The Five Silliest Cryptocurrencies Ever

Good coins are hard to find, but bad ones are everywhere. At least half of the top hundred cryptocurrencies are little more than monetized white papers, and the rest are scams.

But every once in a while we stumble across an idea so weird and bizarre it could only succeed on the Internet. Crypto Markets are full of these weird wonders; there’s a Garlic Coin, presumably for preventing vampires. There are themed coins for Fonzie, Putin and even Ron Paul. Fans of the 45th president have two Trump coins to choose from, and they can hedge their bets with Berncash as well. We lost track of the number of weed coins.

These ideas may not make sound investments, but they serve a higher purpose: giving the rest of us something to laugh about when the market crashes. Without further delay, here are our top picks for the silliest ideas ever to make it into a blockchain.

Dentacoin: The Money 9 out of 10 Dentists Recommend

There are two things everyone asks themselves whenever they go to the dentist. The first is “Boy, why didn’t I keep flossing?” The second is, “Wouldn’t this be better with a cryptocurrency?”

Finally, Dentacoin is here to answer our prayers.

Touting itself as “the first Blockchain based concept for the Global Dentist Industry,” Dentacoin(DCN) offers a long range of services to make your next trip to the chair even more painful. Details are hard to come by, since most links on the website are dead ends. One of the promised new platforms is a blockchain-based review service. Like Yelp, but for your teeth.

There’s also a payment platform, so you can pay for your next root canal in cryptocurrency—which, come to think of it, is a pretty good metaphor for altcoin investing. The payment service has already partnered with several dentists and suppliers around the world, all of whom have suspiciously empty websites and badly-photoshopped images.

Still, the dental revolution was enough to make investors smile, and the coin jumped 900 percent in a single day. Dentacoin was briefly the 26th largest cryptocurrency, with a total market cap of over 2.3 billion. Prices have since collapsed, to a still-absurd $0.001 USD per token.

If that’s still too expensive for you(and it should be) you can still get 100 Dentacoins for free. All you have to do is sell them your friends’ list on Facebook.



Banana Coin: The Get-Rich-Quick Scheme That’s Also Rich in Vitamins

Business isn’t cheap, and most aspiring capitalists have to borrow from friends, mortgage their homes or go begging on Shark Tank.

Or you could follow the example of one plantation in Laos, which crowdfunded its new farmland with an ICO.

The result is “Bananacoin,” the first fruit-based cryptocurrency. Each of the Ethereum-based tokens represents a share of the plantations’ crop, which you can buy, sell, or trade for actual bananas.

This raises a whole bunch of questions(pardon the pun) about the functioning of a banana monetary system. I’m no banana-conomist, but I’m pretty sure that the only way to have a stable banana currency is for it to be backed by actual bananas. Which means that somewhere in Laos, there must be a giant refrigerated warehouse storing the currency’s banana reserves. Like Fort Knox, but for bananas.

And then there are other serious concerns. Would a bumper crop destabilize the economy with fruity inflation? If banana reserves run low, could there be a banana bank run? Do you get new Bananacoins by mining, or by staking? On second thought, isn’t all farming proof-of-stake?



Despite these questions, Bananacoin became a hit on social media, capitalizing on Arrested Development memes and shameless monkey humor. To date the plantation has already sold four million tokens at $0.70 each—which is somewhat short of the ICO’s target, but but it’s probably about four million more than anyone expected them to sell.

PonziCoin: The Honest Pyramid Scheme

We try not to poke too much fun at obvious frauds. Scam coins are a satoshi a dozen, and most ICOs will disappear with your money faster than you can say “BitConnect.”

However, there is one remarkable project that distinguishes itself for its outstanding demonstration of brains and balls. Combining clever programming with Swiftean wit, the coin revolutionized the way money is stolen from naive investors. Introducing: “Ponzicoin: The First Legitimate Ponzi Scheme.”

Most crypto projects shy away from the P-word; Ponzi made it a selling point. The ether-based project revolutionized the art of the scam. Instead of buying tokens from the developers, you buy Ponzicoins from a Smart Contract, which is programmed to double the price with every 100 tokens sold. Profits are guaranteed, at least until the supply of buyers runs out.

Sharp-eyed investors did spot a few warning signs. For one thing, the developer had pre-mined several hundred tokens: a common red flag for an unscrupulous ICO. There were also signs of plagiarism; in fact, the entire White Paper was a word-for-word warning from the SEC about Ponzi schemes. But most suspicious of all was the giant red box, warning prospective investors that “this is a literal pyramid scheme [and] you are fairly likely to lose money.”

The fact that Ponzicoin was transparently a joke did not stop people from throwing money at it, and the token mooned. In January 2018, Ponzicoin soared to a market cap of nearly $180,000 before collapsing back to the single digits. Presently valued at eight cents, it’s still a better investment than Davorcoin.

As expected with Pyramid schemes, the profits dried up as investors cashed out their winnings(or losings) and the page has since disappeared. But if you missed your chance to lose your savings, never fear: there are plenty more scams where that came from.

Coinye West: The Cryptocurrency of This Generation

Most cryptocurrencies are made to for humdrum everyday functions, like faster transactions, lower fees, or better teeth. One project aspired to a loftier goal: putting Kanye West’s face on money.

Coinye West had a short reign, but for the seven months of its existence it was the undisputed king of joke cryptos: like the real Kanye, but for money. As hype for the ICO ballooned, the developers even tweeted to Kanye for his blessing.

“We’re really not sure how Kanye is gonna react to this,” Coinye’s developers told Motherboard. ”We hope he loves it, but if he doesn’t, he really isn’t someone we want to piss off.”



This turned out to be an understatement, to say the least. Kanye—who is not known for his sense of humor, especially when it comes to his branding—lawyered up and blocked the coin’s release.

That was the end of Coinye West, but shortly after it reappeared as a new, totally-not-Kanye-themed cryptocurrency called Coinye. Even the logo was different—instead of a portrait of the litigious rapper, it was now changed to a fish that merely resembled him. Foolproof, right?

Unsurprisingly, Kanye’s lawyers were unpersuaded and sued Coinye’s developers for every last satoshi they had. Although Coinye has since been largely abandoned, it continues to sputter along in the hard drives of a few hopeful volunteers.





Dogecoin: The Money of the Future

We love making fun of silly coins, but Dogecoin is no joke. The canine-themed crypto remains an internet favorite, with a total value of $2 billion last year.

According to founder Jackson Palmer, Dogecoin was created “without much real thought.” It was 2013, when Bitcoin and Shiba memes were both becoming cool. As Palmer told Motherboard, “one night after work, I sat down with a beer, I had too much time on my hands, and I bought Dogecoin.com.”

It’s hard to explain how puppy bucks outlasted so many serious projects in the past five years. That may not seem long, but it’s an eternity in doge years.

For one thing, people actually use it. The venerable Shibe is the face of a billion-dollar dogeconomy, most of which is used for friendly tipping and gaming.

The truth is, despite the goofy humor, Dogecoin has all the fundamentals of a respectable cryptocurrency. While the ‘grownup’ coins still grapple with transaction fees, hacks and Cryptokitties, Dogecoin remains (mostly) scandal-free. Transactions take a minute, and fees are a couple of pennies. To fully appreciate that, try sending someone a few bucks in Bitcoin.