Two ledgers of the same conversion. A memecoin issues a joke directly as a tradable asset. A memetic act does the same with a phrase, a prop, a number, a stunt or an image, usually from the top down. The register records each case and the moment it best illustrates the model.
Created by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer as a joke about crypto speculation, using the Shiba Inu “doge” meme.
Repeatedly promoted by Elon Musk. The price fell sharply around his May 2021 Saturday Night Live appearance, where he called it a hustle in a sketch. In 2025 the acronym was reused for a US government department.
Launched by an anonymous founder as the “Dogecoin killer”: a joke about a joke.
Half the supply was sent unsolicited to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. In 2021 he burned most of it and donated a share, worth over a billion dollars on paper, to a COVID-19 relief fund in India.
Built on Matt Furie’s Pepe the Frog, without involvement of the artist.
Its own website stated that the coin had no intrinsic value and was for entertainment only. It reached a market value of several billion dollars anyway.
Released weeks after the collapse of FTX, when the Solana ecosystem was in crisis.
Half the supply was airdropped for free to Solana users and developers. A morale booster issued as a currency.
A photo of a Shiba Inu wearing a pink knitted hat. That is the entire whitepaper.
In 2024 holders crowdfunded roughly $700,000 to show the dog on the Las Vegas Sphere.
Named after Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu.
Ran an advertising campaign on the London Underground. The UK advertising regulator ruled the ads irresponsible for trivialising investment in an unregulated product.
Launched three days before the 2025 US presidential inauguration. Most of the supply was held by entities linked to its issuers.
In May 2025 the largest holders were invited to a private dinner with the president. Access to office, priced in a meme.
Small holders. By May 2025 about 764,000 wallets had lost money, while 58 wallets made more than $10 million each, $1.1 billion in total. Wallets tied to the creators collected over $324 million in trading fees.
Launched two days after $TRUMP, by the same household.
Its price fell steeply within weeks. The sequel underperformed the original.
Late buyers. According to the Financial Times, 24 wallets earned $99.6 million by buying in the two and a half minutes before the coin was announced.
Presented as a fund for Argentine small businesses.
Promoted by Argentine president Javier Milei on X in February 2025. It collapsed within hours, the post was deleted, and investigations followed.
Retail traders. Nansen found that 86% of larger wallets lost money, $251 million in total, while about 2,100 wallets took roughly $180 million in profit. In October 2026 an Argentine judge cleared Milei, finding no crime; an appeal followed.
Emerged from the AI-agent meme scene around the chatbot Truth Terminal.
Passed a billion dollars in market value within months. Holders described its value proposition in terms best left unquoted.
An unofficial token riding on the popularity of the Netflix series.
Buyers discovered they could not sell. The creators withdrew the liquidity, worth millions, and disappeared. The model’s cycle, completed in one step.
Everyone who bought. The developers drained an estimated $3.38 million on 1 November 2021; more than 40,000 holders were left with tokens they could not sell.
Based on a photo of a cat edited to open and close its mouth, first popular as a clicking game in which countries competed for the most clicks.
A contest in pure, purposeless attention, later issued as a token. The clicks were always the product; the coin made it official.
Named after Brett, Pepe’s roommate in Matt Furie’s comic Boy’s Club. Again without the artist.
Became the leading memecoin on the blockchain built by a listed crypto exchange. A supporting character, promoted to mascot of an ecosystem.
Named after “mogging”: online slang for outclassing someone in looks or status.
Holders added pixel sunglasses to their profile pictures to signal membership. A status game, issued as a currency.
Launched by an anonymous user after the AI chatbot Truth Terminal kept posting about a crude internet meme it called the “Goatse Gospel”.
Passed a billion dollars in market value. The first memecoin made famous by an AI that had already received a sizeable crypto donation from a venture capitalist.
Launched two days after the first video of an AI-generated character, and promoted from the character’s own accounts.
A token under the name lost more than 99% within a day; another was valued at about $8.8 million on a liquidity pool of $415,000. The creator earns a fee on every trade, up or down.
Launched in December 2024 by Haliey Welch, who went viral earlier that year with a two-word answer in a street interview.
The price collapsed by more than 90% within hours of launch, amid accusations that insiders had bought early and sold into the hype. A lawsuit followed. Fifteen minutes of fame, tokenised and liquidated.
Many first-time crypto buyers, according to the lawsuit. Twelve plaintiffs reported combined losses of over $151,000 after a crash of more than 90% from a peak near $490 million.
Ticker prices are live market data. Nothing in this register is financial advice, political advice, or advice.
The Register is incomplete by design. If you know of a coin, term or memetic act that belongs here, file it with the Institute. Include the name, the date, what happened and at least one source. Filings are reviewed before inclusion; not every filing is accepted.
Submit a filing submissions@kekonomics.comMost of the meme economy converts attention into value indirectly: through platforms, advertising, merchandise. Memecoins skip the intermediaries. The joke is minted, listed and traded on the same day, and its price is a direct reading of how much attention it holds.
The register shows a recurring pattern. A coin starts as a parody of speculation, attracts speculation, and is then adopted by the people it was parodying: billionaires, celebrities, and eventually heads of state. At each step the joke becomes less funny and more expensive.
In the terms of the model, fundamentals are not low. They are absent by design, and several projects say so openly. That honesty has not reduced demand.
Memetic acts run the same cycle from the other end. A chainsaw, a phrase or a car in orbit is produced by people who already hold power, and released to be copied. The audience does the distribution. The return is paid in attention, and attention converts.