Shitcoin

The term traces back to the 2013 to 2017 altcoin boom, when thousands of new tokens launched with little more than a whitepaper and a promise. Traders started calling the worst of them "shitcoins": a blunt portmanteau of "shit" and "coin" that stuck as community slang rather than a formal financial category. Unlike altcoin, which just means any cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin, shitcoin is always an insult, and it is entirely subjective.

In practice, projects earn the label when they show little real utility, an anonymous or unproven team, copied code, or tokenomics built purely to enrich early holders. Many are launched in minutes on permissionless token-creation platforms and marketed through aggressive social-media hype rather than product development. Because supply is often concentrated in a handful of wallets and liquidity is thin, prices can be pushed up quickly and then dumped on later buyers, a cycle closely tied to pump and dump schemes. SafeMoon and the Squid Game-themed SQUID token are frequently cited real-world examples: both surged on hype and marketing, then collapsed once insiders sold, with SafeMoon's founders later facing US fraud charges.

Not every low-cap or joke token is worthless forever, and some memecoin projects build lasting communities despite starting as parody. But the label is a useful shorthand for the extra scrutiny cheap, hype-driven tokens deserve: check the team, the contract permissions, and how concentrated the holder base is before buying.