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When Dogecoin (DOGE) made its emergence in 2013, not many people envisioned it serving as an inspiration to a whole new asset class now known as meme coins. From Dogecoin to Shiba Inu (SHIB), Floki, PEPE and the thousands of related tokens out there, Mike Novogratz believes these assets are now a part of the economy and are not going anywhere.

Growing meme coin relevance

Mike Novogratz’s recent take on meme coins is a reflection of the paradigm shift the asset class has on the crypto ecosystem. The Galaxy Digital founder and CEO noted that these meme coins have grown to become the cornerstone of the crypto economy.

He noted that many people, including his son-in-law, are making fortunes from investing in meme coins. He said meme coin investing entails looking at an object and validating whether or not it is going to make people laugh.

Novogratz spotlighted dogwifhat (WIF), a Solana-based meme coin that has since seen its market capitalization surge to more than $3 billion. The billionaire investor noted that in Galaxy Digital’s estimation, the meme coin market is close to $60 billion, with Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and PEPE dominating the arena.

Ongoing transformation

That meme coins are the cornerstone of the crypto economy is not an overblown statement. The majority of meme coins are now making a crucial pivot from being tagged fun tokens to coins with unique utilities.

Shiba Inu is a prime example. Over the past few years, it has added many features that now make it eligible as a payment mode, it boasts its own Domain Name Service and it even has its own layer-2 scaling solution, Shibarium.

Besides Shiba Inu, Floki is also evolving at a very fast pace, with the TokenFi launch last year set to help it take a sizable chunk of the tokenization market. Overall, meme coins are now so established that a cross-ecosystem collapse is no longer looking possible.