Meme coins are among the hottest tokens in the crypto market right now. Famously volatile, some of the most significant meme coins have jumped more than 10,000% in recent months. Investors have made fortunes by buying the right meme coin at the right time.

Of course, not every meme coin is destined for glory, so investors need to be able to find high-potential tokens before they start to skyrocket. In this guide, we’ll rank the 10 best meme coins to buy in 2023 and explain everything investors need to know about buying meme coins.

Analysis of the Best Meme Coins to Buy

Now that investors know more about what meme crypto coins are and why they’re so popular, let’s take a closer look at the 10 best meme coins to invest in for 2023.

1. Meme Kombat ($MK) – Meme Token Presale Offers 112% PoS APY, Three ROI Mechanisms, and Enhanced Project Transparency

Meme Kombat ($MK) is a new idea within the meme coin industry as it brings together many different memes under one roof. The memes are randomly selected to face off against one another in combat. Spectators can see upcoming fights and do their research to see who they would like to bet upon. 

The first Season features eleven memes in total – Doge, Floki, Baby Doge, Milady, Kishu, Mong, Pepe, Pepe 2, Shiba, Sponge, and Wojack. These are the world’s most popular meme icons, some of them having millions of online followers. 

Meme Kombat could see some of this traffic. Players also have a diverse range of betting options when the memes are fighting against each other. This includes Direct, P v P, and P v Game. Side bets are also possible for specific outcomes. 

AI-rendered visuals offer vivid meme depictions while decentralized processing allows for automatic rewards and increased transparency. In fact, this is a project with extremely high levels of transparency. The founder can be viewed on LinkedIn, the presale scored well in its smart contract audit from Coinsult, and no token allocation has been withheld by the team. 

There is a total of 120 million $MK tokens. 60 million tokens are available in the presale at a cost of $0.1667. Of the remainder, 30% goes to staking, 10% to DEX liquidity, and 10% to community rewards.

The coin offers 3 ROI verticals. The first is APY (currently at 112%). The second is straight price appreciation. And the third is revenue from correctly placed combat wagers. 

This is a novel concept that benefits from meme appeal, and it’s highly transparent in its operations. 

More info can be found within the Meme Kombat Whitepaper, and it’s also a good idea to join the project socials (Telegram and Twitter).

2. Wall Street Memes ($WSM) – Red-Hot Meme Coin that’s Raised More Than Million, Now Live on OKX

Wall Street Memes is a new meme coin project that’s captured the attention of the entire crypto community. The project has raised an astounding $25 million, as one of the biggest presales of all time.

Though now listed on exchanges, it is still among the best cryptocurrency to invest in today.

Wall Street Memes, which also offers generous staking rewards, has successfully tapped into the sentiment of the community. It builds on the ethos of r/WallStreetBets, encouraging traders to band together and HODL while making fun of the greed and recklessness of TradFi.

The project has delivered a number of memorable memes and racked up more than 263,000 followers on Twitter. It’s also gotten the attention of Twitter owner and meme king Elon Musk, who’s retweeted several of the project’s memes.

Wall Street Memes is led by a project team that knows how to keep the viral content flowing. The same developers produced the Wall Street Bulls NFT collection in 2021, which sold out in just over 30 minutes.

The project has not only built an enormous community, but also generated a ton of enthusiasm for its $WSM token. The token is purely for the purpose of speculation and has no utility. But many analysts and crypto influencers say it could be the next meme cryptocurrency to explode in 2023.

This new cryptocurrency is now available on OKX and other exchanges. The token is very versatile, offering impressive APY rewards and being used in the live casino that just launched from Wall Street Memes.

3. Chimpzee ($CHMPZ) – Robot Chimp Meme Coin Helping the Planet While Investors Earn Through P2E Gaming and NFTs

Chimpzee is an exciting new meme coin designed to generate big returns for both investors and the environment. It’s a win-win project that enables investors to not just earn money, but also do a lot of good for the world.

The project has already made major strides in promoting sustainability during its presale. The Chimpzee team worked with nonprofits like The Giving Block, One Tree Planted, and Wild to plant more than 20,000 trees, restore the Brazilian rainforest, and donate $15,000 to save wild elephants.

There’s much more in store for Chimpzee’s charitable efforts. 10% of the project’s token supply has been allocated to charity, something that almost no other meme coin can claim.

