An Introduction

According to CoinMarketCap,10,506 cryptocurrencies are currently being traded on more than 500 different exchanges and 99.9999% of them are referred to as “shitcoins.” 

What Are Shitcoins?

Privacypros points out that there are several definitions out there:

• The Urban Dictionary defines a shitcoin as “a great way to lose money” and “a cryptocurrency with no utility or unique features.” In other words, a shitcoin is a cryptocurrency that will someday be totally worthless.
• Investopia provides a detailed definition, saying that a shitcoin is “a pejorative term used to describe an altcoin that has become worthless. Shitcoin value may disappear because interest failed to materialize, because the altcoin itself was not created in good faith, or because the price was based on speculation.” This article then continues to break down ‘shitcoin’ more with another 500 words of description and analysis.
• A Quora poster calls it an “altcoin (that) is considered worthless due to the lack of…useful features in the development of its blockchain. While shitcoins are considered worthless, that doesn’t necessarily stop them from going ‘to the moon’”.

What Are the Differences Between Stablecoins, Altcoins, and Meme Coins?

1. Stablecoins
   • Purpose: Designed to maintain a stable value.
   • Value Peg: Pegged to a stable asset like the US dollar, gold, or another cryptocurrency.
   • Example: Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC).
   • Use Case: Provide stability in the volatile crypto market, often used for trading and as a store of value.
   • Percentage of Total: Stablecoins account for approximately 12.9% of the total cryptocurrency market cap
2. Altcoins
   • Purpose: Any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin.
   • Value Basis: Can be based on different blockchain networks and have various use cases.
   • Example: Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP).
   • Use Case: Often aim to improve upon Bitcoin's technology, offering faster transactions, lower fees, or additional functionalities like smart contracts.
   • Percentage of Total: Altcoins account for about 29.8% of the total cryptocurrency market cap
3. Meme Coins
   • Purpose: Created for fun, often based on internet memes or trends.
   • Value Basis: Typically have no inherent value and are highly speculative.
   • Example: Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB).
   • Use Case: Initially created as jokes, but some have gained popularity and use cases over time.
   • Percentage of Total: Account for about 2.2% of the total cryptocurrency market cap with Dogecoin holding around 53% of the meme coin market and Shiba Inu around 44%.

Cryptocurrency Growth

Metcalfe’s Law says that a network’s value increases geometrically with the number of users in the network (now 547M worldwide) and that fact can be seen below. As the price of bitcoin has more than doubled this year, global crypto ownership has increased by 33% since 2023 alone and now, in 2024, approximately 562 million people own some type of cryptocurrency, equal to 6.8% of the global population.

The total market cap of cryptocurrencies has risen from $220B in 2019 to $1.1T in January, 2023 to $3.5T in January 2025 (this currency data is sourced from here and is updated once every five minutes.

Bitcoin has a 55.1% market share and Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, has a 12.6% market share. The next 8 cryptocurrencies have a total market share of 17.4% leaving the remaining 10,494 cryptocurrencies with the remaining 15% of the market. 

Conclusion

Bet on Bitcoin and/or Ether. The other 10,504 cryptocurrencies are just what the name implies - shit coins!