Meme coins have established themselves as an alternative investment asset in today’s financial market ecosystem. According to a report by Coingecko, meme coins ranked as the second best performing narrative of 2024, with an average return of 2185%, while the AI narrative took the top spot with an average return of 2940%. What is particularly interesting about these metrics is that meme coins outperformed other crypto sectors, such as DePIN, Layer 1, Gamefi, NFTs, and DeFi, which are considered to be more fundamentally attractive.
So, what is all the hype about meme coins? At their core, meme coins are part of the identity of internet culture. If you use social media regularly, you have probably come across a viral joke or meme; some of these jokes/memes have evolved into digital assets with little to no intrinsic value, other than the fact that they have become an internet sensation.
What makes this space even more intriguing is the influence of key figures, particularly Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, whose tweets and public statements have continuously shaped the dynamics of the meme coin market.
The Elon Musk Meme Coin Effect
The first meme coin, Dogecoin ($DOGE), was launched in 2013, but it wasn’t until December 2020, when Elon Musk tweeted “One Word: Doge,” that it started gaining interest beyond the crypto community. Since then, the Tesla founder has mentioned DOGE several times, most of which have led to significant price jumps.
For example, during the peak of the bull market in 2021, Elon tweeted that “Dogecoin is the people’s crypto,” which resulted in a 40% increase in the cryptocurrency’s value. In another instance, he tweeted a meme of “doge barking at the moon,” causing over a 100% surge in the price of DOGE at that time. More recently, Elon’s appointment to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) also triggered a spike in the price.
If you haven’t been following the crypto space closely, you might think that DOGE is the only meme coin that has performed well thanks to Elon’s endorsement; that is not the case. In fact, there is a whole category of Elon-inspired meme coins with a total market cap of $51.7 billion as of now. Most of these meme coins have either been inspired by Elon or received indirect mentions/references from the billionaire, which caused their value to increase.
A good example of such a meme coin is LADYS; touted as the fully memetically optimized white pill, this meme coin was subtly hinted at when Elon tweeted a picture from the Milady NFT collection. Although LADYS is not affiliated with Milady’s in any way, the tweet alone was enough to propel the LADYS meme coin to a market cap of almost 300 million at some point; the price is currently over 8,800% higher than its all-time low, which coincided with the day Elon made the tweet.
More recently, another meme coin called Kekius Maximus also received a ‘nod’ from Elon when he changed his name on X (formerly Twitter) to ‘Kekius Maximus’. The meme coin’s price increased by over 4800%, with the market cap jumping from a mere $20 million to $380 million within the same day. One trader who invested only $66 early on turned this small investment into a whopping $3 million.
The examples mentioned above are just the beginning of how much Elon has been influencing the meme coin space. There are many traders who have notifications and trading bots set up to react to Elon’s ‘jokes’ or subtle hints about any meme coins that could be related to his tweets or statements, regardless of context.
The fact that a large number of retail investors rely on Elon’s ‘signals’ is the main reason why “affiliated” meme coins often attract more capital compared to others. Moreover, the growing interest in this asset class and its embrace by prominent figures are proving to be a strong force in shaping internet culture beyond memes and jokes, transforming them into financial assets that will be part of tomorrow’s digital investing norms.
“No one understands how significant it becomes in the cultural zeitgeist. So many large investors view it as, ‘this is stupid and all these retail investors are going to lose all their money,’ but I think it has the ability to inform culture,” noted Aulden Borthwick, an NYU undergraduate and meme coin investor, in a conversation with the New York Post.
What Does the Future Hold for Meme Coins?
As mentioned earlier, the meme coin space is currently one of the most thriving sectors within the broader crypto ecosystem. In 2025, we can expect to see more meme coins seeking Elon’s endorsement, given the ease of launching on blockchains like Solana, which has introduced Pump.fun, and Hyperliquid, a newer blockchain ecosystem that has featured a seamless launching tool called Hypurr Fun.
Given Elon Musk’s current social media influence and his apparent enjoyment of playing with memes, such as including DOGE as a means of payment at Tesla, it is likely that he will continue to significantly impact the meme coin ecosystem. Whether meme coins will be the first form of currency on Mars, only the future can tell.
