Meme Coins

 

Our role-play scenario looks at meme coins, which are a digital currency (cryptocurrency)  originating from internet memes and driven by social media hype, (Stencel, 2023).

In our video, we role play as three characters who are involved in a meme coin investment (HillsCoin). We show how tactics like FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), herding, and scarcity persuasion can influence our characters into making impulsive investment decisions.

This is a clear example of how social influence can lead investors to act on emotion rather than logic. When hype, social proof, and scarcity cues come together, they amplify common psychological biases, showing that people rush into purchasing decisions they may regret.

Barton et al’s (2022) meta-analysis of 131 studies found that in marketing, scarcity tactics signal a product's unavailability, enhancing its value and desirability, therefore increasing purchase intentions. The limited-time offers included in our role play explain make the memecoin investment seem urgent and appealing, shutting down rational evaluation. This helps us understand why meme coins especially in global markets - are so vulnerable to hype-driven persuasion. When urgency and exclusivity are at play, emotional pressure often wins out over logical decision-making, just like we see with Fabiola and Hazel in the video.

The full reference list for our video:

Alika Nur Azizah. (2025). “The Impact of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) on Investment Decisions in the Millennial Generation.” SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5127021

Anton, E., Aptyka, M., Oesterreich, T. D., & Teuteberg, F. (2024). To the moon with Dogecoin! Disentangling the causalities behind extrinsic and intrinsic motivations for memecoin investments. Journal of Decision System, 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/12460125.2024.2348936

Banerjee, A. V. (1992). A Simple Model of Herd Behavior. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107(3), 797–817. https://doi.org/10.2307/2118364

Barton, B., Zlatevska, N., & Oppewal, H. (2022). Scarcity Tactics in marketing: a meta-analysis of Product Scarcity Effects on Consumer Purchase Intentions. Journal of Retailing, 98(4), 741–758. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2022.06.003Cabrera, D., Cubillos, C., Cubillos, A., Urra, E., & Mellado, R. (2018). Affective Algorithm for Controlling Emotional Fluctuation of Artificial Investors in Stock Markets. IEEE Access, 6, 7610–7624. https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2018.2802781

Charfeddine, L., & Mahrous, A. (2024). What drives cryptocurrency pump and dump schemes: Coin versus market factors? Finance Research Letters, 67, 105861. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.frl.2024.105861

Devenow, A., & Welch, I. (1996). Rational herding in financial economics. European Economic Review, 40(3-5), 603–615. https://doi.org/10.1016/0014-2921(95)00073-9

Fisher, R., & Ury, W. (1991). Getting to Yes. Penguin.

Hao, S., & Huang, L. (2024). The persuasive effects of scarcity messages on impulsive buying in live-streaming e-commerce: the moderating role of time scarcity. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 37(2). https://doi.org/10.1108/apjml-03-2024-0269

Idris, H. (2024). The Effects of FOMO on Investment Behavior in the Stock Market. Golden Ratio of Data in Summary, 4(2), 879–887. https://doi.org/10.52970/grdis.v4i2.757

Jain, J., Walia, N., Kaur, M., Sood, K., & Kaur, D. (2023). Shaping Investment Decisions Through Financial Literacy: Do Herding and Overconfidence Bias Mediate the Relationship? Global Business Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/09721509221147409

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Kaur, M., Jain, J., & Sood, K. (2023). “All are investing in Crypto, I fear of being missed out”: examining the influence of herding, loss aversion, and overconfidence in the cryptocurrency market with the mediating effect of FOMO. Quality & Quantity, 58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-023-01739-z

Khetarpal, M., & Singh, S. (2023). “Limited Time Offer”: Impact of Time Scarcity Messages on Consumer’s Impulse Purchase. Journal of Promotion Management, 30(2), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/10496491.2023.2253228

Lee, E. J., Lee, Y. K., & Kim, R. (2023). Profitability and herding of trade-based pump-and-dump manipulation. Applied Economics, 56(20), 2375–2385. https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2023.2182405

Li, T., Shin, D., & Wang, B. (2025). Cryptocurrency Pump-and-Dump Schemes. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 1–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022109025000201

Stencel, A. (2023). What is a meme coin? Dogecoin to the moon! Hal.science. https://hal.science/hal-04360574

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