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A meme coin is a cryptocurrency that originated from an Internet meme or has some other humorous characteristic. It may be used in the broadest sense as a critique of the cryptocurrency market in its entirety, those based on particular memes, such as "dog coins", celebrities like Coinye, and pump-and-dump schemes such as BitConnect. The term is often dismissive, comparing the value or performances of those cryptocurrencies to that of mainstream ones. Supporters, on the other hand, observe that some meme coins have reached high market capitalizations.
In late 2013, Dogecoin was released after being created as a joke on the Doge meme by software engineers. This sparked the creation of several subsequent meme coins. In October 2021, there were about 124 meme coins circulating in the market. Notable examples include Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.
In late 2021, advertisements promoting the meme coin Floki Inu in London led to subsequent investigations around promoting the meme coin, considered to be an unregulated financial product by the ASA.
Some countries have taken steps to regulate meme coins. In early 2021, Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission banned meme coins as part of a crackdown on digital goods with "no clear objective or substance". However, not all so-called meme coins are devoid of substance and purpose. For example, the microcap Pawthereum uses a small tax on each transaction to help animal charities, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.