For a long time, memecoin has become an indispensable part of the crypto market, where it is a clever combination of creative stories, community spirit and dry numbers.
- Introduction
Crypto is probably the most different and crazy financial market to date. The combination of decentralization, permissionless and anonymous has created a unique financial environment.
In the tradition of listing and trading a project requires countless steps of registration and censorship, but with crypto it takes less than a minute for any coin to be listed and traded on a global scale.
- The rise of memecoin
After more than 15 years of development, the market has gradually shaped its pieces. While major coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink have achieved steady growth and become a line of defense for investors.
Although technology altcoins have many applications and long-term development potential, they are often controlled by institutional investors from the beginning by pouring capital and high valuations. From the beginning of 2024 until now, technology altcoins have only brought disappointment because the price has fallen without stopping.
In the end, only the memecoin playground remains where small investors look for opportunities to break out. Unlike technology altcoins, memecoins do not have products, advanced technology or any applications, they are simply an idea, a story to lead the community.
The act of clicking to buy is still to seek profit, but it is motivated by principles that are completely different from other coin groups. The value of “real memecoin” lies in the strength of the community, the trust is built on the story that the meme conveys, or in other words, the trust is built on the imagination of the buyer more than the whitepaper or the development team.
Successful memecoins are often those with strong stories and deep cultures that are pushed to the level of belief, causing the majority of members to maintain absolute loyalty. Dogecoin (DOGE) and Pepe (PEPE) are typical examples.
Simplicity, entertainment, viral effects combined with price fomo have created crazy growth waves for memecoin. Since the beginning of 2024, memecoin has always been the group that dominates and leads the market. According to a recent report by Binance Research, the growth performance of the memecoin group reached 331%, while other coin groups only achieved an average of 2 digits, not to mention many groups with negative growth.
However, the total capitalization of the memecoin sector only reached 69 billion USD during the peak period in April, this number is not equal to the capitalization of Dogecoin in the previous cycle. If all goes well, hopefully we can see new records of memecoin in this cycle.
I will not go into the issue of comparing memecoin, altcoin or their potential. I have another detailed article for the issue of choosing memecoin or technology, you can read it here: Choose memecoin or technology?
In the next part, we will learn about the memecoin ecosystem and prominent projects.
- Memecoin ecosystem
Memecoin is built on culture and stories, so dividing categories will be very complicated because the creativity of the community is limitless. Below I will shape the memecoin ecosystem into 3 large groups. The first group is the memecoin categories based on their properties, the second group is based on the blockchain ecosystem and the last group is the group of tools serving memecoin.
Note, the projects listed in each group are for listing purposes only, not indicative of potential or investment opportunities.
3.1. OG memecoin
The group of ancient memecoin projects that were born in previous cycles, have experienced the storms of the market from uptrend to downtrend, so they often have a solid community foundation with a strong belief in the common story.
Because it has been proven not to die in a downtrend, the safety will be higher than other groups that have not experienced a full cycle.
Featured Projects
Dogecoin (DOGE): Dogecoin is the first and largest memecoin on the market today. Launched on December 6, 2013 by Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus, Dogecoin was initially created as a joke but its lack of seriousness and humor attracted attention from the community. Dogecoin quickly became famous and achieved impressive growth with the support of many big figures such as Elon Musk. Dogecoin runs on its own blockchain that operates on the proof of work model.
Shiba Inu (SHIBA): Shiba Inu is the second largest memecoin on the market, released on the Ethereum network in 2020 by an anonymous person named Ryoshi. Inspired by the Japanese Shiba Inu dog breed, the project aims to compete with Dogecoin. During the development of the project, 50% of the total supply was sent to Vitalik Buterin, which was worth up to 8 billion USD at the time of May 2021. However, instead of selling, the founder of Ethereum sent 10% to a community charity fund and burned the rest. Since then, Shiba Inu has remained a coin that maintains a strong community and has a growing utility ecosystem around it.
Floki (FLOKI): Floki is another coin inspired by the Shiba Inu dog breed and the Viking theme. Floki was named after Elon Musk’s dog after his tweet. Floki is not just an animal memecoin, it focuses on cultural and historical aspects and has its own ecosystem including Floki Inuversity (blockchain education platform), FlokiPlace (nft marketplace), Valhalla (metaverse). Floki was launched on the Ethereum network in June 2021.
