They are mostly "pump and dump" scams these days. The creators of most cryptocoins would love it if big investors and financial institutions started using their new coin as a value store the way they have with Bitcoin, but they know won't happen. So they pay shills to inject hype stories about their coin into the news cycle, then when the gains start getting crazy high they cash out and leave investors holding the bag.
Now if the coins keep going and have enough interest, they may play a longer game and plant both positive and negative stories to keep a buy/sell wave going. You can make a lot of money on those if you want to spend all day doing it. (this is far from financial advice)
Some coins are more technically sound, and have qualities that make them better utilities for either value stores or currencies, but their USD price mostly has nothing to do with that.
In fact I believe it costs more than $1 to print $1.
They are mostly "pump and dump" scams these days. The creators of most cryptocoins would love it if big investors and financial institutions started using their new coin as a value store the way they have with Bitcoin, but they know won't happen. So they pay shills to inject hype stories about their coin into the news cycle, then when the gains start getting crazy high they cash out and leave investors holding the bag.
Now if the coins keep going and have enough interest, they may play a longer game and plant both positive and negative stories to keep a buy/sell wave going. You can make a lot of money on those if you want to spend all day doing it. (this is far from financial advice)
Some coins are more technically sound, and have qualities that make them better utilities for either value stores or currencies, but their USD price mostly has nothing to do with that.