Dogecoin killers or hype: are traders still making millions on meme coins? 

Meme coins still bring profit, but not for everyone. Investors told crypto.news how much they were able to earn from the meme coin hype.

Meme coins posted an astonishing return of 1,313% on average in the first quarter. And this sector doesn’t even think about stopping its growth, bringing traders millions of dollars in profits.

Huge positive price waves in a matter of days or weeks are natural. But what is this all about? 

What are meme coins?

Meme coins are a type of cryptocurrency whose popularity is directly related to internet memes and viral marketing on social networks. Typically, they are initially created as a joke without any practical function.

The first and most famous token was Dogecoin (DOGE), launched in 2013 based on the popular Shiba Inu dog meme. DOGE was initially intended to be a parody of Bitcoin (BTC). However, over time, this asset gained a billion-dollar capitalization.

The main difference between meme coins and traditional cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum (ETH) or Bitcoin is the lack of intrinsic value and emission restrictions. Their cost depends entirely on demand amid the Internet boom, and because of this, meme coins are characterized by increased volatility.

However, recently, there has been a tendency to give meme coins greater practical significance. For example, the developers of Shiba Inu (SHIB) and FLOKI are creating their own metaverses, NFT platforms, and educational ecosystems based on these assets.

Million-dollar profit — this year’s trend

The number of issued meme tokens is growing with enviable regularity, and traders manage to earn fortunes from them. However, such success is usually short-term and random. In the long term, as internet popularity declines, the value of most meme coins tends to zero. 

Presumably, those who earn millions of dollars on meme tokens have insider information. Otherwise, how would these traders and investors know that prices for certain meme coins would show rapid growth? The editors of crypto.news spoke with traders who could make profits on condition of anonymity.

Frog Investments

Members of the Pepe (PEPE) crypto community are celebrating the frog token’s new all-time high. Amid this, one user said that he turned just $90 into $1.4 million thanks to PEPE.

In mid-April 2023, a trader purchased almost 6.5 trillion PEPE on the Uniswap crypto exchange just for fun. Since the initial investment amount was small, the trader did not sell the tokens and decided to watch what would happen to them.

This decision turned out to be the most correct one — in May 2024, 6.5 trillion PEPE made the anonymous trader a dollar millionaire. However, a user with the nickname Mina said that he does not intend to sell PEPE and now believes that one day, the price of the frog coin will exceed $1.

“Sometimes I want to sell my PEPE, but I save it as a reminder not to rush. The meme coin market has not yet finished conquering the peaks, and it is likely that my PEPE will make me a billionaire in a year.”

Mina, anonymous trader

Strong belief in dogs and love of hats

A trader from the meme coin Telegram community shared an impressive story of earnings on the Dogwifhat (WIF) coin. However, this case is unlike the inspiring stories of traders whose coins grow 1000 times in an hour.

The anonymous trader used a different strategy — HODL. He purchased WIF in December 2023 and analyzed the overall activity on the Solana network and the crypto market’s growth prospects.

After weighing all the risks, the trader bought approximately $500 worth of tokens, expecting further growth. As a result, he earned about $15,000 simply by keeping assets on his balance sheet. 

“I’ve heard stories of traders making billions of dollars in profits starting with just $100. However, as an active participant in the crypto community, I find these stories to be the exception to the rule. The meme coin market is still very opaque and confusing, so the inspiring stories about traders are likely simply insider trading.”

Meme coin community member

More conservatism 

Another crypto community member with the nickname Andilet called for caution when investing in meme coins and shared his strategy for diversifying assets. He advised dividing the crypto portfolio by risk level, with 10% of the portfolio made up of high-risk, volatile coins, including meme coins.

Despite the high risk, allocating part of the portfolio to meme coins seemed appropriate since meme coins are more likely to provide significant profits. 

“In general, it is difficult to predict in the long term how the meme coin market will behave — because in memes, everything depends heavily on hype, the level of which is also challenging to predict.”

Andilet, SHIB investor

He invested in Shiba Inu in the summer of 2023, spending about $5,000 to purchase coins at a price of $0.0000077. Now, with an SHIB rate of $0.000025, his assets are worth about $50,000.

“I believe that in the case of meme coins, an individual approach to each project is important. You can guess the trend in the short and medium term by closely studying the project.”

Andilet, SHIB investor

Summing up: to invest or not to invest?

Investing in meme cryptocurrencies is a considerable risk. This can bring a solid profit due to speculation, successful exit timing, and a complete capital loss. The main thing is to monitor social networks, read the news, be able to search for information, and the first time a media personality mentions any meme coin, try to get it.