According to a report released by CEX Bybit in June, institutional investors’ positions in spot meme coins increased from $62.5 million to $204.8 million between February and March this year, and peaked in April, with total holdings reaching 293.7 million. Dollar. The most popular meme coins include Dogecoin, Shiba Inucoin, $PEPE, and $BONK. Subsequently, after market sentiment deteriorated and meme coins suffered a sell-off, the total holdings dropped to $139 million, but the increase in holdings also increased by 125% from the beginning of the year.
It can be said that since this year, meme coins are increasingly becoming an important focus of institutional investors, and unlike the short-lived meme coin craze in the past, meme coins have become an important narrative and hot spot in this market cycle.
Starting from the second half of 2024, some VCs have also announced that they will invest in meme currency infrastructure. Previously, meme coins were opposed by VCs and gradually became accepted by VCs. So how did these venture capital institutions get involved in meme coins? ?
a16z
A16z, full name Andreessen Horowitz, is a well-known American venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and headquartered in Silicon Valley. He made early investments in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Airbnb, and continued to work hard in the Web3 and blockchain industries. He once invested in Coinbase and gained a lot, and established multiple crypto funds, becoming one of the important investors in the crypto industry.
However, as a mainstream venture capital institution, a16z’s initial attitude towards meme coins that robbed the market was not very friendly. From February to April this year, the meme currency market surged. Whether it was the average weekly increase of 20 popular meme coins such as PEPE, which reached 6 times, or the rapid launch of CEX such as WIF and BOME, which seized the market share of VC Token. Rate.
Eddy Lazzarin, chief technology officer of a16z Crypto, severely criticized meme coins in a post on April 25, 2024, saying that it undermined the "long-term vision" of cryptocurrencies and tainted the view of "the public, regulators and entrepreneurs" perception of the industry and acting as a casino for "relatively small groups of people." "
Chris Dixon, the managing partner and chief technology officer of A16Z, also published an article denouncing meme coins, saying that meme coins are simply a casino.
Source: Vernacular Blockchain
However, a16z recently changed its critical attitude towards meme coins in the first half of the year and frequently participated in meme coins.
First, a16z co-founder Andreessen Horowitz rewarded $50,000 in Bitcoin to the robot account Truth Terminal on With a market capitalization of US$100 million, Truth Terminal became the first AI millionaire, and also promoted the development craze of AI+ memes.
Source: Marc Andreessen
Then on the morning of October 28, Marc posted two pieces of content about AI16Z, which quickly attracted attention to AI16Z. The “AI16Z Fund” was created by the Twitter account “Marc ‘AI’ ndreessen” who launched the fund on daos.fun. The fund manages approximately 420 $SOL of raised capital through AI conversations, investing exclusively in meme coins and simulating the personality of Marc Andreessen.
Before Oct. 27, the fund had a market capitalization of about $4 million. However, after Marc retweeted a comic picture of a T-shirt with the ai16z graphic on it, AI16Z’s market value surged more than 20 times in just 12 hours, reaching a high of nearly $100 million.
Source: Marc Andreessen
Andreessen Horowitz has not officially confirmed its relationship with the project, although some sources have linked it to prominent venture capital firm a16z, suggesting the fund may have backing from the firm. Therefore, it is unclear whether the coin is actually backed by a16z or is simply borrowing a similar name to attract attention. What is clear, however, is that a16z is no longer as disparaging of meme coins as before.
DWF Labs
Founded in 2022, DWF Labs is a new generation of Web3 investors and market makers, having invested in several well-known projects, including dYdX, SushiSwap, Injective Protocol, Astar Network, and Morpheus Network.
According to relevant news, DWF Labs has invested in multiple meme coins, and was involved earlier. It invested multiple times in the pet Shiba Inu "Floki" ($FLOKI) in 2023, and further invested US$12 million in 2024. These funds support several of FLOKI’s development projects, such as FlokiFi (decentralized finance), the Floki Inu ecosystem’s educational platform Floki University, and its Metaverse game Valhalla. This series of investments not only drove up FLOKI’s price, but also helped it successfully log into many important trading platforms.
