Original author: Arain, ChainCatcher

In 2024, the Memecoin track rose sharply, growing into a super cycle amidst mixed reviews, leaving many Old Money investors stunned.

In the trading battlefield of Memecoins, there are genius scammers who set up 'wealth traps' with cunning methods, big players who gamble in the market with precise judgment and operations, influencers who bring traffic to tokens, and call kings who sway market trends... these annual figures take the stage together, creating a carnival of Memecoins.

Alon

If it weren't for the Meme launch platform Pump.fun, this Meme feast might have been half as lively. Therefore, in this sense, Alone is a key figure to ignite the 2024 Memecoin craze.

Alon created and launched the Pump.fun platform in January 2024, providing users on the Solana blockchain a place to create and trade cryptocurrencies, allowing users to create Solana tokens for free within a minute.

As of December 26, 2024, the platform has created over 5 million Memecoins, including several larger Memecoins like Billy, Michi, Shark Cat, etc. The platform has also laid the groundwork for mass production of celebrity Memecoins, such as Lggy Azalea's MOTHER token, Andrew Tate's DADDY, and Jason Derulo's JASON.

Although mass-producing Memecoins may lead to market saturation, it cannot be denied that Pump.fun provides a platform and opportunities for the development and innovation of Memecoins, having a profound impact on the entire Memecoin ecosystem.

Murad

One of the top Memecoin KOLs in 2024, referred to as the 'Meme Theologian.'

Murad has two main achievements: one is successfully investing in $SPX, and the other is gaining fame for proposing the Memecoin Supercycle theory.

According to Murad, the Memecoin Supercycle theory suggests that Memecoins are acquiring attributes and speculative premiums from value coins, entering a 'Meme Supercycle', meaning Memecoins will not only surpass traditional cryptocurrencies but also change investor behavior and market trends, evolving from mere internet jokes into legitimate investment assets with passionate followers.

When Murad first held $SPX, its market cap was only $10 million, but it has now soared to over $700 million, with an unrealized profit of $8.3 million. While holding this coin, he actively spread investment ideas on Twitter. His holdings and calls have had a certain influence on the price trends of these coins, attracting the attention and following of many investors. Besides $SPX, Murad also holds coins like giga, pepe, sigma, apu, and popcat, favoring mid-to-high market cap 'cult-like' Memecoins.

According to Murad's own summary, he mainly adopts the 'Price and Faith Index' investment strategy, which posits that investors should look for projects with high faith but low prices, meaning undervalued Memecoins that meet most screening criteria, usually having only one or two indicators not meeting the standard, being easy to improve, and having extremely enthusiastic community support.

After appearing and speaking at Token 2049, Murad's status in the Memecoin circle reached a new height, as more investors began to study Memecoins—some even including venture capitalists—due to his systematic investment and strategy in Memecoins.

Ansem

Another top Memecoin KOL in 2024, comparable to Murad.

However, compared to Murad, Ansem's trading label is heavier, and he believes technical analysis is more important than fundamental analysis. Ansem gained market attention primarily for investing in BONK and WIF. On October 30, 2023, Ansem tweeted 'bonk great coin', initially recommending BONK when its price was only $0.0000005618. Subsequently, BONK skyrocketed, reaching over $0.000045 by March 2024, an increase of more than 80 times.

As for WIF, it can be said that Ansem gradually called it to a market cap of 3 billion. On December 12, 2023, Ansem stated on social media that only WIF has the potential of SHIB, and on December 16, he tweeted 'WIF = SHIB'. Subsequently, within four months, the price of WIF skyrocketed from $0.09 to a historic high of $4.85, an increase of over 520 times.

Due to frequently recommending some low market cap Memecoins that led to follower losses, Ansem currently carries some public lawsuits, with other KOLs accusing Ansem of openly 'cutting leeks', while in response to the accusations, Ansem claims he is simply selecting the best trades in the market and cannot guarantee every trade's success but has helped more than he has harmed. However, some analysts have backtested the investment returns of Ansem's past recommendations, finding that most coins would turn negative returns if bought after Ansem's recommendations.

Sahil Arora

Due to being 'attacked' by multiple celebrities, when the incident broke, this scammer from India caused a sensation in the market, resulting in significant losses for numerous investors.

Sahil Arora is a serial entrepreneur who started several crypto projects between 2020 and 2023. Although they ended in failure, he made a good profit.

In 2024, Sahil Arora found business opportunities in Memecoins, leveraging his influence and verified badge on Instagram to contact numerous celebrities and collaborate with them to issue tokens. He helps these celebrities issue Memecoins, usually holding 25% - 40% of the token supply, quickly dumping the tokens after the celebrities' tweets go live, treating the investments of the celebrities' fans as his 'exit liquidity.'

