Are early memecoins always profitable?

[Stable090]

Memecoins always work like gambling with a rare chance of giving a return on investment because they have no use case, and devs work for their own interest;

I do see people that invest in meme coin as a gambler also, I don’t really see much difference in them. Meme coin investors are so crazy, I see no reason why someone will invest in a coin, and will be praying for luck to happen. Meme coin investment depends on luck, just pray you identify the right coin, and you buy at the right time, and sell at the right time also. When it comes to bitcoin investment, technical analysis doesn’t always work. I don’t even know how meme coins investors are making profits, because the loss is always much.

[kawetsriyanto]

If we look back in 2017, that was a year in which ICOs were in full hype and thousands of ICOs were launched in that single year with huge failure ratio. There are handful memecoins that have good market cap and survived few years (Like doge, Shiba Inu, Pepe) while majority were either scam or failed to take off after their initial launch. New memecoins are only wastage of your money and must be avoided at all costs. If you are investing in alts then better go for top 10 or 20 alts listed on CMC.    

- Doge was launched in 2013
- Shiba Inu was launched in 2020
- PEPE was launched in 2023

All the memecoins you mentioned above have nothing to do with the ICO in 2017.  

However, it is true that 2017 was the time that ICO projects was very popular. At that time, people were FOMO with ICO projects. Unfortunately, as far as I know majority of people got huge losses.

Agree. It is better to focus in accumulating the top 10 coins for investment, especially for the long term investment.

[o48o]

- Doge was launched in 2013
- Shiba Inu was launched in 2020
- PEPE was launched in 2023

All the memecoins you mentioned above have nothing to do with the ICO in 2017.  

However, it is true that 2017 was the time that ICO projects was very popular. At that time, people were FOMO with ICO projects. Unfortunately, as far as I know majority of people got huge losses.

Agree. It is better to focus in accumulating the top 10 coins for investment, especially for the long term investment.

Not to mention that successful memecoins represent 0.0000000001% of the memecoins ever launched and i am probably too generous with that statistic. They are even more rare.

But generally, when something is being overly hyped like icos in 2017, it's near ATH of that trend anyway and bad choice to pick any winners because everything is going down from there anyway. Most of them won't ever come back up, no matter if they are memecoin or not.

[Felicity_Tide]

I do see people that invest in meme coin as a gambler also, I don’t really see much difference in them. Meme coin investors are so crazy, I see no reason why someone will invest in a coin, and will be praying for luck to happen. Meme coin investment depends on luck, just pray you identify the right coin, and you buy at the right time, and sell at the right time also. When it comes to bitcoin investment, technical analysis doesn’t always work. I don’t even know how meme coins investors are making profits, because the loss is always much.

And just like a user said, buying memecoins is like buying a mystery box when you're unsure of what's going to be inside. I can't technically call them gamblers because what most of them do is a bit beyond gambler. Even in gambling, especially sport betting, there are some bets that gives you a certain level of certainty, even though luck is still involved, which is unlike memecoins where there is literally no certainty especially when buying random projects.

Mind you, it's difficult to identify what's a right project. I wouldn't eliminate the possibility, but it's nearly impossible to identify the right one because there are no 'right' memecoins on or before the day they're released/launched. What becomes of them few days/months/years after launch, is what determines whether you got your hands on the right one or not, which makes them a very risky investment option.

[kawetsriyanto]

Not to mention that successful memecoins represent 0.0000000001% of the memecoins ever launched and i am probably too generous with that statistic. They are even more rare.

You're right. There are too few successful memecoins. I'm not sure about the percentage, it may be smaller than what you assumed. In the past, I monitored dozens of new memecoin projects, less than 5 of the new memecoins could stay in the market for quite a long time. Seeing that small chance to succeed, I have no interest to invest in new memecoins.

But generally, when something is being overly hyped like icos in 2017, it's near ATH of that trend anyway and bad choice to pick any winners because everything is going down from there anyway. Most of them won't ever come back up, no matter if they are memecoin or not.

Altcoins are different than Bitcoin, especially random altcoins. We have seen too many of them never returning to its best price anymore. That's why we call altcoins are very risky to hold for a long time. Even more it is random memecoins. I even have no enough bravery to hold a short time or to trade them. Yep, keep holding or buying when it has been increasing very high, it will be always bad idea.

[Johnlomape]

Memecoins always work like gambling with a rare chance of giving a return on investment because they have no use case, and devs work for their own interest;

I do see people that invest in meme coin as a gambler also, I don’t really see much difference in them. Meme coin investors are so crazy, I see no reason why someone will invest in a coin, and will be praying for luck to happen. Meme coin investment depends on luck, just pray you identify the right coin, and you buy at the right time, and sell at the right time also. When it comes to bitcoin investment, technical analysis doesn’t always work. I don’t even know how meme coins investors are making profits, because the loss is always much.