An additional $5 million was invested in Milady Meme Coin ($LADYS) on June 3, 2024. This funding is intended to support the growth of Milady Meme Coin in the meme coin market, enhance its development capabilities, and promote community participation.
In August 2024, DWF Labs collaborated with Floki and the BNB chain to launch the meme coin Simon’s Cat exclusively on the BNB chain. Simon’s Cat is a world-famous cat animated series and a very popular cat meme.
In September 2024, DWF Labs announced that it would join forces with GraFun to support Tokens launched on the GraFun platform, with the aim of supporting meme coin projects launched on the GraFun platform by enhancing liquidity.
Andrey Grachev, managing partner of DWF Labs, expressed great enthusiasm for this cooperation: "Partnering with GraFun is an exciting opportunity to support the next generation of meme currency projects on BNB Chain."
GraFun’s BigGra agreed, saying: “The partnership with DWF Labs is an important milestone for both GraFun and the memecoin ecosystem. We believe this partnership will provide great benefits to our community and the broader bring huge value to the market.”
Moreover, Andrei Grachev once wrote on the We institutionalized investment in memecoins several years ago and it remains one of our priorities.”
Binance Labs
Binance Labs is the world's leading blockchain and crypto investment institution, affiliated with crypto CEX Binance, founded in 2018. Currently invested in several well-known encryption projects, including Coinbase, Polygon, Injective Protocol, Elrond, Terra and 1inch, etc.
As early as 2023, Binance Labs invested in multiple meme coins, and will continue to be enthusiastic about the meme currency track in 2024. In January 2024, Binance Labs invested in Memeland’s native ecological Token MEME. Memeland mainly revolves around NFTs and social features, and the project was included in the Binance Launchpool in October 2023.
Subsequently, Binance Labs supported and promoted the development of its Whyanelephant project. The project is a dancing elephant. Its label is nonsensical, free and easy, and has great mood swings. It also represents you, me and him in the crypto market.
Coinbase Ventures
Coinbase Ventures was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California as the investment arm of Coinbase, Inc. It invests primarily in early-stage companies in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Current investments include Compound, Chainlink, Dapper Labs, Etherscan and Ripple.
For meme coins, Coinbase Ventures also participated very early and began supporting Dogecoin as early as 2018. However, the specific investment amount has not been disclosed, but the project has accumulated a lot of support in the community. Coinbase Ventures invested in Shiba Inu in 2021, and parent company Coinbase announced in late 2023 that it would add Bonk to its list of tradable assets.
The latest news is that in the wake of the $GOAT fire, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong proposed setting up a crypto wallet for Truth Terminal.
Image source: Brian Armstrong
Subsequently, Coinbase Ventures released a proposal explaining that the combination of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology will shape the future. Coinbase said in its post: “The future of artificial intelligence can be built on blockchain technology, as crypto assets can help increase the accessibility, transparency and application of emerging technologies. Cryptocurrencies are efficient, borderless and programmable The fusion of authorship and artificial intelligence has the potential to change the way humans and machines interact with the digital economy.”
It can be seen that Coinbase plays an important institutional role in the cryptocurrency market. In addition to launching the popular Layer2 base chain and becoming the custodian of all Bitcoin spot ETFs, it is also very involved in the layout of the meme currency track. morning.
Crypto Labs
Crypto Labs is a venture capital firm founded in 2018 and headquartered in Singapore. It has invested in a number of well-known encryption projects, including Ripple, Filecoin, Dapper Labs, SushiSwap, Aave, and Chainlink.
According to news on October 9, 2024, PPKING, the meme currency fair launch platform of the TON public chain, announced the completion of a US$2 million seed round of financing, led by Crypto Labs. The project aims to create a new platform through innovative DeFi mechanisms and deep integration of MEME culture. An efficient, secure and entertaining decentralized finance platform, the new funds will support its memecoin trading and liquidity provision.
