With its exponential growth and relentless innovation, the cryptocurrency market has seen the rise of numerous altcoins that offer unique investment opportunities. Among them, meme coins have emerged as a captivating and often controversial subgroup fueled by the power of internet memes and social media frenzy. While meme coins gained immense popularity in 2021 when Shiba Inu took the crypto sphere by storm, it is important to highlight that this subgroup of altcoins also comes with an inherent level of risk that could either make or break an investment portfolio.
Shiba Inu, a now well-known meme coin, first saw the light of day in August 2020 but only soared to unprecedented heights during the bull market of 2021. In the period between January 2021 and October 2021, SHIB’s price grew over 85,784,180% to reach the token’s ATH (all-time high) valuation of $0.00008845 on October 28, 2021.
Here are 8 meme coins with a Shiba Inu-like explosive potential:
In the following sections, we’ll embark on a journey through the unpredictable world of meme coins, exploring the factors that make them a captivating investment in an attempt to identify those that could potentially become the next Shiba Inu.
Let’s examine the meme-inspired cryptocurrencies that we believe have the potential to rally in the future due to a combination of lively communities and unique value propositions.
Pepe Coin (PEPE) is a deflationary meme coin launched on the Ethereum blockchain, paying homage to the Pepe the Frog internet meme created by Matt Furie. Capitalizing on the popularity of meme coins like Shiba Inu and Dogecoin, PEPE is one of the newest contenders for the title of the leading meme-based cryptocurrency. Shortly after its launch, PEPE experienced a significant surge in value, causing it to reach a market cap of $1.6 billion in late May 2023. This rapid growth attracted buyers and turned several early adopters into millionaires in the process.
PEPE differentiates itself from other meme coins through its no-tax policy, rewarding long-term stakers through a redistributive system, and implementing a burning mechanism to ensure scarcity of the PEPE coin. Founders of PEPE, on the other hand, remain anonymous. They do, however, regularly utilize social media platforms like Twitter to promote the meme coin and cultivate its devoted community. To conclude, Pepe Coin has several unique characteristics that could make it stand out among other meme coins, also in terms of price performance.
Dogwifhat (WIF) is a meme coin on the Solana blockchain that has become the main representative of Solana’s meme coin scene. Dogwifhat launched in November of 2023, which almost perfectly coincided with the resurgence of the Solana ecosystem. Positioned at the right place and at the right time, WIF benefited significantly as a growing number of crypto traders started paying close attention to the Solana ecosystem.
The Dogwifhat project is not promising any utility for the WIF token, and they don’t even provide a roadmap. The entire token revolves around an image of a Shiba Inu breed dog wearing a knitted hat, which is often edited by community members to create memes.
Although the fact that WIF has no utility whatsoever means that the token could easily crash in value, it also ironically works in favor of the token. By not making any promises at all, the Dogwifhat team seems to have completely embraced the high-risk and speculative nature of the crypto markets.
Dogwifhat is currently the tenth-largest meme coin by market capitalization, behind Floki Inu and SPX9600.
Bonk is a meme coin built on the highly scalable Solana blockchain. It gained widespread attention at launch in late 2022 after being distributed through a large airdrop to members of the Solana community. According to the project’s website, Bonk aims to limit the influence of venture capital firms within the Solana ecosystem while putting more control in the hands of everyday users.
The development team says BONK has been integrated into more than 130 products spanning gaming, betting, decentralized finance, and NFTs. The community has also launched several games that allow users to spend and earn BONK tokens, helping to expand its use beyond simple trading.
After the initial hype faded in 2022, interest in Bonk remained quiet for much of 2023. That changed dramatically toward the end of the year, when the token surged by more than 5,600% over the final three months. This rally pushed BONK into the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. The momentum continued into the 2024 market cycle, with Bonk reaching a new all-time high in November 2024. At the time of writing, BONK has a market cap just above $750 million, placing it just outside the top five meme coins.
Pudgy Penguins is a well-known NFT collection made up of 8,888 hand-drawn penguin characters minted on the Ethereum blockchain. Launched in July 2021, the project quickly gained recognition for its focus on community and positive branding within the NFT space. Holders, collectively referred to as “The Huddle,” are central to the project’s identity, with an emphasis on creativity, inclusivity, and shared ownership.
The project has grown beyond digital collectibles, expanding into physical merchandise, toys, and various forms of digital content. This broader strategy is designed to connect Web3 culture with mainstream audiences and establish Pudgy Penguins as a recognizable consumer brand rather than just an NFT collection.
Community engagement remains a core part of the ecosystem, supported by events, collaborations, and ongoing initiatives. Pudgy Penguins has also explored new on-chain concepts such as Soulbound Tokens, which are intended to strengthen digital identity and participation across its expanding ecosystem.
