It’s easy to dismiss meme coins. The conventional thinking has always been that you should steer clear of them. They are too risky and too speculative, and it’s nearly impossible to make money with them over the long haul.
Prior to 2025, the idea of adding meme coins to a long-term investment portfolio would have sounded absurd. But something happened in January that may have fundamentally changed the way the investment world thinks about meme coins.
Meme coins and the Trump presidency
That event, of course, was the launch of a meme coin by President Donald Trump. The launch occurred on the night of Jan. 17, just days before the inauguration, without forewarning of any kind. In fact, when people woke up the next morning, it was impossible to determine whether this was a real meme coin or not.
Amid all the hullabaloo on social media, the Official Trump meme coin (which has the ticker $TRUMP) soared to a valuation of $10 billion in 48 hours. And it was soon followed by a Melania Trump meme coin, which soared to a $1.5 billion valuation.
Even after a significant pullback in price, the Trump meme coin now stands as the 25th-largest cryptocurrency in the world, with a massive $6.5 billion valuation. Only two meme coins have a higher valuation right now: Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB).
New strategies for investing in meme coins
There are several potential ways to invest in the meme coin phenomenon without actually investing in individual meme coins. For example, you could invest in Layer-1 blockchains like Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) where meme coins are being actively created and traded. The Trump meme coin launched on Solana, for example, because it has become the premier blockchain for meme coins.
Over the past year, there has been a noticeable uptick in Solana’s activity metrics. The number of new users is up year over year, as is overall transaction activity. In fact, 24-hour trading volume is now higher on Solana than on Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH).
The reason for this is simple: If you want to buy and sell Solana meme coins, then you need to go to a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange on the Solana blockchain. And that means you will need to buy some Solana tokens to pay for those Solana meme coins. All of this is positive for the long-term growth of Solana. It means more users, more user activity, and more revenue for members of the Solana blockchain ecosystem.
Of course, you have other options as an investor. You could experiment with new artificial intelligence (AI) agents that specialize in meme coin investing. There are so many meme coins right now, looking for the best one to invest in is akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. So why not let an AI agent do all the heavy lifting for you?
At some point, there will likely be exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with meme coin holdings. Imagine, for example, a new dog meme ETF that holds only dog-themed meme coins, such as Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Bonk (CRYPTO: BONK), dogwifhat (CRYPTO: WIF) and Floki (CRYPTO: FLOKI). All of these rank among the Top 75 cryptocurrencies in the world. Such a fund would let you diversify away some of the risk of holding individual meme coins.
Meme coins for the long haul?
The meme coin phenomenon is a combination of different factors: the rise of populism, the expanding divide between the “haves” and “have-nots” in society, the popularity of social media and meme culture on the internet, and the growing sense of unease among young people that they might not live better than their parents.
All of these factors are helping to push investors into meme coins. The mindset leading to this situation is pretty clear: If AI is coming for their jobs, and if the American Dream no longer seems as attainable as it once did, what other options are there? Meme coins might be risky and speculative, but at least they also offer the allure of 100x and 1,000x returns.
This is not to say that you should be investing in meme coins. The data continues to show that 99% of investors will lose money by investing in meme coins.
But if you do decide to dabble, you should find ways to diversify your risk as much as possible. Look for ways to invest in meme coins indirectly rather than directly. And above all, remember that meme coins were originally created for entertainment purposes only, and were never designed to be investment assets.
Dominic Basulto has positions in Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The Motley Fool is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news, analysis and commentary designed to help people take control of their financial lives. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
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