Investors will find multiple ways to earn from owning $CHMPZ tokens beyond just price appreciation in the token. Owning $CHMPZ gives them access to the Zero Tolerance play-to-earn game, in which players can stop poachers and protect the rainforest from loggers. The more poachers players stop in the game, the more $CHMPZ they earn.

Chimpzee is also building an NFT marketplace to go with the Zero Tolerance game and a merch marketplace where a portion of every sale goes towards helping the environment.

Chimpzee has proven extremely popular among eco-conscious investors. The project’s presale has already raised more than $1.3 million and is just days away from its next price increase. For a limited time, investors can lock in $CHMPZ at a price of $0.00095.

4. ApeCoin ($APE) – Meme Coin Developed by Founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Collection

ApeCoin is a meme coin introduced by Yuga Labs, the company that brought the world the ultra-popular Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT collections.

$APE is more than just a meme coin. This ERC-20 token is designed to give its community governance over the ApeCoin DAO, which includes a community fund for future development. Development could include investing in new NFT projects, building out a metaverse or play-to-earn games, and much more.

Notably, Yuga Labs is also working on its own metaverse separately from the ApeCoin project. There’s widespread speculation that $APE will be the official token of this new metaverse, known as Otherside, when it launches. $APE jumped 22% when Yuga Labs offered a sneak peak of the Otherside metaverse last summer.

The price of $APE has been steadily declining since then as delays have held up the launch of Otherside. It’s currently trading at $1.47, down roughly 72% in the past year.

While that’s bad news for long-term $APE holders, it presents a huge opportunity for investors today. Otherside is coming, and when it does, $APE could skyrocket in value well beyond the price it achieved during the sneak peek last summer.

5. Dogelon Mars ($ELON) – Token Combining Elon Musk, Shiba Inus, and Rockets to the Moon

Dogelon Mars is a meme coin that launched in April 2021 to huge fanfare. Within days of launching, the token soared more than 4,500%, minting new crypto millionaires virtually overnight.

$ELON quickly fell back to earth after its pump, but the token pumped again a few months later. It’s had remarkable staying power and could be setting up for another meteoric rise later this year.

Part of the power of this token is that it combines so many elements that memesters love: Elon Musk, his obsession with going to Mars, the shiba inu meme, and the “to the moon” enthusiasm around meme coins.

Dogelon Mars is down nearly 60% in the past 12 months, another victim of the crypto winter. However, as the crypto winter comes to an end, the token could see a major turnaround. Many investors see the current moment as an opportunity to buy $ELON at a steep discount.

Signs of a turnaround are already there. The token has seen trading volume of nearly $20 million in recent days, a major uptick from last month. The token’s market cap sits at just under $70 million, so it has plenty of upside if momentum takes hold.

6. PepeCoin ($PEPE) – Explosive Meme Coin that Gained 10,000+% and Retains a Market Cap over 0 Million

PepeCoin is widely regarded as one of the most successful meme coins since Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.

This token soared more than 10,000% in April and captured the attention of mainstream financial outlets like CNBC. It was a reminder for the rest of the world that even though the market is in crypto winter, there are still fortunes to be made in crypto.

$PEPE is based on the Pepe the Frog meme, a meme that’s been popular on sites like Reddit and 4Chan for years. It was one of the first memes to break through that wasn’t based on a shiba inu and has inspired dozens of copycat tokens, including a Pepe v2.0 coin.

At its peak, $PEPE was doing more than $3 billion in daily trading volume. While it’s come down since the spring, the token is still up 1,775% since launch and has a market cap of more than $415 million. It’s also seeing nearly $80 million in trading volume per day.

Given its popularity and sustained trading volume, there’s every reason to think that $PEPE could pump again this year.

7. Shiba Inu ($SHIB) – Established Meme Coin with Newly Launched Shibarium Network

Shiba Inu, the original ‘Doge killer’ token, has proven to be a meme cryptocurrency with staying power. The coin rocketed to fame in 2021, when it soared to an all-time high of $0.000080.

Today, it’s down 90% from that high, but it still has a market cap of $4.8 billion. It’s the 15th-largest cryptocurrency by market cap and second only to Dogecoin in the meme coin category.