Floki Inu (FLOKI) is a cryptocurrency that emerged from the Shiba Inu (SHIB) community and draws inspiration from Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu dog. It aims to be the people’s cryptocurrency and serves as the utility token for the Floki Ecosystem. The project is focused on developing four flagship utility projects, including Valhalla, an NFT gaming metaverse, FlokiFi, a suite of decentralized finance products, FlokiPlaces, an NFT and merchandise marketplace, and the University of Floki, a content and education platform. The first-mentioned Valhalla project remains one of the main highlights of Floki’s development. It is an NFT gaming metaverse where players can earn rewards, battle with creatures called Vera, and engage in activities like gardening and trading assets.
Floki is managed by a decentralized community and has a core team representing the community’s interests. The members of the Floki community, who are known as the “Floki Vikings”, take social engagement very seriously. In addition, the project has formed quite a few partnerships with prominent crypto projects like Chainlink, Trader Joe, and ApeSwap. They work towards the long-term vision of creating an autonomous and decentralized ecosystem, combining memes with utility, and exploring various use cases through NFTs, games, and decentralized finance features.
Bone ShibaSwap (BONE) is the governance token of the ShibaSwap decentralized exchange (DEX), offering voting functionality to the Shib Army community. With BONE, users can vote on proposals, submit their suggestions, and gain access to future NFTs. The more BONE tokens held, the greater the voting power wielded by users. ShibaSwap, launched in July 2021, serves as an exchange platform for users to trade their SHIB tokens for other cryptocurrencies, and BONE which is an Ethereum-based token, acts as a crucial component in the Shiba ecosystem, which also includes the popular Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Doge Killer (LEASH) tokens.
The ShibaSwap platform offers various features, including liquidity provision (DIG), staking of SHIB, LEASH, and BONE tokens (BURY), ERC-20 token swapping, earning WOOF returns (rewards), migration of Uniswap V2 liquidity to ShibaSwap for additional BONE rewards (FETCH), and access to analytics through BONEFOLIO. With Shiba Inu ranking as the second most valuable meme coin by market capitalization, having reached a high of $40B, BONE presents an enticing opportunity within this vibrant ecosystem. In addition, ShibaSwap envisions building a metaverse platform by combining SHIB, LEASH, and BONE. This development aims to create the “best Decentralized Ecosystem (DECO) on the planet,” with BONE serving as the governance token of this revolutionary DAO called Doggy.
Fartcoin is a meme cryptocurrency developed on the Solana blockchain, originally conceived by an AI entity called Terminal of Truths. The idea for Fartcoin was first shared on the Infinite Backrooms platform, a hub where AI agents interact and exchange concepts.
After the initial suggestion, anonymous members of the crypto community took the idea and turned it into reality using the Pump.fun launchpad. The token officially launched in October 2024 and began to gain traction with notable price increases by November of the same year.
The inherently absurd nature of Fartcoin’s concept drew substantial attention, generating widespread publicity that further propelled its price growth. At its peak, Fartcoin achieved a market capitalization of roughly $1.5 billion.
Pump.fun is a meme coin launchpad built on the Solana blockchain that went viral in 2024. Rather than operating as a single cryptocurrency, the platform allows users to create and launch their own meme coins instantly, with no coding skills required. This approach has made it easy to turn internet jokes, trends, and viral moments into tradable tokens within minutes.
The platform quickly became a center for high-volume speculative activity on Solana, with thousands of new tokens being created every day. Most of these projects are short-lived, but a small number have managed to build active communities and secure listings on centralized exchanges.
By removing technical and financial barriers, Pump.fun has changed how meme coins come to market. Its model has accelerated the pace of token creation on Solana and reinforced the trend toward fast, community-driven meme coin launches.
Gone are the days when meme coins were underestimated and disregarded by crypto investors. Especially after Dogecoin’s and Shiba Inu’s remarkable performance in 2021, crypto enthusiasts often and eagerly seek the next best meme coin. In addition, meme tokens often boast strong communities and a high potential for deploying decentralized apps and projects. Perhaps also because of this, it is nowadays not a rarity that meme coins appear on lists of the best cryptocurrencies to invest in.
In this article, we presented the top 8 meme coins that we believe have a high potential to be the next coin to explode, with the reasoning behind each token’s inclusion. To conclude, we are adding a concise table of all the featured meme coins along with each token’s basic market data.
| Name | Ticker | Blockchain Platform | Launched | Market Cap* |
| Pepe Coin | PEPE | Ethereum | April 2023 | $2.06 billion |
| Dogwifhat | WIF | Solana | November 2023 | $325 million |
| Bonk | BONK | Solana | January 2023 | $777 million |
| Pudgy Penguins | PENGU | Solana | December 2024 | $603 million |
| Floki Inu | FLOKI | BNB | July 2021 | $405 million |
| Bone ShibaSwap | BONE | Ethereum | July 2021 | $18 million |
| Fartcoin | FARTCOIN | Solana | October 2024 | $1.21 billion |
| Pump.Fun | PUMP | Solana | July 2025 | 291 million |
*Market capitalization data as of January 21, 2026.
However, if you are a slightly more conservative investor, you might find some less memeable digital asset investment ideas in our top altcoin picks and the best long-term cryptos articles. In any case, it is crucial for you to conduct your own due diligence before making any investment decisions.