For example:

  • Spent $200,000 to hire Jason Derulo to tweet to promote the token;

  • Signed a contract with Caitlyn Jenner to issue the token JENNER, agreeing to pay a $50,000 advance and an 80% revenue share, but the collaboration turned into a farce, with Jenner accusing him of breach of contract and publicly cursing, claiming he deceived her and owes her 'a large sum of money';

  • Issued tokens for celebrities like Rich the Kid and Lil Pump, who have also complained about similar experiences;

Data company Bubbleworks analyzed that Sahil Arora earned about $30 million this year by acting as an agent for celebrities to issue Memecoins.

Lggy Azalea

Australian rapper Lggy Azalea is considered a leading figure in the 2024 celebrity Memecoin trend. In fact, Sahil Arora also had some ideas to help Lggy Azalea issue the Memecoin $LGG, but it was not very successful.

Lggy Azalea decided to issue her own Memecoin. The reason was that she found someone impersonating her to issue a coin on Telegram, so she launched the token MOTHER on Pump.fun on May 28, 2024, and focused her X account with 7.6 million followers on promoting the MOTHER coin, deleting all posts from before May 29, and posting 2,245 about MOTHER, while also placing a link to the MOTHER Telegram channel on Instagram and suspending her OnlyFans to guide fans to the Telegram channel. Within a week of its release, the price of MOTHER soared by 1200%.

Subsequently, Lggy Azalea appeared in several community Spaces, interacting with community members, replied via voice messages, and appeared on the ThreadGuy podcast, sharing her insights on cryptocurrencies and Web3.

As Memecoins become increasingly popular, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin expressed dissatisfaction with the celebrity Memecoin craze, believing these tokens only serve to enrich celebrities and early users, lacking practical use. Lggy Azalea immediately clashed with Vitalik, posting a parody image of herself holding a baby version of him, indicating 'he's both angry and hungry', causing the price of $MOTHER to surge by 150% and triggering a rise in 'family tokens' like $DADDY, $SON, etc.

Lggy Azalea is not only confrontational; after clashing with Vitalik, she opened an online store that only allows purchases with MOTHER, selling T-shirts and other merchandise, and announced that MOTHER or SOL could be used to buy phones and monthly phone plans, in an effort to prevent the value of $MOTHER from being meaningless.

Caitlyn Jenner

Caitlyn Jenner is a celebrity from the American flag television program and a former athlete; like Lggy Azalea, Caitlyn Jenner's media influence and public image attracted more attention to memecoins. However, unlike Lggy Azalea, the Memecoin issued by Caitlyn Jenner was not successful, ultimately leading to a lawsuit from investors.

In May 2024, Caitlyn Jenner launched a token called $Jenner on Pump.fun, posting a photo of herself shaking hands with Trump on her Twitter account along with the $Jenner token link, tagging several famous crypto KOLs, referring to them as 'crypto kings.' Subsequently, she published a story about the $Jenner token, which her agent Sophia also shared.

Due to Caitlyn Jenner's previous lack of involvement in the crypto space, her fans suspected her account had been hacked. However, Caitlyn Jenner stated that her account had not been hacked and released a video of herself to refute the claims, stating that $Jenner was indeed published by her team.

During a period of significant price fluctuations due to various doubts, Caitlyn Jenner's Twitter account held a Space where her agent Sophia planned to personally refute the rumors. However, Sophia stated in the Space that the team might still issue a new token, leading the market to start selling $Jenner. Despite Caitlyn Jenner later claiming that the team would only focus on $Jenner and would not launch any other tokens, it was to no avail.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, Caitlyn Jenner earned 2,381 SOL (about $405,000) in just four days in May 2024 by launching 12 MEMEcoins on Solana.

On November 13, 2024, Naeem Azad and Mihai Caluseru filed a class-action lawsuit in California federal court as British and Romanian citizens, respectively, accusing Caitlyn Jenner and her manager Sophia Hutchins of fraudulently soliciting investors to purchase unregistered securities, resulting in significant losses for them.

Spent $400,000 consuming his own fan value, leading to legal troubles; one wonders if Caitlyn Jenner feels it was worth it?

James Wynn

Annual new king of calls, once made $25 million by heavily investing in PEPE, but also flipped due to a bad appearance.

James Wynn rapidly bought in PEPE tokens within one day of their launch and made numerous calls on Twitter; on April 16, 2023 alone, he posted at least 24 promotional messages about PEPE, boosting its popularity on social media and attracting more investors and attention from the meme community.

On May 1, the price of PEPE rose 100 times compared to James Wynn's cost; he was found to have transferred his PEPE holdings to multiple new addresses, gradually consolidating his assets into the main wallet jwynn.eth, ultimately transferring the funds to an exchange address. Media reports estimate that James Wynn earned about $25 million during PEPE's surge, with an initial investment of only $7,644.

