From joke to billions: the phenomenon of popular meme tokens

However, Dogecoin spawned an entire market of meme coins, which, as of May 2025, is valued at over $67 billion. Dogecoin itself is among the top ten largest cryptocurrencies, with a market capitalization exceeding $36 billion — comparable to the GDP of Estonia and El Salvador.

1. Pepe (PEPE)

PEPE is a meme token created in 2023 based on the Pepe the Frog meme and launched on the Ethereum blockchain (ERC-20). Despite having no real value or utility, PEPE quickly gained popularity: within just three weeks of launch, its price increased by more than 10,000%.

PEPE became a clear example of how powerful viral marketing can be, as its market capitalization surpassed even cryptocurrencies of established projects like Uniswap (UNI), Aave (AAVE), and Near Protocol (NEAR).

The viral effect of PEPE was amplified by media coverage of early investors who became millionaires quickly by investing just hundreds of dollars. This caused FOMO, especially among newcomers, to drive massive purchases of the meme token and further fuel PEPE's price growth.

As of May 2025, PEPE is among the top thirty cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, which stands at $6.56 billion with a price of $0.000016. Since launch, the meme token's price has soared over 147 million percent. At its peak in December 2024, PEPE's market capitalization exceeded $10 billion, with an all-time high (ATH) price of $0.000028.

*FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) — fear of missing a profit opportunity

2. Bonk (BONK)

Riding the wave of "useless" meme tokens whose prices surged tens of thousands of percent quickly, developers began creating many such assets, filling ecosystems with them. Bonk was one of these tokens.

The BONK meme token seemingly appeared out of nowhere but became one of the trendiest assets in 2023–2024. Bonk was among the first and foremost meme tokens in the Solana ecosystem, setting a significant trend for launching meme coins on its blockchain.

Strangely enough, although BONK has no real value, it became one of the most significant assets for the Solana ecosystem — at least as important as Solana's native cryptocurrency (SOL). The BONK meme token revived interest in Solana and attracted new developers.

As a result, the Solana ecosystem became one of the fastest-growing in 2024, with the popular token issuance platform Pump.fun launched on its blockchain.

As of May 2025, BONK's price is $0.00002, and its market capitalization is $1.82 billion, ranking 55th among cryptocurrencies. At its peak in December 2024, BONK's market cap exceeded $3.7 billion.

3. Fartcoin (FARTCOIN)

An absurd joke token with a provocative name, having no goals or use cases. Despite the lack of utility, FARTCOIN's price has soared more than 3,000,000% since its launch.

As of May 2025, FARTCOIN's market capitalization reached $1.55 billion, ranking 58th on CoinMarketCap and surpassing technologically strong and valuable projects like Stacks (STX), Injective (INJ), and Optimism (OP).

4. SPX6900

Another absurd meme token challenges traditional finance but has no intrinsic value, yet it gained popularity among crypto investors. The token's name references one of the most famous stock indices, the S&P 500. The altcoin was promoted with the narrative "this token will beat Wall Street," which went viral on Twitter (X) and Telegram.

Since its listing in May 2025, SPX6900's price has increased nearly 33,000,000%. From September 2024 alone, its price rose roughly 100 times.

With a market capitalization of $808 million, SPX6900 ranks 96th in the overall crypto rankings for $0.86. Its all-time high was $1.77 in January 2025.

SPX6900 became another example proving that even seemingly absurd ideas can attract thousands of investors with aggressive marketing, overshadowing fundamental cryptocurrencies.

5. Dog (Bitcoin) (DOG)

Dog became the leading "dog-themed" meme coin in the Bitcoin ecosystem. It was created as a BRC-20 token using the high-profile Ordinals platform. Unlike many other meme tokens, all DOG tokens were distributed among holders of "ordinals" or Runestone artifacts.

Lack of utility didn't stop DOG from reaching a market capitalization of half a billion dollars just 24 hours after launch. The developers state that DOG's primary goal is to prove that "a meme coin can influence the global trend of cryptocurrency adoption."

Although the DOG team launched a store to sell branded merchandise, the meme coin itself isn't used for purchases; payment is accepted only in fiat and cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and USD Coin (USDC).

As of May, DOG's price is $0.005, and its market capitalization is $534 million, ranking it 124th among digital assets. Although DOG's price peaked at nearly double its launch price, it has only grown by 19% since listing in May 2024.