Baby Doge Coin (BABYDOGE): BabyDoge is another memecoin inspired by the Shiba Inu dog breed, more specifically Dogecoin. BabyDoge was born with the main idea of encouraging the protection and care of abandoned animals. In addition, the project’s tokenomics are designed to be deflationary by collecting a fee on each transaction used to buyback & burn.
ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE): ConstitutionDAO was originally created with the purpose of raising funds to buy back one of the 13 original copies of the US constitution at an auction at Sotheby’s. Although it was not successful, the project has a strong community and promotes the concept of DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). The project then gave users the option to keep PEOPLE tokens or claim a refund, but surprisingly, the majority of users chose to keep the tokens. Since then, PEOPLE has often been associated with the spirit of democracy or political events.
3.2. New generation memecoin
A group of new generation memecoin projects, emerging after the end of the 2021-2022 growth cycle. This group is receiving a lot of attention and has achieved strong growth milestones. However, it has not yet gone through a complete cycle, the challenge of surviving the downtrend season is still ahead, but it is also an opportunity because it can take advantage of the available heat for the current growth wave.
Featured projects
Pepe (PEPE): Pepe is the coin that opened the memecoin wave in the middle of the icy winter of the crypto market. Born in April 2023, Pepe is inspired by the green frog Pepe The Frog, symbolizing growth and leaps, which has long been a popular meme in the financial market. It didn’t take long for PEPE to reach the billion dollar market cap mark, especially after being listed on the Binance exchange. In addition to the many “shills”, there are also many side stories between Pepe and Elon Musk, especially the number 420 69, which are the numbers frequently mentioned by Elon Musk and are also the total supply of PEPE. This story spread so much that later almost all memecoin projects chose a total supply starting with 42069. Today, Pepe has become the most popular meme in the crypto market, the community’s worship has reached the level of belief rather than just normal love, wherever there is a meme, there is Pepe.
Dogwifhat (WIF): Dogwifhat is another memecoin inspired by the Shiba Inu dog breed, but the highlight is that it wears a wool hat. WIF was born in November 2023 and quickly attracted attention due to its rapid growth. If PEPE is the coin that opened the memecoin season on Ethereum, WIF is the coin that opened the memecoin season on Solana. Since the wif event, the solana memecoin movement has exploded more strongly than ever, and since then, dogwifhat has always been considered the “big brother” of Solana memecoin.
Bonk (BONK): Bonk was launched at the end of 2022 in the context of the Solana ecosystem suffering heavy losses from the FTX event. Bonk emerged as an effort to bring positivity to this network. Bonk is inspired by the Shiba Inu dog and this is also the first dog and cat memecoin project on Solana.
Cat in a dogs world (MEW): The name of the project “cat in a dogs world” tells the story it wants to convey. The blockchain world has too many dogs, so MEW was born with the mission of becoming a counterweight and fighting against dog dominance. The project was launched at the end of March 2024, 10% of the total supply was allocated to some large Solana communities and early buyers of Solana Phone, the remaining 90% of the supply was burned from the circulating supply.
Neiro (NEIRO): Neiro is considered a meme descendant of Dogecoin. After the dog Kabosu who inspired the legendary memecoin Dogecoin passed away, its owner Atsuko Sato adopted a new Shiba Inu dog named Neiro. This name was quickly spammed by a series of memecoins on many networks. But in the end, the coin chosen was NEIRO with the name First Neiro on Ethereum on the Ethereum network.
Other projects: SPX6900 (SPX), HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu (BITCOIN), Milady Meme Coin (LADYS), ORDI, SATS.
Political memecoin
A group of memecoin projects inspired by political figures or events. Some coins in this group have been around for a long time, but only recently, due to the influence of the US presidential election, have they been classified as a specific memecoin category.
Featured projects
MAGA (TRUMP): MAGA is a memecoin in the Ethereum ecosystem, launched in August 2023. MAGA is inspired by the slogan “Make America Greate Again” of former President Donald Trump. It was created to provide moral support for Mr. Trump’s journey back to the White House in the 2024 election.
Doland Tremp (TREMP): TREMP is a memecoin inspired by former President Donald Trump but in the “parody” trend.
Jeo Boden (BODEN): BODEN is a memecoin inspired by current President Joe Biden.
Kamala Horris (KAMA): KAMA is a memecoin inspired by 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
3.3. Presale memecoin
Presale is a bold form of fundraising that emerged in the early stages of this year. The project creator simply posts a wallet address for participants to deposit their funds into, at the end of the period 50% of the tokens will be distributed based on the amount of participants deposited, the remaining 50% of the tokens are used to add liquidity to the trading pair.