People are not investing in memecoins like the way we used to see then when their are thousands of memecoins showing up in the market every month. Now they are limited and we do not see up rising in the number of memecoins.
People that are investing in memecoins know what they are looking for and it's that quick profits that will help them to make faster profits from their investments which do not happen too often. Anyone can be profitable from buying memecoins but it can become risky when you starts losing money.

[Odusko]

Memecoins always work like gambling with a rare chance of giving a return on investment because they have no use case, and devs work for their own interest;

I do see people that invest in meme coin as a gambler also, I don’t really see much difference in them. Meme coin investors are so crazy, I see no reason why someone will invest in a coin, and will be praying for luck to happen. Meme coin investment depends on luck, just pray you identify the right coin, and you buy at the right time, and sell at the right time also. When it comes to bitcoin investment, technical analysis doesn’t always work. I don’t even know how meme coins investors are making profits, because the loss is always much.

People are not investing in memecoins like the way we used to see then when their are thousands of memecoins showing up in the market every month. Now they are limited and we do not see up rising in the number of memecoins.
People that are investing in memecoins know what they are looking for and it's that quick profits that will help them to make faster profits from their investments which do not happen too often. Anyone can be profitable from buying memecoins but it can become risky when you starts losing money.

Investors are tired of losing money to memecoins investments, because from all that they have put their money into as far as memecoins is concerned, it has always been a big disappointment and only the team make the profits by dumping their bag load of coins into the market and exit from the market without any second thought about their investors.

[AlexFoxsY]

I do not think that early meme coins are very profitable.
All meme coins are very risky and many people lose money on them.
I am sure and much more people lost their money on meme coins than win money on meme coins.
What do you think about this

[o48o]

I do see people that invest in meme coin as a gambler also, I don’t really see much difference in them. Meme coin investors are so crazy, I see no reason why someone will invest in a coin, and will be praying for luck to happen. Meme coin investment depends on luck, just pray you identify the right coin, and you buy at the right time, and sell at the right time also. When it comes to bitcoin investment, technical analysis doesn’t always work. I don’t even know how meme coins investors are making profits, because the loss is always much.

That's by pure speculation that price is going to rise and that you can get out fast enough, or at the right time to make profit (which is the reason that most cryptos are bought for). That is if you manage to find one to make profit with.

Majority of the investors won't make any profits, but that goes with rest of the altcoins as well. No matter what you are putting your money into, it's mainly luck if you manage to make profit from it.

Imho in 99.999...% of altcoins the whole "real use cases" of them is just snake oil, which is worse then what memecoins are marketing with. Use cases are never anything more then it is with memecoins. If there's real world or meta usecases, then it needs to be cheap enough to use so it doesn't make sense for them to moon in price.

[Abiky]

You're right. There are too few successful memecoins. I'm not sure about the percentage, it may be smaller than what you assumed. In the past, I monitored dozens of new memecoin projects, less than 5 of the new memecoins could stay in the market for quite a long time. Seeing that small chance to succeed, I have no interest to invest in new memecoins.

The problem is the market is oversaturated with "meme" coins. If there's a lot of "meme" coins, investors won't find them appealing. I mean, what's the use of having zillions of "meme" coins which serve the exact same purpose? What truly generates demand, is uniqueness. This translates to higher market prices over the long term.

Only invest in "meme" coins if you're looking into short-term profits. The reward is high, but the risk is also higher. Just invest what you can afford to lose. My guess is that most "meme" coins will die, leaving us with Dogecoin and a small few alternatives. We'll see what happens...

[Stable090]

The problem is the market is oversaturated with "meme" coins. If there's a lot of "meme" coins, investors won't find them appealing. I mean, what's the use of having zillions of "meme" coins which serve the exact same purpose? What truly generates demand, is uniqueness. This translates to higher market prices over the long term.

It’s not about the market being over saturated alone. Most of the meme coins entering the market right now do turn out to be a scam one, very few of them are real, and they don’t end up being successful because people are scared to invest in them. You going to find it so difficult to differentiate between the real meme coins, and the scam ones are the one that’s flooding the market right now, that’s why most people are just losing interest in meme coins, because people have been scammed multiple times before.

Only invest in "meme" coins if you're looking into short-term profits. The reward is high, but the risk is also higher. Just invest what you can afford to lose. My guess is that most "meme" coins will die, leaving us with Dogecoin and a small few alternatives. We'll see what happens...

