CoinWorld reports:
If the rise of DOGE in 2021 marked the emergence of memes, then the explosion of memes in 2024 signals a shift in market investment logic. Memes have become a favored category among investment institutions and market funds, entering the mainstream of investment products.
Originating from the internet, memes predate blockchain. Presently, successful meme projects in the market have largely emerged following their popularity on internet social platforms. Examples include Doge, SHIB, and PEPE, which represent global communication and exchange through the internet, the root of internet culture often referred to as “grassroots culture.”
Memes permeate everywhere, each backed by a story. These stories spread globally through networks, providing people with a sense of identity, a key reason for memes’ popularity. Memes originate and proliferate through social platforms, chat apps, forums, with major sites like Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook being hubs where opinions are expressed and emotions vented, distinguishing them from conventional internet information.
Memes use concise methods (short texts, innovative words, images, emojis) to express thoughts in specific internet scenarios. Their widespread dissemination encourages those unfamiliar with memes to understand and participate, much like the spread of viruses. This sense of identification is the underlying value of memes and a major driver of their price increase.
When memes meet blockchain, redemption in a chaotic market:
Blockchain assigns value to many intangibles, memes included. Strictly speaking, BTC was once a meme. After BTC gained popularity, a flood of valueless altcoins led to market confusion, with DOGE emerging to satirize this phenomenon. DOGE’s initial popularity came after 2013, marking the era of Memes 1.0.
The altcoin craze during the 2017 bull market and renewed market chaos (ICO chaos) laid the groundwork for DOGE’s resurgence, a crucial factor in its market recognition in 2021. Even without Musk’s divine intervention, other public figures could have supported memes. SHIB and other dog-themed meme projects also began to gain traction, ushering in Memes 2.0.
Similarly, in the 2024 surge, market chaos shifted towards overvalued VC coins and numerous “value” projects trying to PUA users, propelling memes into another development phase. The sluggishness of mainstream markets partly represents retail investors’ resistance to VC coins and the chaotic cutting, making memes’ fair distribution and price performance particularly appealing and gaining significant attention, entering the era of Memes 3.0.
From the development history of memes, it’s clear their popularity stems from the inaction and misdeeds of mainstream markets. Retail investors lack the power and funds to resist such behavior, thus turning to the opposite direction where they excel in enthusiasm and dissemination, the foundation and attraction of memes, and our basis for choosing memes.
The intersection of price and value: What potential features do memes possess?
Not all memes have investment value. Like the chaos in mainstream coins, the meme track also has mixed bags, with rug-pulling existing everywhere and likely becoming more apparent in the future. For ordinary investors, distinguishing potential meme projects is crucial, and we can summarize this by examining successful meme projects from the past.
DOGE:
DOGE is obtained through mining, with a large early supply and low prices suitable for internet tipping, supported across various social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, and sponsoring sports events, fitting foreign tipping cultures. Its community slogan “To The Moon” was propagated by Musk, and various meme images circulated on Twitter.
SHIB:
SHIB, themed around Shiba Inu, is an extension of Dogecoin, launched via Fair Launch, boasting significant entertainment value. It continually develops towards becoming a “value coin,” introducing actions such as DEX and tokens like BONE, launching its mainnet in ’23, supporting its token economy and exploring memes’ shift towards value coins.
PEPE:
PEPE is based on the internet-popular comic frog Pepe (Pepe the Frog), issuing cryptocurrencies. Beyond comics, it includes emojis, animations, with a strong user base seen widely on Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube. PEPE’s token use includes liquidity pools, plus attraction mechanisms such as deflation and redistribution, drawing investor and institutional support.
WIF:
WIF, a meme token on Solana, themed around dogs, is the third successful dog-themed token so far. WIF features low costs and fast transfers, with the creator’s balance set to zero to ensure decentralization. Endorsed by celebrities like Hsaka, it stands out among dog coins, with strong speculative properties, boosting attention alongside price surges.
PUFF:
PUFF (PUFF The Dragon) on the Mantle chain targets the mETH community with meme projects. Themed around a black and colored dragon, PUFF redefines memetic narratives, users mint PUFF by casting mysterious potions with mETH, then establishing AMM pools, enabling free exchange. Notable trader DCF GOD’s $1.5M purchase thrust PUFF into the spotlight.
Commonalities of viral memes:
From DOGE to PUFF, memes’ distribution and low entry barriers are key factors for success. From mining power to fair distribution, allowing community participation at low costs, absolute fairness may be impossible, but it reserves plenty of opportunities for participants. This approach accumulates a large user base, a cornerstone of meme dissemination.
Additionally, memes transitioned from early internet cultural uses (like tipping) towards more value-oriented aspects, such as SHIB’s Swap, PEPE’s deflation, WIF’s low costs and decentralization, PUFF’s mETH-centered value re-emergence, showing that pure price speculation doesn’t always sustain popular meme tokens, necessitating some utility. Investors still hold certain expectations.
Furthermore, memes benefit from endorsements by celebrities/KOLs/public figures and financial support, e.g., Musk’s frequent mentions of Doge, WIF endorsed by community celebrities, PEPE listing on Binance and backing from investment institutions, PUFF receiving substantial purchases from star traders, underscoring the critical role of celebrity effects in meme project success.
Of course, price remains a critical factor for meme token success, with price increases allowing retail investors to profit, expanding the retail base further enhancing meme token influence, drawing institutional and exchange layouts.
Its developmental path contrasts sharply with highly funded VC coins, with institutions taking over from retail investors marking meme success. VC coins emphasize team projects and institutional profits, culminating in retail takeover. After retail completes takeover, with no funds flowing in, they play the final role, contributing to VC’s decline and meme’s surge.
Development goals for meme coins:
No high market cap meme coin solely relies on hype for attention. For investors, economic models and application scenarios are essential for long-term development.
For example, DOGE’s tipping and POW, SHIB’s Swap development, etc., this trend strengthened starting this year. For instance, PUFF further enhanced application scenarios and token economic cycles, showing trends towards ordinary “value coins,” where meme attributes are the main differentiating factor.
PUFF’s mETH incentives attracted $300M, making it Mantle’s top DeFi project, greatly promoting Mantle’s ecosystem development. PUFF also plans to introduce GameFi elements, pledging and gaming becoming crucial for attracting large investors and institutions. This indicates meme projects are focusing on long-term development, not just short-term pump-and-dump.
Extreme investment tendencies can lead to counterproductive results. PUFF’s development path illustrates that memes, as early promotional tools, rapidly gather crowds and funds, yet sustainable development requires empowerment and planning. This approach also resonates well with technical analysts, such as AIDoge’s surge benefiting Arbitrum with significant traffic and transaction data.
In conclusion:
Examining the developmental paths of the five meme tokens above, memes have garnered recognition from numerous investors. Leveraging nonsensical humor and internet culture as a user base, they easily evoke user identification. This is a low-cost and fast method to enter the user market and establish project communities, possibly becoming a major grassroots project’s cold start strategy in the future.
However, projects relying solely on the meme concept often struggle to sustain growth. Thus, mid-term technical follow-ups are crucial for attracting institutional and exchange attention. During this process, chips may gradually shift from retail to institutional hands, driving project transformation and growth. After retail investors profit, they generally identify more with meme culture, forming a positive flywheel effect to aid meme tokens’ wider recognition.
