Why do coins with a lot of zeros always seem attractive?

Recently, while chatting with a few acquaintances, I mentioned that I was interested in cryptocurrencies, and we began to talk about this topic. While discussing the coins in my portfolio, one of the acquaintances commented that one of the products I purchased was "very expensive." When I asked what basis he made this comment on, I realized that it was solely based on the "price" of the product. After that, a question began to echo in my mind: "Do lower prices seem more attractive to people?" and I quickly realized that this might indeed be the case.

We can illustrate this topic using two different coins with similar market capitalizations. Let the two coins we choose be "AAVE" and "UNI". On May 27, 2025, when I wrote this article, the current price of AAVE was 280 dollars and its market value was 4.25 billion dollars, while the current price of UNI was 6.68 billion dollars and its market value was 4.2 billion dollars. With simple math, for the amount you can buy 1 AAVE, which is 280 dollars, you can buy 42 UNI coins at 280/6.68.

Just like a child

Based on the statements of the people I talked to and the research I conducted on the internet, I think there may be some psychological justifications underlying this situation. First of all, we can think of these people, who do not improve themselves in the context of financial literacy and trade without even knowing what the product they are buying is, much like a child. We can infer that these individuals prefer 40 pieces of 5 TL banknotes instead of a 200 TL banknote, just like children who have not yet developed abstract processing skills in their childhood, because they have no information about the value of money and they focus only on the concrete processing aspect of the product they have, thinking that they have much more money.

Do many products bring significant profits?

Secondly, they think they can earn more money because they have many more products in hand in a similar direction. In other words, they act with the logic of "if I can make a profit of 5 dollars from 1 product, I can make a profit of 200 dollars from 40 products." At this point, the more units you have, the more leverage you can possess. Therefore, a large number of products provide individuals with a sense of "great earning potential."

The misconception that "low-priced products rise faster"

Thirdly, low-priced products appear to be both cheaper and more accessible to individuals. The effort required to own a product worth $280 is not equivalent to that needed to own a product worth $6.68 billion. When considering memecoins, individuals can own millions of X products even with very small amounts of money. At this stage, people also have the misconception that low-priced products can rise much faster and easier, as well as to a much greater extent.

Those who mint coins with many zeros

Fourthly, the fact that memecoins like Shiba Inu and Dogecoin started from very low prices and provided serious gains has negatively fed individuals' appetite and risk perception. Therefore, many memecoin creators are making similar promises by creating (coins with many zeros) and selling the dream that "they could become rich."

Finally, high-priced products are perceived as more volatile compared to low-priced products. For example, AAVE's current price is 280 dollars, and a 20% decrease brings it to 224 dollars, while a 20% increase raises it to 336 dollars. On the other hand, UNI's current price is at 6.68 dollars, and a 20% drop would bring it to 5.34 dollars, while a 20% increase would raise it to 8.02 dollars. In this context, individuals might evaluate the price changes in terms of percentage as the same, but in terms of volatility in unit prices, they could assess AAVE to have a volatility of 56 dollars and UNI to have a volatility of 1.34 dollars.

When looking at the reasons underlying this entire story, it can be noted that individuals do not improve themselves in terms of financial literacy, they have insufficient knowledge about the relationship between product price and market value, they focus solely on price calculations, and the value proposition is pushed to the background.

Examples

Let's give a simple example to inform those reading this article: If we want both coins to double, meaning AAVE's price should be $560 and UNI's price should be $13.36, a total influx of $4.2 billion is required for both. Of course, we can say that this example can occur when we leave out other parameters like coin inflation. To reinforce with another example: let's assume that a $100 X coin has a market cap of $20 million, while a $1 Y coin has a market cap of $1 billion. For X coin to double and reach a price of $200, an influx of $20 million is sufficient, while for Y coin to double and reach a price of $2, an influx of $1 billion is required. Therefore, rather than making a price-focused calculation, a market cap-focused calculation will allow you to act more realistically.

In summary, what needs to be done is to develop your financial literacy to research which parameters can affect the product price, rather than making a price-focused calculation, and to try to protect yourself from the psychological games played by market makers. One of the most fundamental ways to protect yourself from psychological games is to recognize the problem itself and learn how to solve it. As you expand your knowledge of the markets, I can assure you that you will begin to realize the cognitive biases you have and the psychological manipulations you fall into.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading activity carries risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making decisions.