzy of the crypto market," and positioned it as a "DOGE killer."
Key operations: Total supply set at 1 quadrillion (creating a "very low unit price" psychology); 50% of tokens airdropped directly to Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum founder); later launched decentralized exchange ShibaSwap to build the "SHIB ecosystem."
Highlight moment: In May 2021, after Musk mentioned it, SHIB surged over 300% in a single day, with a market cap breaking $40 billion, becoming one of the top 20 cryptocurrencies globally.
💡 Phenomenon interpretation:
SHIB demonstrates how Meme coins can evolve from pure jokes to "semi-functional assets" through narrative packaging + airdrop marketing + ecosystem expansion, even though their underlying still heavily relies on emotional driving.

Case 3: PEPE (Pepe the Frog)—The Ultimate Monetization of Meme Culture
Birth date: 2023
Inspiration source: The frog character Pepe from the 2005 web comic "Boy’s Club," which later became a globally recognized meme.
Issuance method: Fully anonymous team deployed contracts on Ethereum, with no pre-sale, no team tokens, and no official website.
Explosion path: Early retweets by KOLs on Twitter, on-chain data showing whales continuously buying, community spontaneously creating numerous meme images, leading to viral spread.
Market performance: Within a month of launch, market cap surged from zero to $1.7 billion, becoming one of the most successful Meme coins of 2023. 💡 Phenomenon interpretation:
PEPE represents a new paradigm of decentralized release + social fission—no team endorsement needed, as long as the cultural symbol is strong enough to ignite the market.

Case 4: ASTEROID (2026)—The Ultimate Expression of Emotional Value
Background story: In April 2026, 15-year-old girl Liv Perrotto passed away due to illness. She had designed a Shiba Inu plush toy called "Asteroid," hoping it would become SpaceX's mascot.
Trigger point: Elon Musk replied "Ok" on X platform, acknowledging the request.
Market reaction: The ETH chain version of ASTEROID's market cap soared to $170 million within hours; the SOL chain version also exploded, with the community calling it a "cryptocurrency memorial for dreams."
💡 Phenomenon interpretation:
ASTEROID marks a new stage of Meme coins entering "emotional storytelling"—no longer just for humor or speculation, but carrying collective empathy and memorial significance, further blurring the boundaries between finance and culture.
The reason these cases have become classics is that they embody several core elements of Meme coins:
Strong cultural symbols
Low participation barriers
Social fission mechanisms
Wealth effect stimulation

But we must clearly recognize:
Severe survivor bias: what you see is the 0.1% success, and 99.9% that go to zero are hidden;
Extreme information asymmetry: project teams are anonymous, early holdings are concentrated, and retail investors are mostly "purchasers."
Meme coins are a mirror of the Web3 era—they reflect the creativity of internet culture and expose human obsession with "get-rich-quick myths."
As ordinary investors, we can understand their operational logic, study their social impact, but must never see them as a "shortcut to wealth." Without professional knowledge, risk awareness, and legitimate channels, any following behavior could lead to irreversible losses.