Cardano meme coins, compared

Definitions first

What counts as a meme coin on Cardano?

Technically, nothing separates a meme coin from any other Cardano native token. All of them are minted under a policy, all of them ride along inside ordinary transactions, and the chain itself does not know or care whether a token represents a joke, a company or a dog. What separates them is what the project says it is doing. The nine tokens on this page were chosen because the project's own description, in its token-registry entry or on its own site, calls the token a meme, a memecoin or a tribute rather than a product, a currency or a stake in something.

That rule excluded some tokens people lump in with this group. Bankercoin describes $BANK as a utility and governance token inside a DeFi ecosystem, so it is not on this list. World Mobile's token pays for telecom infrastructure. Clay Nation's token belongs to an NFT collection. Being left off is not a judgement about any of them, it just means the project does not describe itself the way the nine below do. If you are new to the underlying idea, start with what a Cardano native token is.

One more thing worth saying plainly before the table. Meme tokens are the most volatile corner of an already volatile asset class, several of the projects here have no company behind them, and one of the nine no longer has a working website. This page is a reference for identifying and verifying these tokens, not financial advice and not a suggestion to hold any of them.

The whole list

Which Cardano meme coins can you verify on chain?

Ordered by mint date, oldest first. The policy ID is the 56-character hash that identifies the minting policy behind the token, and it is the only part of a token's identity that cannot be copied by someone else. Tap copy, then paste it into your wallet's or your exchange's search box instead of typing a ticker.

Mint dates and supply figures were read from the chain, and the tickers and descriptions from the Cardano Foundation token registry, on September 11, 2026. Supply does not change unless a policy allows further minting, so those numbers should still be correct when you read this; exchange listings change far more often, so check the linked page rather than trusting the column.

One paragraph each

What is each of these tokens actually about?

HOSKY is the oldest of the group and the one that set the tone. Minted in November 2021, its registry entry cheerfully calls it a low-quality joke token, and the supply of one quadrillion and one tokens is the joke made numeric. It is the only token on this page whose policy recorded more than one mint event. Our HOSKY buying guide covers it in more detail.

LOBSTER was minted six weeks after HOSKY, in December 2021, with a supply of one quadrillion. Its registry entry describes a royal memecoin for the Cardano metaverse, but the website listed against it returns a site-unavailable message, so there is no current project page to read. The token itself still exists on chain and still trades, which is a useful reminder that a live market and a live project are two different things.

$CATSKY was minted in April 2023 with a fixed supply of just under one trillion and no further minting. Its registry entry describes a mix of cat memes and AI tools, and the project commits revenue from those tools to buying the token back on the open market, with each purchase published as a Cardano transaction. This is the token behind this site, so treat the description as the project's own words and check the chain yourself.

SNEK arrived a day after $CATSKY and became the widely held one. Its own description runs to four words, a meme and a memecoin, and it is the only token here listed by several centralised exchanges as well as Cardano's own. Supply was minted once, at 76,715,880,000 tokens; holders have sent some to a burn address over the years, but those still count in the on-chain figure. See the SNEK buying guide.

VIPER followed in May 2023 with the same supply figure as SNEK, a deliberate echo, and describes itself as a deflationary meme coin. BABYSNEK, minted in January 2024, also copies SNEK's supply figure and presents itself as the little brother of the original, though it is a separate project with its own site, whitepaper and disclaimers.

DANZO was minted in June 2024 with a supply of 69,000,000,000 and calls itself a MEMEFI token, meaning a meme wrapped around gambling-style products. Its own front page publishes the policy ID, which is the behaviour you want to see from any project. Three days later NIKEPIG was minted, a community tribute to Nike, a mistreated pig rescued by Cardano's founder after he wrote about the story; it also publishes its policy ID on its own site.

CHAD, from November 2024, is Charles the Chad, a character assembled out of the insults aimed at Cardano's founder. It is the only one of the nine with no Cardano Foundation registry entry, so its name and ticker come from the metadata written into its own minting transaction instead. That still verifies on chain, but a wallet may show it with a raw name or no logo until someone submits it to the registry.

Names are not unique

How do you tell a real Cardano meme coin from a copy?

Anyone can mint a token called HOSKY, SNEK or CATSKY. Cardano does not reserve tickers, and nothing stops a second token from using an identical name and logo. What cannot be copied is the policy ID, the hash of the minting policy, which is why every row above leads with one. For $CATSKY it is 9b426921a21f54600711da0be1a12b026703a9bd8eb9848d08c9d921copy, and the same check works for all nine.

1. Get the policy ID from the project, not from a chat. Use the copy buttons above, the project's own site, or the token registry. Never a reply on social media or a link someone sent you.
2. Search by policy ID rather than by ticker. Paste it into the search box on Minswap or DexHunter and ignore anything with a matching name but a different ID.
3. Read the token's history before you trade. On Cardanoscan a token minted years ago with thousands of holders looks nothing like one minted last week.
4. Check the token in your wallet afterwards. Open its details and compare the ID character by character with the one you started from.

The longer version of this check, including what the token registry does and does not prove, is in how to verify a Cardano token policy ID.

Getting one

Where do you buy Cardano meme coins, and what does it cost?

Almost all of them trade only on Cardano's own decentralised exchanges. SNEK is the exception on this page, with listings on several centralised exchanges as well. For everything else the route is the same: hold ADA in a self-custody Cardano wallet, connect that wallet to a DEX such as Minswap, paste the policy ID, and sign the swap. The guide to buying Cardano native tokens walks through it, and the Minswap and DexHunter guide covers slippage and pending orders.

Budget for three costs, none of them large. The network fee for a transaction is a fraction of an ADA, explained in Cardano transaction fees explained. The pool charges a trading fee, typically a fraction of a percent. And every wallet address holding native tokens must keep a small amount of ADA locked alongside them, so a wallet emptied to zero ADA cannot move its tokens. Keep a few spare ADA and none of these will surprise you. Choosing where to keep the tokens afterwards is covered in the wallet comparison.

Related: all Cardano guides · verify a policy ID · buy a Cardano native token · transaction fees explained