Subsequently, James Wynn began to call out the ELON token. On April 24, 2024, James Wynn tweeted 'I think I have a 1000x for you guys, who wants it?' One hour before the tweet, he had just completed layouts in two accounts for the ELON token, then announced information about the ELON token, which saw its price rise nearly 100 times in a short time.

On April 27, the price of ELON suddenly dropped by 70%. James Wynn subsequently announced on Twitter that he had liquidated his position and stated that the ELON token had problems; in fact, he had already liquidated using another seldom-used address at 3 AM on the 25th, which caused the collapse of the ELON coin. Statistics show that James Wynn's operations during this process had both accounts among the top ten in profit, with earnings around $350,000.

James Wynn's liquidation actions directly led to the collapse of the ELON price, damaging his image within the community, with accusations of him cutting leeks.

Justin Sun

Such a gala of figures still needs Sun Ge.

In August 2024, TRON launched the beta version of SunPump, claiming to be the first Memecoin platform in the TRON ecosystem with a fair distribution concept. SunPump can be understood as a counterpart to Pump.fun, though TRON claims SunPump is not Justin Sun's project, the public still associates him with SunPump.

After SunPump was launched, Justin Sun spared no effort in promoting it, predicting that the TRON chain would soon produce a Memecoin with a market cap exceeding $1 billion, claiming a deep integration of TRON with meme culture.

Additionally, Justin Sun is also making moves in other areas of Memecoins. For instance, he invested $10 million in the forked token SHIB Ultra, making him the largest investor in that project.

In 2024, Justin Sun's standout moment in the Memecoin scene was the 'expensive banana' incident. He purchased the conceptual artwork 'Comedian' by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan (a banana taped to a wall) for $6.24 million and ate it during a live stream, paying tribute to meme culture, which sparked public discussion around meme culture. Through this incident, he successfully merged art with meme culture and expanded the meme's reach.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is already a heavyweight in the cryptocurrency circle. Although he does not deliberately push the historical process of Memecoins, he certainly has a notable role in the development history of Memecoins. Elon Musk views memes as a form of modern art that can efficiently convey information and emotions; he once stated, 'Whoever controls the meme controls the world.' This reflects his understanding of meme culture.

Elon Musk's most recognized Memecoin investment is Doge (Dogecoin). In 2020, Musk began frequently posting about Dogecoin on Twitter, with tweets like 'dogetothemoon', bringing Dogecoin into the sight of global investors. At the beginning of 2021, Tesla CEO's tweet 'doge' paired with a rocket emoji caused the price of Dogecoin to skyrocket, surpassing the historical barrier of $1. Moreover, Musk had planned for Tesla to accept Dogecoin payments, but that plan was later suspended. In April 2023, Musk changed the X icon to a Shiba Inu, causing Dogecoin to rise by 30% that day. In 2024, Musk paid tribute to Kabosu, the original dog behind the Dogecoin meme, in a post on X, triggering a bullish trend for Dogecoin.

In addition to Dogecoin, Musk also inadvertently promoted some Memecoins (note, this is different from making calls):

  • In December 2023, Musk announced the launch of the first AI model GROK, and a Memecoin of the same name was subsequently created, rising fivefold in two days (though it was later revealed that GROK was created by a scam artist, and the coin later plummeted);

  • On January 9, 2024, Musk changed his Twitter bio to (CTO) Chief Troll Officer, after which the price of TROLL skyrocketed;

  • On January 16, 2024, Musk posted a Meme image with text that included meme and smiley elements, causing the price of the previously deployed token SMILEY on Ethereum to surge, with a daily increase of as much as 895%;

Musk's words and actions are closely watched in the cryptocurrency circle, with the market often flooded with numerous Memecoins inspired by him, such as the 'ClosedAI' token, which surged over 2800% within three hours after Musk criticized OpenAI.

Recently, Musk changed his Twitter profile picture to a meme likeness resembling the Pepe frog, while directly changing his name to Kekius Maximus. PEPE surged in response, and several Memecoins based on the Kekius Maximus concept began to soar temporarily.

Donald John Trump

The soon-to-be president of the United States and former president, Donald John Trump, is often compared with Musk and brings some trading opportunities for Memecoins. At least so far, Donald John Trump is the one taking the heat.

In May 2024, at the Trump card NFT gala held at Mar-a-Lago, a participant introduced the meme coin 'boden' with a market cap of $240 million, to which Trump replied, 'I don't like that investment.' However, shortly after, the meme coin surged by 25% on Wednesday, reaching a peak of $0.42.

On August 12, 2024, the $TRUMP Memecoin related to Trump reportedly saw a trader spend 0.052 ETH (about $96 at the time) to buy 608,650 'TRUMP' tokens, and by June 2024, the market cap of this coin had soared to $788 million.