How to Buy Memecoins Safely: A Beginner's Guide to DOGE, SHIB and PEPE

Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Pepe are the three biggest memecoins in crypto — together worth roughly $16 billion — and to a beginner they can look like the same joke told three times. They are not. One is a 13-year-old payments coin with its own blockchain, one is an Ethereum token trying to build an ecosystem, and one is a pure trading token that lives or dies on attention. This guide explains how to buy memecoins safely, using real November 5, 2026 numbers, so you can see what you would actually be buying before you risk any money.

A quick warning first: memecoins are the riskiest corner of crypto. Most eventually lose most of their value, and the three coins below fell sharply on the day these numbers were taken — the average memecoin in the screener was down 7.87% on November 5. Before you put any money anywhere, read our guide to spotting rug pulls

The three coins at a glance (November 5, 2026)

Dogecoin (DOGE) launched in December 2013, runs on its own blockchain based on Litecoin's code, and traded at $0.0727 on November 5, with a market value of $11.38 billion, down 5.87% in 24 hours and 25.53% in 30 days.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) launched in August 2020 on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token, and traded at $0.00000455, with a market value of $2.68 billion, down 4.38% in 24 hours and 24.08% in 30 days.

Pepe (PEPE) launched in April 2023 on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token, and traded at $0.00000479, with a market value of $2.01 billion, down 6.66% in 24 hours but up 7.77% in 30 days and about 13% in a week.

The snapshot is from November 5 at 16:30 UTC. The whole market was worth roughly $38 billion in total value. Dogecoin alone is nearly a third of the memecoin market

1. Know which kind you are buying

DOGE is a standalone payments coin, SHIB is an ecosystem bet on Ethereum, and PEPE is a pure attention trade. They will not behave the same way in a crash. Dogecoin launched on December 6, 2013, created by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer as a parody of Bitcoin. It is accepted as payment in more places than any other memecoin, including Tesla's online store, and developers continue to build on it — MyDoge V3 is now live on iOS and Android, and work continues on the DogeOS public testnet. Shiba Inu arrived in August 2020, launched by an anonymous creator known as Ryoshi, and has spent the years since trying to grow beyond the joke, with its own decentralised exchange, ShibaSwap, and its own Layer-2 network, Shibarium, which launched on mainnet on August 16, 2023. Pepe launched in April 2023 with no stated utility, no ecosystem and no founder with a public plan — it reached a $1 billion market cap within about three weeks of launch, one of the fastest runs in crypto history.

2. Check the market cap, not the price

SHIB at $0.00000455 looks cheap next to DOGE at $0.0727, but that is only because SHIB started with a quadrillion tokens. Market cap — price times supply — is the real size: $11.38 billion for DOGE, $2.68 billion for SHIB and $2.01 billion for PEPE on November 5, 2026. A low price per coin does not mean a coin is cheap, and a tiny price does not mean it has more room to rise.

3. Look at where the price sits

All three were below key moving averages on November 5 except PEPE. A coin below its 200-day average is in a downtrend until it proves otherwise. Dogecoin is heading for a fifth consecutive weekly decline, down 25.53% in 30 days, and it trades below all three of its key moving averages — the 50-day near $0.082, the 100-day just above it, and the 200-day around $0.090 — each now acting as a ceiling on any rebound. Support sits near $0.068; below that, analysts warn of a much deeper drop. Shiba Inu is tracking Dogecoin lower almost tick for tick, down 24.08% in 30 days, sitting below both its 50-day and 200-day averages — the 200-day hovers around $0.0000055 — with support barely below the current price at $0.0000045. Pepe is the outlier: up about 13% in a week, trading above both its 50-day average near $0.0000042 and its 200-day average, with a relative-strength reading of 58 — firm, but well short of the overheated zone above 70. Sellers are capping gains just under $0.0000051, with the next barrier near $0.0000057.

4. Watch the whales and the volume

Large wallets selling 120 million DOGE in days is a signal worth noticing, and PEPE's volume exceeding DOGE's is a signal too — but volume is not demand, and it can vanish in a day. On-chain data from Santiment shows the largest Dogecoin wallets, holding between 10 million and 100 million DOGE, have shed about 120 million tokens since Thursday. Dogecoin still had about $654 million in 24-hour volume on November 5, far ahead of its rivals. Pepe's trading volume is the tell: a late-October snapshot showed about $823 million in reported 24-hour PEPE volume — more than Dogecoin's roughly $472 million that day, despite DOGE's much larger market value. High turnover attracts speculators, but it cuts both ways: when attention moves on, there is no payments use or ecosystem underneath to catch the fall.

5. Never buy on a screenshot

Memecoin prices in articles go stale within hours. Check a live screener before any trade, and size any position so that losing all of it would not hurt you — because with memecoins, that is always a real possibility. For a wider watchlist, see crypto.news's five memecoins to watch in November

Discuss the big three — and which one you think survives the next cycle — on the Zimbuck News

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FAQ

Which is the biggest memecoin? Dogecoin, by a wide margin: about $11.38 billion in market value on November 5, 2026, against $2.68 billion for Shiba Inu and $2.01 billion for Pepe.

When was each memecoin launched? Dogecoin in December 2013, Shiba Inu in August 2020, and Pepe in April 2023.

Why is Pepe rising while Dogecoin and Shiba Inu fall? PEPE rose about 13% in a week to early November while its rivals slid, driven by trading attention and volume rather than any new product — it trades above its 50-day and 200-day averages while DOGE and SHIB sit below theirs.

Is Shiba Inu more than just a meme? It is trying to be: it has the ShibaSwap exchange and the Shibarium Layer-2 network. Whether that ecosystem gains real adoption is still unproven.

Should a beginner buy memecoins? Only with money you can afford to lose entirely, after checking live prices and understanding the risks. Memecoins are the most volatile part of crypto, and most eventually lose most of their value.

This is general information and education only, not financial advice. Join the conversation on Zimbuck