Memecoin vs Shitcoin; Key Differences
You’re probably familiar with Elon Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, which features a dog’s face and consistently ranks within the top 10 in terms of cryptocurrency market capitalization. Dogecoin is often considered a memecoin in the crypto world, and, similar to memecoins, there are shitcoins.
Oftnley, Memecoin, and Shitcoin cause confusion, but it’s essential to understand the distinctions between them to make the right investment and usage decisions.
This post explains the key difference between Memecoin and Shitcoin.
Before delving into the differences, let’s clarify what memecoin and shitcoin actually mean.
What Is a Memecoin?
A Memecoin is a cryptocurrency based on popular memes, jokes, and references from pop culture.
Specifically, a Memecoin is a type of cryptocurrency that represents a well-known social media joke or meme and typically lacks serious intentions, goals, purposes, or a clear value proposition.
The popular memecoin is the Dogecoin, Shiba Inu Coin (also featuring the Doge meme), Monacoin (with a cat girl anime meme), and Garlicoin (featuring an internet meme about garlic bread). These memcoins intentionally leverage memes to brand the currency and generate interest through such viral content.
Here are Some Characteristics of Memecoin.
- High social media presence, inspired by the viral internet meme.
- A Strong and dedicated community and fan base.
- Humorous and catchy names, Often featuring silly or comical branding.
- Low entry barrier and affordability.
- May lack technological vision, subject to speculative bubbles around meme hype.
What Is Shitcoin?
Shitcoin takes the Memecoin concept further. There are no serious intentions behind creating Shitcoin.
These cryptocurrencies are intentionally created without any serious use cases. Instead, they are often born as jokes, scams, or social experiments, relying on hype, speculation, and manipulation to attract investors and artificially inflate their prices.
Some Shitcoin examples are Useless Ethereum Token (A joke copy of Ethereum with no utility), FuckToken (a vulgar name and imagery with no purpose), and CumRocket (another vulgar memecoin).
Some Characteristics of Shitcoin.
- Created as a joke or outright scams.
- No white paper or technology vision even copies technology from other cryptocurrencies.
- Poor security or scalability.
- Fake utility promises and highly volatile inflation.
- Low liquidity and Market cap.
- Developer abandonment after the launch.
- Provocative names and branding with no real purpose.
Now that you have the precise definitions of Memecoins and Shitcoins, distinguishing between them can be a bit challenging. Here is a list of key differences.
Key Differences of Memecoin and Shitcoin.
| Differences. | Memecoin. | Shitcoin. |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose. | Memecoin is based around the popular meme to get more eyeballs and be famous. | Shitcoin’s main purpose is to provide quick returns for creators and investors. |
| Marketing. | Memecoin leverages existing meme popularity to spread awareness and generate hype. | Shitcoins try to trick investors with fake promises and buzzwords. |
| Developers. | Dogecoin and other memecoins have active developer communities to keep them functioning. | Shitcoin’s main purpose is quick returns, so typically, developers abandon the project after the launch. |
| Community. | Memecoin brings new people to the crypto market and builds a loyal fan base with a fun spirit. | There is no strong community backing up because shitcoins attempt to make money from uninformed investors in quick succession. |
| Value. | Some memcoins like Doge retain billions in market value due to community sentiment. | Shitcoins have no value proposition at all. |
| Technology. | Since the developers are active, memecoin technology is generally more robust and cutting-edge. | Shitcoin technology is frequently subpar or has not been tried. |
Ok, these are all the key differences between memecoin and shitcoin, but the most intriguing part about these coins is the investment risk.
It is crucial to understand risks associated with both types of coins because both originate from jokes and memes. Memcoins differentiate themselves through consistent branding and community support, capturing real (if inflated) value.
Here are some points you have to consider before taking risks.
- Both memcoins and shitcoins are prone to Ponzi scheme-like bubbles and crashes based on flimsy premises.
- Without technological innovation or problem solving, fundamental support for their valuations is weak or nonexistent.
- Vulnerability to pump and dump manipulations and other schemes.
- Market valuations and spikes fueled by social media shilling and orchestrated hype campaigns.
- Lack of regulation allows scammers freedom to engineer hype cycles, bogus valuations, and fake utility claims.
Conclusion.
Unlike cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others that aim to provide innovations in digital payments, smart contract platforms, decentralized finance, and more. Memecoins and shitcoins have no technological vision or solution in mind. They essentially piggyback off the blockchain infrastructure built by serious crypto projects, adding no value to themselves besides entertainment and speculation.
Even though both coins don’t make any sense, they become tools for speculations, and their volatility produces massive short term gains.
For this one reason, many speculators promote meme or shitcoins aggressively. However, to avoid FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and investing in real technology-backed, transparent, and fundamentally driven crypto projects with adoption roadmaps is the key to achieving long-term returns.