Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) live large in investors’ imaginations thanks to their earlier parabolic run-ups that made some holders into millionaires. Of course, both meme coins probably lost other investors vast sums of money as well. But that doesn’t deter the hopeful from wondering whether another coin, or perhaps even one of these two, might reach stratospheric heights once again under the right set of conditions.

With that in mind, let’s explore what those conditions actually are and evaluate whether another coin might one day fly to match or even surpass them — even if it wouldn’t be a good long-term investment, much like the other two.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

The environment that produced the major price spikes in both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu can be described as a speculative frenzy. That’s a bit of a tautology though, as super-speculative and ultra-risky investments in valueless meme coins simply do not happen at large scale outside of such conditions. But what causes those extremely speculative periods that tend to pump up the riskiest of risk assets?

In a word, liquidity, which is to say the amount of money circulating in the cryptocurrency markets and also in traditional markets. Liquidity as it pertains to meme coins has a couple of components.

The factor that most investors will be the most familiar with is simply how much money potential speculators have in their pockets and in their investment accounts on average. When people are being given money actively, like with the pandemic-era economic stimulus policies, it directly frees up more of their capital to be allocated to investments.

If they are already feeling like their standard and less-risky set of investments are sufficiently supplied with capital, it’s natural for people to look further out on the risk curve, toward smaller growth stocks and cryptocurrencies. With enough slack, some people may be willing to take outright gambles in (misguided) hopes of leveraging their disposable income into a dramatically larger amount of money.

The other key factor influencing liquidity is the cost of borrowing money, as determined by the Federal Reserve’s prime interest rate. That cost is largely incurred by banks and institutional investors, but it trickles down to consumer borrowing costs as well. When holders of massive sums of capital can take out cheaper loans, their appetite for risky plays increases, as the required rate of return on their investments to cover their borrowing fees and turn a profit becomes lower. The big players are probably not ever going to be buying Dogecoin or Shiba Inu directly, but they will doubtlessly invest in risky growth stocks once again, pumping the prices of those assets, and thereby creating a wealth effect that makes smaller holders feel richer, and thus more confident in taking on riskier plays themselves.