Binance is accelerating the launch of perpetual futures for hot meme tokens. The latest to be added was Mogcoin (MOG), which immediately set off a price rally.
Binance is expanding its list of meme token selections, though cautiously avoiding spot listings. After its latest addition, Binance hosts a total of 10 meme tokens with perpetual futures markets. This allows the exchange to expose its traders to the price opportunities of the token, without the need to hold reserves.
The latest token to be added was Mogcoin (MOG), a long-running Ethereum meme with several cycles of peaks and drawdowns. Mogcoin was added just days after opening a market for Ponke (PONKE), tapping the animal token trend. Just days before that, Binance launched contracts for POPCAT and MEW. Binance has also added a streak of Solana-based tokens, turning BOME and WIF into highly liquid selections for exposure to the meme market.
MOG is also considered a community token with more than 88K followers on its social media community and more than 34K owners on Ethereum. This places MOG even above NEIRO tokens in terms of distribution.
Binance will start Mogcoin trading from November 7, with a perpetual futures contract for 1M MOG. The contract will settle in USDT, but there will be multi-asset mode, where traders will be able to post other collaterals for leveraged positions, including BTC. The contract will allow up to 75X leverage.
The contract is intuitively priced to make the MOG price more readable. Immediately after the trading launch, MOG contract prices moved down to $1.97 on rapid selling. MOG futures followed the 6% crash on spot markets, as MOG still mostly trades on Uniswap liquidity pairs.
The decision to launch futures contracts does not guarantee a spot listing. In the past, Binance has added spot markets for a much smaller selection of tokens, after a much longer period of consideration. One of the last times Binance tried to launch futures and a spot market, it ended up listing two disparate versions of NEIRO. However, the Binance effect was felt for both versions, creating more sustainable trading.
The effect of a spot Binance listing is immense. The NEIRO version listed on the spot market made a series of all-time highs, with immediately higher volumes and more robust price action.
NEIRO managed to raise its volumes to $933M in the past day, boosted by a deeply liquid spot market. The token rallied in a day to $0.0022, getting closer to mass adoption as a blue chip meme.
Is Binance copying Murad Mahmudov?
Binance seems to have its hand on the pulse of meme tokens, expanding its list with not only trending, but relatively sustainable assets.
In the past few weeks, Binance formed a list that included multiple influencer-driven tokens. Binance’s selection includes MYRO, RATS, MEW, POPCAT, BRETT, NEIROETH, and CAT. Binance also added GOAT and MOODENG, tapping tokens from the past few months.
There is also a significant overlap between Binance’s selection and the tokens recommended by influencer Murad Mahmudov. Some of the tokens on the influencer list also include MOODENG, MOG, and POPCAT.
For now, Binance seems to lag behind some of Murad’s selections, but branches out beyond the older meme tokens. Binance has yet to show signs in cult tokens like SPX6900 (SPX) or GIGA. However, the exchange has been responsive to multiple trends in crypto space and may continue its trend of adding new markets.
There is only a partial overlap of Binance’s selections and crypto influencers, as the exchange aims to achieve some stability and predictability. Animal-themed tokens are so far considered relatively safe and widely adopted. With the futures market, Binance dipped its toes in tokens issued on Pump.fun and graduating to Raydium. The exchange taps the most popular memes as a way to ensure active trading and higher fees from market participants.