Shiba Inu, Dogecoin, and SafeMoon are all trading well at their all-time lows, but each project is still active, signalling that another meme coin surge is still possible.
Memecoins briefly dominated the cryptocurrency market in 2021, thanks to regular attention and marketing from big-name influencers like Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, who helped boost coins like Dogecoin (DOGE) by 100x.

As one might expect, swiftly soaring crypto market valuations have a tendency to reverse course just as quickly, and many of the formerly high-flying meme tokens are now struggling for survival as the sector matures and investors look for real-world use cases.

Let’s look at some of the most popular meme coins of 2021 to see if they were merely a passing fad or if there were fundamental developments that could be useful in the long run.

Dogecoin

DOGE is the original meme coin, with a price increase of more than 20,000 percent from a low of $0.0036(R0.056) on January 1, 2021, to an all-time high of $0.74(R11.49) on May 8, starting off the ’21 rally.
Since then, the price has plummeted in lockstep with the rest of the cryptocurrency market, and it now trades at around $0.135 per coin ( R2.10).

Despite the fact that no substantial improvements are in the works for DOGE, it continues to be the most visible meme coin. It is still one of Elon Musk’s favourite Twitter topics, and its value has recently grown dramatically as a result of Musk’s bids to purchase Twitter and take it private.

Musk’s move spurred speculation that if the purchase goes through, DOGE might be added as a tipping currency on the social networking site, resulting in a brief price boost for DOGE.

The future of Dogecoin is unknown, with reports circulating regarding previous discussions to make the network proof-of-stake, but nothing formal has been declared.

One project developer will conduct a workshop to investigate messaging services within person-to-person protocols like Dogecoin, demonstrating that there is some research into other possible use cases for the longest-running meme-themed network.

Shiba Inu

While Dogecoin receives a lot of attention from prominent influencers, Shiba Inu (SHIB) had one of the biggest impacts on the meme scene in 2021 after its price rose more than 5,799,999,900 percent from its low in October 2020, allowing one astute trader to turn a $3,400(R 52 796) wager into a $1.5 billion(R 23.3bn) windfall.
SHIB is now trading at $0.000024,( R0.00037)) down 73% from its all-time high, and the token frequently sees daily trading volume in excess of $500 million.

SHIB holders witnessed a little price bump on April 12 when the token was featured on the popular trading app Robinhood, but the crypto market’s continued decline has effectively wiped out any gains.

On the development front, the Shiba Inu team is currently concentrating its efforts on expanding SHIB’s Metaverse capabilities with the launch of a land auction event that allows Shiba Inu community members to acquire virtual land inside the ecosystem.

The roadmap also highlights Shibarium, a layer-two scaling solution built specifically for Shiba Inu that will help the protocol avoid the high fees associated with transacting on the Ethereum (ETH) network.

Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and other cryptocurrencies are now accepted on the AMC Theatres mobile app.

SafeMoon

SafeMoon (SFM) appeared early in the meme currency hype cycle as well, with the purpose of rewarding loyal investors while discouraging speculators through the creation of an automatic liquidity pool.

The project was launched on March 8, and its price soon soared from less than $0.00000006( ) to an all-time high of $0.00001399( R0.00022) on April 20, 2021, but it has since fallen.

In early 2022, the Safemoon system was upgraded to v2, which included a token revaluation that lowered supply by a factor of 1,000.
SFM’s price has continued to plummet since the switch to v2 and now trades at $0.00068( R0.011).

On the development front, Safemoon announced the launch of the Safemoon Card, which will allow community members to make daily transactions using their SFM as well as other cryptocurrencies. A waiting list for the card was formed on April 8.

Other recent developments include the release of a redesigned Safemoon wallet and the launch of Live Crypto Party, a “party-to-earn” metaverse platform that rewards users in bitcoin and NFTs for having fun both online and offline.