Projects that have raised raised over $122 million SOL in this presale, but unfortunately most of the projects in this group quickly crashed or plummeted.
Notable projects: BOOK OF MEME (BOME), Slerf (SLERF).
3.4. Celebrity coin
The memecoin project group was created by famous people. During the Solana memecoin craze, with their existing popularity, many artists issued their own tokens. Some of the names include American TV star Caitlyn Jenner, rappers like Iggy Azalea, Trippie Redd and Davido.
Notable projects: Mother Iggy (MOTHER), Daddy Tate (DADDY).
3.5. Ethereum memecoin
Since its inception and bringing smart contracts to the blockchain world, Ethereum has always been a solid foundation for any project, and memecoin is no exception. Backed by strong decentralization, abundant liquidity and a knowledgeable community, the quality, survival rate and ability to “go big” of projects on Ethereum are always higher than on all other chains. Most of the top memecoins are on the Ethereum network.
Pepe (PEPE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Floki (FLOKI), MOG Coin (MOG), Neiro (NEIRO), Turbo (TURBO); Turbo is a memecoin with a story created 100% by AI. Accordingly, Turbo’s founder – Rhett Mankind said that he completely followed ChatGPT’s instructions to create this memecoin, ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE), Baby Doge Coin (BABYDOGE), MAGA (TRUMP), SPX6900 (SPX); the project was created in the stock meme movement in mid-2023. SPX initially memes the S&P500 index but then has shown more than a stock meme. With the y2k vibe, the crypto flip stocks story project has built a loyal community.
3.6. Bitcoin memecoin
Since the birth of the Ordinals protocol and especially the BRC-20 standard, the aging Bitcoin network has suddenly become more vibrant than ever. For those who do not know, BRC-20 is a standard based on the Ordinals protocol that helps create fungible-tokens on the Bitcoin network. And from there, a series of memecoins on Bitcoin were born. The climax was when the Binance exchange announced the listing of BRC-20 token ORDI, leading to a brilliant Ordinals season in late 2023 and early 2024. Then the founder of the Ordinals protocol continued to develop Runes Protocol, a protocol to create fungible-tokens that is more optimal than BRC-20, making the memecoin group on Bitcoin increasingly become a real force.
3.7. Solana memecoin
Solana is definitely the network with the strongest memecoin movement in the recent growth period. Now people probably remember Solana as a memecoin blockchain more than the parallel blockchain of the past.
With the advantages of high speed, cheap gas fees and the outstanding growth of the pioneer Dogwifhat (WIF), the memecoin movement on Solana was strongly promoted. Especially after the appearance of the PumpFun platform, where anyone can create a memecoin project in a snap with almost zero cost. Therefore, in May 2024 alone, more than half a million tokens were spammed on the Solana network, if this number was transferred to Ethereum, the gas fee alone would probably amount to tens of millions of dollars, not to mention the network congestion and gas fee price increase. But everything has its downside, the gas fee barrier also helps Ethereum fight against spamming of trash projects.
3.8. BNB memecoin
BNBChain used to be one of the top ecosystems, but after the GameFi season, this network is still struggling to find a direction for development. Apart from some legacy memecoins from the previous season, there are not many outstanding projects in the ecosystem.
3.9. Base / Wrapcast memecoin
Base is the only Ethereum layer 2 network with an active memecoin movement. This is because Base has a rich source of liquidity, low gas fees, along with a large and memecoin-friendly Warpcast community, many quality projects have originated from this application.
3.10. Tron memecoin
Tron is a network that seems to be only for USDT stablecoin transactions, but with the quickness of the founder, Tron has just experienced a quite impressive memecoin season.
Initiated from the Sunpump platform and strongly backed by Justin Sun, a series of memecoins were born from here and quickly reached a capitalization of hundreds of millions of USD. There were times when Sunpump’s revenue surpassed Solana’s Pumpfun.
3.11. Ton memecoin
Ton is the ecosystem that benefits the most from Telegram, a messaging app with more than 900 million crypto-friendly users. Memecoins on Ton can be divided into two groups, one group is pure meme projects built from stories and communities, the other group is Telegram meme games, game projects on the telegram application with simple gameplay and airdrop strategies to attract the community.
- Conclusion
Memecoin is an attractive market but also full of pitfalls and risks, capital management is necessary before you want to try something with this piece. In the next article, I will share the skills you need to equip and some experiences with memecoin.