If you are planning to hold a coin for long term, meme coins are wrong coins which you are suppose to leave your money in, and anyone planning to go into memecoin investment, I always advise them to be so careful, and I do tell them about the risk involved in it.

[Abu-Naim]

I do not think that early meme coins are very profitable.
All meme coins are very risky and many people lose money on them.
I am sure and much more people lost their money on meme coins than win money on meme coins.
What do you think about this

All meme coins are very risky to invest in, but they are profitable if your risk favored you. The early investment is a big risk to take, if you read about the project and you are convinced about the project, you decide to invest early maybe at the the presale or buy very early, and then sell once it get listed in a big exchange or maybe hit the hype they needed to boost the project, but sometimes, it doesn’t work that way, you can be an early investor and still end up losing money if the project failed and that’s the risk we are talking about. Therefore, it’s like a game, it’s either you make profit, or you lose money, but if you are to make profit, it will surely be a massive profit, while if you are also in the bad side of the market, you can lose your capital within few seconds.

[Callido]

People are not investing in memecoins like the way we used to see then when their are thousands of memecoins showing up in the market every month. Now they are limited and we do not see up rising in the number of memecoins.
People that are investing in memecoins know what they are looking for and it's that quick profits that will help them to make faster profits from their investments which do not happen too often. Anyone can be profitable from buying memecoins but it can become risky when you starts losing money.

It takes little effort to create a memecoin project, the hardest part when trying to scam with a memecoin project is finding ways to gain publicity and attract investors to invest or participate in ICO, once they can boost the attention of the project and attract investors, it is a job well done, as they have achieved the first step before plans of rug pulling when they've made so much gain from early buyers.

Some memecoins may decide to give profits to early investors who paid attention to the project before others, they do that to lure more investors before pulling out. Taking the risk on memecoins early is better than joining after a pump that got your interest, very difficult to have another pump.

[MAAManda]

All meme coins are very risky and many people lose money on them.
I am sure and much more people lost their money on meme coins than win money on meme coins.

Your assumption might be right, mate. Based on research conducted by CoinGecko for the Pump.fun platform, in recent years more users have lost than gained. Take a look at the infographic below:

Image Source: CoinGecko

Next, let us focus on & compile the data from April 2024 to April 2025 (one year's worth of data). Are we seeing more gainers than losers?

Well, that’s just 1 month of profit out of 12. However, since 2026 there's more data about users who have made a profit than who have lost.

[kawetsriyanto]

The problem is the market is oversaturated with "meme" coins. If there's a lot of "meme" coins, investors won't find them appealing. I mean, what's the use of having zillions of "meme" coins which serve the exact same purpose? What truly generates demand, is uniqueness. This translates to higher market prices over the long term.

You're right. There are too many memecoins with similar concept, so it is quite reasonable that the market is getting oversaturated. Moreover, there are too many investors who have bad experience with memecoins. This also leads to lack of interest on the memecoin projects. Long term investors should avoid investing in memecoins anymore, they prefer to choose more trusted crypto coins.

Only invest in "meme" coins if you're looking into short-term profits. The reward is high, but the risk is also higher. Just invest what you can afford to lose. My guess is that most "meme" coins will die, leaving us with Dogecoin and a small few alternatives. We'll see what happens...

Even if I want to invest in a short term coin, I personally prefer to choose the coins with clearer fundamental. TBH, I assume holding memecoins is more like gambling than investing. Even it is for Dogecoin, I can't really trust it although it is the top 10 crypto coin. I will choose the altcoins with high volatility if I want to invest in a short time. But it still must be the top 25 or 30 crypto coins.

[Alpha Marine]

I do see people that invest in meme coin as a gambler also, I don’t really see much difference in them. Meme coin investors are so crazy, I see no reason why someone will invest in a coin, and will be praying for luck to happen. Meme coin investment depends on luck, just pray you identify the right coin, and you buy at the right time, and sell at the right time also. When it comes to bitcoin investment, technical analysis doesn’t always work. I don’t even know how meme coins investors are making profits, because the loss is always much.

Yeah, I also see memecoin trading like gambling. You just have to hope you bet on the right token. People who have the most money win more because they can bet on more coins, but I don't think it's wrong for people to invest in them if they know what they are actually going into. I mean, if they know that what they're going into is gambling and based on luck, and they do it responsibly, then I don't see anything wrong in it. They should also not see it as a get-rich-quick scheme.
If people can gambling on casinos and on sports, then I don't see a problem in gambling on memes as long as you're aware that what you're doing is gambling.
You might get lucky and hit a coin that will give you so much profit, just as people get lucky with gambling. The problem is, a lot of people that trade memcoins don't see it as gambling.