The price of $SHIB was hit hard by the crypto winter, but things could be turning around for this project soon. The development team behind Shiba Inu recently launched the Shibarium network, a custom blockchain that will support ultra-fast and low-cost transactions. The launch of the Shibarium network also opens the door for $SHIB staking, which can increase the value of the token.

A hitch in the Shibarium launch sent the $SHIB price downward, but don’t expect this pressure to last for long. The network is now fully operational and could deliver big gains for $SHIB investors in the long run.

8. Milady Meme Coin ($LADYS) – Explosive Meme Coin Backed by Elon Musk and a Popular NFT Collection

Milady Meme Coin is a meme coin that was inspired by a tweet from Elon Musk.

Musk tweeted an image of a Milady Maker NFT with the caption, “There is no meme. I love you.” The internet immediately exploded and the floor price of the NFT collection more than doubled within minutes. Within a day, an unidentified developer launched the $LADYS token and saw its price skyrocket 20,000%.

$LADYS has of course come down since then—that kind of price action is almost always unsustainable—but the token has retained a market cap of almost $20 million. It’s also seen a high degree of volatility, making it a favorite target for crypto traders.

In the past few weeks, the token spiked more than 30% and saw trading volume more than double. These types of short-term jumps can be very valuable for active investors who want to trade for a quick profit.

9. Dogecoin ($DOGE) – The Meme Coin that Started it all, with an .8 Billion Market Cap

Dogecoin is the original meme coin, launched way back in 2013 as a joke. The meme coin uses the same source code as Bitcoin, but has no limitations on how many $DOGE tokens can be mined.

While the tokenomics of $DOGE might seem poorly suited for retaining value, many believe that Dogecoin is actually the future of money. The token enables anyone to send money anywhere in the world instantly and with extremely low costs. For moving tokens around from one wallet to another, it’s arguably even better than Bitcoin.

Today, Dogecoin is the 8th-largest crypto by market cap, with a capitalization of more than $8.8 billion. It sees more than $200 million in daily trading volume on an average day and routinely spikes over $1 billion.

$DOGE is down 9% over the past year, which could represent an opportunity to buy the dip for investors. Look for this token to make a strong rebound when the crypto winter ends and prove that the market isn’t only about the newest meme coins.

10. Floki Inu ($FLOKI) – Doge-Themed Meme Coin Inspired by Elon Musk’s Dog, Floki

Floki Inu is one of many shiba inu-themed meme coins that launched in the wake of $SHIB’s explosive success in 2021. This token got its name from Elon Musk’s dog, Floki, who is in turn named after a Norse god.

$FLOKI is all about having fun. There’s no utility behind this token, but that hasn’t stopped memesters from embracing it. The token jumped more than 7,000% in the weeks after its launch and saw trading volume as high as $225 million.

$FLOKI has come down a lot from those highs, but there’s still a lot of potential in this token. It’s up more than 66% in the past 12 months, making it one of the strongest meme coins during the crypto winter. It also maintains a market cap of more than $170 million, showing that investors still love $FLOKI.

What Is a Meme Coin?

A meme coin is a cryptocurrency that has its origins in an internet meme or that presents itself as a potential meme.

Often, meme coins do not have utility or seek to solve a real-world problem. Instead, they’re designed to bring together the crypto community and encourage investors to take things less seriously.

That said, meme coins have become a large part of the crypto market and many have seen explosive price gains. As a result, meme coins are also widely used as instruments for price speculation.

Perhaps the best way to understand meme coins is to look at the original meme coin: Dogecoin. Dogecoin was created as a joke and was never intended to be traded as a real cryptocurrency with value. It was based on a meme that was popular at the time of a shiba inu with bad grammar.

Many crypto tokens with utility are not considered meme coins, but still have meme properties. For example, they may use a shiba inu as their token’s logo or have a token supply based on the numbers 69 or 420.

Meme coins can have their own blockchain (as is the case for Dogecoin), but most are built on existing blockchains like Ethereum. The majority of meme coins being built today are ERC-20 tokens that transact on the Ethereum blockchain.

Are Meme Coins a Good Investment?

One of the biggest questions investors have about meme coins is whether they are good investments. Meme coins are notoriously volatile, which means they can produce huge gains but also have potential to leave investors with significant losses.

So, it’s important to fully understand meme coins and the reasons why an investor might want to focus on them. Let’s take a look at some of the key benefits of investing in meme coins.