Panther Capital
Pantera Capital is a California-based venture capital firm founded in 2013 by Dan Morehead, a former Goldman Sachs trader with extensive financial experience. It has invested in a number of well-known encryption projects, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink, Dapper Labs, Polkadot, etc.
Pantera Capital has also shown a strong interest in the memecoin industry for a long time. Pantera Capital invested in Shiba Inu in 2021.
Pantera partner Paul Veradittakit emphasized that meme coins play an important role in attracting young users to Web3. He sees memecoins as a “Trojan horse” for cryptocurrency adoption, leveraging their viral popularity to create interactions with DeFi, NFTs and other decentralized services. By making crypto and blockchain applications more accessible to mainstream audiences, Pantera believes meme coins have significant value in overcoming the distribution limitations faced by NFTs, potentially enabling split ownership of NFTs through the ERC-404 standard.
In recent months, senior executives at Pantera have mentioned that meme coins are helping platforms like Solana build a more active user base. Regarding the meme currency track, Pantera also has a positive attitude of embracing participation.
OKX Ventures
OKX Ventures is the venture capital arm of the OKX platform and has invested in a number of well-known crypto projects, including Solana, Polygon, Tether, SushiSwap and other well-known crypto head projects.
OKX Ventures also participated in meme currency investment activities relatively early. In May 2021, OKX Ventures participated in the investment in Shiba Inu Coin during this wave of craze. Later, he also participated in the investments of Floki Inu, BabyDogeCoin, etc.
In addition, OKX started supporting the listing of leading meme coins very early this year. It can be seen that OKX Ventures, which relies on the trading platform, is more sensitive to meme coins.
other
Generally speaking, because it is impossible to directly issue meme coins to make profits, most venture capital institutions use investment methods to cooperate with projects, and they invest in hot memes with backgrounds and stories. Some investment institutions Because it was impossible to participate directly or indirectly at the beginning, there was a confrontational mentality; in addition, some investment institutions are actively deploying launchers on various public chains to further promote the spread and vitality of meme coins.
According to RootData data and incomplete statistics, since 2024, there have been more than 10 new meme Launchpads or projects with meme Launchpad functions, and they support different public chains to support Base and Solana memes. Launchpad has the most projects, and behind these, you can also see some venture capital figures.
Image source: ChainCathcer
summary
Looking back at the battle between VC Tokens and meme coins, it can be seen that most venture capital-backed governance tokens have high valuations and low circulation, making it difficult for retail investors to make profits. Against this background, retail investors are increasingly dissatisfied with VC's manipulation of the market. They say, "These VC coins are a feast for capital and a nightmare for retail investors. They would rather take a local dog than a VC." In response to this, meme coins, which have strong dissemination power, low threshold, good people-friendliness and great effect of quickly creating wealth, emerged at the historic moment.
Although this phenomenon once led to confrontation between venture capital and retail investors in the first half of the year. Some VCs accuse meme coins of disrupting the market, while retail investors in turn accuse VCs of evildoing. However, due to the current development trend of meme coins, VCs have to re-examine the market and adjust their layout and investment direction.
Although some VCs still disdain memes, it is undeniable that meme coins have become the top priority in launching the public chain ecosystem. After a number of leading CEXs successively launched meme coins, they attracted a large number of users, making Base , Blast, Solana and other chains became active. As of November 5, 2024, memecoins have a market capitalization of approximately $61 billion. In the future, combined with the power of AI, meme coins may show greater potential in the future and become a real market game changer.
Finally, according to statistics previously released by some KOL social networks, most meme participants have suffered losses to a certain extent. Extreme market conditions often bring high risks. The next step of the meme craze is to continue to push up and intensify. Whether it will follow in the footsteps of NFT is still unknown at the moment. I remind everyone again that you must DYOR before performing any important operations.
[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.
This article is reproduced with permission from: (PANews)
Original author: Vernacular Blockchain, Huohuo