[SOKO-DEKE]

I’d like to know, do you think investing in memecoins early on is always profitable? Or do you think history will repeat itself just like with some memecoins on other networks?

Almost all memecoin projects are created to scam people. Only a few of them are created for specific purposes, and that is the only reason memecoin projects hardly last in the crypto market.So, with that, I will say that it is mostly luck that allows some people to make a profit from memecoins. However, I would say that the chances of getting lucky and making a profit from memecoin projects are higher for early investors because that is the period when they easily gain hype. People are likely to gamble by buying and holding them for a few days before selling them back.Smart people who understand how memecoins work don't hold them for the long term because they know it is mostly about pump and dump. So, there is a high chance that what happens with memecoins will continue to repeat itself.It is very hard to trust memecoin projects.

[Ahli38]

I’d like to know, do you think investing in memecoins early on is always profitable? Or do you think history will repeat itself just like with some memecoins on other networks?

Almost all memecoin projects are created to scam people. Only a few of them are created for specific purposes, and that is the only reason memecoin projects hardly last in the crypto market.So, with that, I will say that it is mostly luck that allows some people to make a profit from memecoins. However, I would say that the chances of getting lucky and making a profit from memecoin projects are higher for early investors because that is the period when they easily gain hype. People are likely to gamble by buying and holding them for a few days before selling them back.Smart people who understand how memecoins work don't hold them for the long term because they know it is mostly about pump and dump. So, there is a high chance that what happens with memecoins will continue to repeat itself.It is very hard to trust memecoin projects.

Yes, that’s right. I think everyone agrees that investing in memecoins for the long term is a bad idea. Only a few memecoins can survive in the crypto market. And even then we don’t know which altcoins will last that long by given the sheer number of memecoins already in circulation. I used to think that altcoins like Shiba Inu or even Pepe were among the early memecoins on the Ethereum mainnet. But some of those memecoins aren’t actually from the first generation. On the other hand there were so many memecoins that emerged in the early days around the time Ethereum was launched. And it seems that almost all of those first-generation memecoins have disappeared from the market. So I personally believe that being an early-generation memecoins doesn’t always guarantee a profit. It’s similar to gambling, where it’s very difficult to predict the final outcome. And because it is a game of chance or even it is not a reliable basis for guaranteed profits.

[Localhostspeed]

Almost all memecoin projects are created to scam people. Only a few of them are created for specific purposes, and that is the only reason memecoin projects hardly last in the crypto market.So, with that, I will say that it is mostly luck that allows some people to make a profit from memecoins. However, I would say that the chances of getting lucky and making a profit from memecoin projects are higher for early investors because that is the period when they easily gain hype. People are likely to gamble by buying and holding them for a few days before selling them back.Smart people who understand how memecoins work don't hold them for the long term because they know it is mostly about pump and dump. So, there is a high chance that what happens with memecoins will continue to repeat itself.It is very hard to trust memecoin projects.

Unfortunately crypto investors don't see it that way. I'm not even sure if crypto investor will suit that narrative. I don't know why anyone will think a coin created out of nothing to back it up, no white paper or changing anything for people will make them rich overnight. It's fun to see people fund their account with $10 and think they are going to use that money to make millions of return, they think we are in ICO time where people made money but funny thing is ICO coins aren't better than meme coins, just a rebranding.

If you visit dexscreener today and check coins change in the last 24 hours, I don't think any coin created last August will be there, they are coins launched this month and as serious as they seems, there will be more minted before the year end and all of them will dye before next year. It's so sad that dev behind pump fun enjoys this that even their tokens they launched isn't different from what meme coins are doing.

[WatChe]

Almost all memecoin projects are created to scam people. Only a few of them are created for specific purposes, and that is the only reason memecoin projects hardly last in the crypto market.So, with that, I will say that it is mostly luck that allows some people to make a profit from memecoins. However, I would say that the chances of getting lucky and making a profit from memecoin projects are higher for early investors because that is the period when they easily gain hype. People are likely to gamble by buying and holding them for a few days before selling them back.Smart people who understand how memecoins work don't hold them for the long term because they know it is mostly about pump and dump. So, there is a high chance that what happens with memecoins will continue to repeat itself.It is very hard to trust memecoin projects.

It's very unfortunate that despite so much data available that is enough to tell us the risky nature of memecoins, people are still investing in memecoins with intention of becoming rich instantly. Memecoins have become a joke to a level that there are platforms like pump.fun that lets you create and launch your own memecoin with zero liquidity. All you need is just pay a small fee of the platform. Recently Biden son launched a memecoin named LAPTOP and it just crashed soon after its launch. If you are determined to invest in memecoins then just spare few bucks for such risky coins.