Explosive Price Potential

One of the main reasons why investors flock to meme coins is that they have the potential to mint millionaires. Dozens of crypto investors—so-called ‘Dogecoin millionaires’—made fortunes when Dogecoin exploded in 2020-2021. The same happened when Shiba Inu took off in 2021 and again when PepeCoin pumped earlier this year.

There’s no guarantee that any one meme crypto will explode in value after launch. But it’s happened so many times to so many different meme coins that investors have picked up on the pattern. There’s an art and a science to finding explosive meme coins, but this sector of the crypto market has a propensity for delivering huge short-term gains.

Building Community

While many investors are into meme coins for the potential monetary returns, many also enjoy investing in meme coins because of the community around this market sector. Meme coin investors tend to prioritize having a good time just as much as they prioritize winning, and the fun atmosphere around meme coins can be contagious.

Psychologists have found that even meme coins with no utility become ‘real’ when investors band together behind them. This psychological effect not only plays into helping push up the price of the most popular meme coins, but also adds to the non-monetary value that investors receive from meme coins.

Meme coin projects typically strive to build close-knit, loyal communities of investors. These investors may have a lot in common and can support each other through the wins and losses. This tight community is uncommon in the investing world, and it can be a big draw for investors.

Staking Opportunities

While many meme coins lack utility, a growing number offer staking rewards to investors. Investors can stake their meme tokens to validate transactions and earn additional tokens as a reward.

Staking offers investors a chance to increase their investment over time. Even if the value of the token were to remain constant, the investor would earn returns just from their staking rewards. If the price of a meme coin increases, staking can lead to significant gains.

The APYs that meme coins offer vary widely, but it can be in the triple digits. For example, Wall Street Memes currently offers investors 100% APY on staked $WSM tokens.

High Volatility

Volatility refers to the frequency and amplitude of price spikes in a cryptocurrency. Meme coins are famously highly volatile, meaning that they experience huge price swings in short periods of time.

High volatility isn’t necessarily something long-term crypto investors want, but it’s perfect for crypto day trading.

Crypto traders can find a meme coin that’s experiencing wild price swings and get in and out within the span of a single movement. Crypto traders can also place multiple trades on a single meme token in a day when it experiences very choppy price action.

Potential Risks of Meme Coins

Meme coins have the potential to deliver life-changing gains for investors when things go well. But it’s important to remember that investors can also lose money on meme coins. Let’s take a closer look at some of the potential risks of meme coin investing.

Price Volatility

Volatility in meme coins is a double-edged sword. Prices can go up, leading to quick gains, but they can also go down and cause rapid losses.

This is especially true in the early days of a meme coin’s life when the price is pumping. PepeCoin, for example, fell 70% in less than a week after hitting its all-time high. Investors who aren’t ready for these rapid price swings could see all of their gains from a meme coin’s pump wiped out.

The good news is that it’s possible to defend against price volatility to some extent. Investors can limit their losses using automated orders like stop losses. They can also exit a position sooner than they might for a less volatile asset in order to lock in gains.

Regulatory Uncertainty

Crypto investors need to be prepared for regulatory uncertainty that can impact prices across the market and hit meme coins especially hard.

In the US, there is uncertainty over whether meme coins are unregistered securities. In a recent lawsuit between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission, a judge found that crypto tokens are not securities in many cases. However, the SEC is appealing this decision, which could lead to an altered ruling on the status of many meme coins.

New lawsuits by the SEC and other regulatory agencies could cause meme coin prices to drop without warning. It’s also possible that new crypto legislation in progress in Congress could impact meme coin prices either positively or negatively.

Scams and Rug Pulls

Scams are a frequent threat in the crypto industry, especially when investors are buying new tokens that have just been created. Scams are particularly prevalent in the meme coin market since so much of this market relies on investors piling into a token as early as possible before it launches on exchanges.

One common type of scam to be aware of is a rug pull. A rug pull occurs when a meme coin’s development team takes the money raised during a presale, removing much of the liquidity from a project and leaving the token worthless.

The $BALD token is a recent example of a rug pull. The development team ran off with $25.6 million after investors piled into the token’s ICO on Coinbase’s new Base launch platform. The value of the $BALD token dropped more than 90% when the rug pull was discovered.

Decline in Investor Interest

Long-term meme coin investors need to be careful about how long they hold onto a meme coin for.

