The Rise of MEME Coin: From Internet Culture to a New Landscape in the Crypto Market

In 2024, the explosion of MEME coin signifies a shift in market investment logic. MEME has become a mainstream investment category favored by investment institutions and market funds.

Internet culture breeds MEME

The origin of MEME predates blockchain and stems from internet culture. Currently successful MEME projects mostly originate from internet social hotspots. These projects represent the communication generated by global netizens through the internet, are the root of internet culture, and are referred to as "grassroots culture."

MEME is everywhere, and behind every MEME, there is a story. These stories spread globally through the internet, evoking a sense of belonging among people, which is a key reason for the popularity of MEME. Social platforms, chat applications, and forums are the main battlegrounds for the emergence and dissemination of MEME, as well as important avenues for people to express their views and vent their emotions.

MEME expresses people's thoughts in specific scenarios through concise means (such as short texts, innovative words, images, and emoticons). Its widespread dissemination encourages even those who do not understand MEME to learn about and integrate into it. A sense of belonging is the core value of MEME and is also the main driving force behind the increase in MEME coin prices.

MEME and Blockchain Collision

Blockchain gives value to intangible things, and MEME is no exception. In a way, early Bitcoin was also a kind of MEME. After Bitcoin became popular, a large number of worthless altcoins appeared, causing chaos in the market. DOGE was born to satirize this phenomenon.

The first popularity of DOGE occurred after 2013 and can be regarded as the MEME 1.0 era. The influx of altcoins and the chaos in the market during the 2017 bull market (ICO turmoil) laid the foundation for the second rise of DOGE. This was also an important factor for DOGE's renewed recognition in the market in 2021, marking the entry of MEME into the 2.0 era.

In this round of rising in 2024, the chaos in the market has transformed into high valuations of VC coins and many "value" projects PUAing users, while MEME is once again emerging. The sluggishness of the mainstream market reflects, to some extent, the resistance of underlying investors to the chaos of VC coins and the scamming of retail investors. The fair distribution and price performance of MEME just address this pain point, naturally garnering a lot of attention, and MEME enters the 3.0 era.

Common Characteristics of Successful MEME Projects

Not all MEME have investment value. By analyzing past successful MEME projects, we can summarize some key characteristics:

1. Low barrier to entry: From hash power mining to fair distribution, allowing community users to participate at low cost and accumulate a large user base.

2. Value-oriented: Gradually shifting from early internet cultural uses to more value aspects, such as SHIB's Swap, PEPE's deflationary mechanism, etc.

3. Celebrity Effect: The "traffic" and financial support behind it from celebrities, KOLs, or public figures.

4. Price Performance: The price increase has allowed retail investors to profit, further enhancing the influence of the MEME token.

5. Retail Investors First: Unlike VC coins with high financing, MEME coins allow institutions to take over from retail investors, which is an important sign of its success.

The Development Goals of MEME Coin

High market cap MEME coins do not only gain attention through speculation. Economic models and application scenarios are factors that must be considered for long-term development. Recently, MEME projects have begun to focus on long-term development rather than just short-term pumps.

For example, the PUFF project introduced mETH incentives in the Mantle ecosystem, attracting a large amount of capital and becoming a leading DeFi project in the ecosystem. PUFF also plans to add GameFi elements to attract big investors and institutions through staking and gameplay.

This development path indicates that MEME, as an early promotional tool, can quickly gather crowds and funds, but long-term development requires empowerment and planning. Similar projects like the surge of AIDoge have brought huge traffic and trading data to Arbitrum.

Outlook

MEME has gained recognition from numerous investors, leveraging humor and internet culture as a user base, making it easier to evoke a sense of identity. This is a low-cost and rapid way to penetrate the user market and establish project communities, which could potentially become a primary cold start strategy for grassroots projects in the future.

However, projects that purely rely on the MEME concept find it difficult to sustain development. Mid-term technological follow-up is crucial for attracting investment institutions and exchanges, the "regular army." In this process, chips may gradually shift from retail investors to institutions, driving project transformation and growth. After retail investors profit, they usually develop a greater sense of identity with MEME culture, forming a positive flywheel effect that helps MEME further break out.