Some meme coins, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, have proven that they have years’ worth of staying power. But many meme coins pump shortly after launch and then begin a long and steady price decline.

With so many new meme coins launching, investors simply lose interest in older projects and slowly sell off their holdings. Meme coin prices are highly dependent on trading volume and demand, so without new demand for a token there’s nothing to support the price.

How to Find New Meme Coins with High Potential

One of the most challenging parts of investing in meme coins is finding high-potential tokens before they begin skyrocketing. The most successful meme coin investors are the ones who spot promising projects early, before other investors realize how big they can become.

There are several ways to find the newest meme coins that will explode after launch.

Crypto Presales

Many meme coins hold presales where investors can buy a new meme token before it starts trading on exchanges. Usually, presales offer early investors a lower price than the exchange list price—meaning that presale investors could have unrealized gains from the moment a coin begins trading.

Investors can find the best crypto presales by keeping their eyes open on social media. Most new meme coin projects announce their presales on crypto Twitter and Reddit. They also have websites where investors can join the presale.

DexTools

DexTools is a crypto data platform that tracks crypto tokens trading on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). It’s a great platform for finding meme coins that have recently launched on DEXs. It’s also one of the first places to find price charts and transaction data for newly launched tokens.

DexTools has some useful tools for discovering new meme coins. The platform keeps a list of trending tokens based on trading volume, enabling investors to quickly find meme coins that are spiking in popularity.

DexTools also keeps a list of the biggest daily gainers in the crypto market. This list often includes meme coins since these tokens are so volatile.

Crypto Influencers

Crypto influencers are often among the first to bring attention to new meme coin projects that could explode. They might highlight a new token on their Twitter feed, make a YouTube video explaining what a new coin is all about, or write a blog post highlighting the projects they’re watching right now.

Examples of well-known crypto influencers include Jacob Bury and Ben Armstrong. Jacob Bury’s YouTube channel was one of the first to highlight massively successful meme coins like Tamadoge, and he’s been a big fan of Wall Street Memes since its presale launched.

Keep in mind that crypto influencers often have a financial stake in the projects they’re talking about. They want to build hype around these projects because they stand to earn a gain if the token pumps after launch. Of course, investors can also take part in this pump and earn returns—but it’s important to remember that influencers have skin in the game.

Crypto Launchpads

Crypto launchpads like Coinbase’s Base, DAO Maker, Pancakeswap, and Uniswap often host initial DEX offerings (IDOs) for new meme coins. These platforms take part in the marketing effort around the coins they’re hosting, so following them can be a good way to find out about new launches.

For example, DAO Maker keeps a list of all upcoming IDOs on the platform. Keeping an eye on the website for upcoming launches can be a good way to find out about new high-potential meme tokens.

Conclusion

Meme coins have produced fortunes for savvy investors who got in on the ground floor of popular projects and sold at the peak. While not every meme coin will be successful, we’ve identified 10 projects that we think offer high potential returns for investors in 2023.

One of the best meme coins for 2023 is Meme Kombat ($MK). It’s a completely new idea to combine the world’s most successful memes under one architecture. Players can bet on fight outcomes and still benefit from a steady 112% yield.

This is also one of the most transparent projects we have seen this year, with a publicly available founder and a clean smart contract audit.

References

• https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/06/millennial-dogecoin-millionaire-on-being-paid-in-dogecoin.html
• https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/12/30/the-psychology-of-meme-coins-from-actual-investors/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tab16Kv04U
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvmP-hBy_cM
• https://decrypt.co/105329/apecoin-surges-22-after-bored-ape-yacht-club-demos-otherside-metaverse
• https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/05/ether-rallies-more-than-6percent-as-meme-mania-reenters-the-crypto-market.html
• https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2023/05/10/elon-musk-tweets-a-milady-nft-floor-price-soars-on-opensea/
• https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-dogecoin-2013-12
• https://news.bloomberglaw.com/crypto/ripple-token-is-a-security-in-institutional-sales-judge-rules
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-18/sec-moves-to-appeal-ripple-ruling-that-crypto-is-not-a-security
• https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-congressional-committee-set-weigh-crypto-bills-2023-07-26/
• https://decrypt.co/150693/following-meme-coin-mania-on-coinbases-base-one-token-appears-to-be-a-rug
• https://www.youtube.com/c/jacobcryptobury

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