What impressed me most personally were the “Inscriptions” and “Meme Coins”.
The emergence of hype like these two is driven by "demand" (even if these demands are just pseudo-demand or unsustainable demand) or "Ponzi" (high returns and high capital efficiency, derived from greed).
A common topic: The hype for Alt-Layer1 in the last cycle came from users’ demand for high-performance and low-cost public chains. The emergence of DeFi Summer (Ponzi) drove user demand for Ethereum block space, while Ethereum's low performance and high fees (demand was created) pushed a large number of users to its competitors.
"Demand" and "Ponzi" interact with each other and are subject to cycles.
For example, the hype of DeFi and Alt-Layer1 is the result of the interaction of "demand" and "Ponzi". GameFi is an upgraded version of DeFi, packaging liquidity mining into a game and then selling it to users on the chain. But in the end, GameFi did not create new demand (perhaps only the gaming guild was the only track to benefit from the GameFi hype), and the cycle ended hastily. If GameFi succeeds in creating new demand and a solution emerges, the bull market could last a few more months.
@cobie calls this narrative hype Metagame.
We've also seen a lot of metagame this cycle, like the Inscription and Memecoin hype I mentioned above (as well as some fleeting metagames like Modular, Cancun Upgrade/Layer2).
Inscription and meme coin hype are the most popular Ponzi plays this cycle. In short, these Ponzi are people who constantly launch new assets and then use expectations to attract subsequent acquisitions.
The hype surrounding inscription and meme coins is not unfounded.
I personally believe that the hype behind the inscription is most likely driven by miners. On the eve of the halving, miners need to promote the growth of activities on the Bitcoin chain to increase mining profits. In other words, in the future, as halving continues, miners will need to promote the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem to subsidize mining expenses. It is foreseeable that in the future, a large number of new assets and new ways of playing will emerge in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and new wealth opportunities will also emerge.
And what about meme coins?
A mainstream view is that the reason why the market is keen to speculate on meme coins is the disgust and resistance of market participants towards low circulation and high FDV VC coins.
What I would like to add is that the meme coin craze is more like the result of "the right time, the right place and the right people": if Solana wants to be revived, it needs the wealth effect on the chain. Only when users enter the Solana ecosystem can Solana bring other Other products (DeFi, mobile phones, Depin) are promoted to users. Meme coins are a hook.
The resistance movement against VC coins has pushed the meme coin hype wave to a new level.
The memecoin hype has created a need to trade memecoins and issue memecoins. Hence the popularity of Telegram Trading Bot and Meme Coin Launchpad.
The above is actually a simple review of the past cycle. After looking back on the past, let me briefly talk to you about some of my predictions for the future Metagame.
The basis of the forecast is to focus on the mainstream plight of the industry and the mainstream views of the market.
1. Alt Layer1 (market hype demand)
Discussions about Alt Layer1 mainly focus on the topic of "Solana successor". On social media, I see a lot of opinions that $SUI will be the next Solana. Although this kind of view is a bit crooked ($SUI conducts a lot of OTC transactions? I'm not sure about the details, but market rumors say this), $SUI does have the potential to become the next generation Alt Layer1.
But, my question is, is there something wrong with Solana?
At present, there are no big problems (similar to what Ethereum had in the last cycle). Although Solana occasionally experiences some lags, it does not affect users' use. Solana's current dilemma lies in the market's fatigue with the hype surrounding Solana's meme currency - without sufficient wealth effects on the chain, there is no expectation of hype. Pumpdotfun is partly responsible for this.
There is currently no indication that $SUI will be able to take over Solana.
I personally believe that the core of a chain is developers, and the ecosystem is the basis for attracting and retaining users. Solana has captured a large number of developers in the previous cycle and left a lot of on-chain infrastructure behind. This is its success. foundation, while $SUI does not yet have one.
Competitors of $SUI include Fantom, $SEI and other chains. $SEI's fundamental data has risen a lot recently (expected airdrops drive data growth), which may provide fundamental support for possible unlocking in the future. Fantom also provides airdrops for Sonic chain users. Although they are all following the same old path as their predecessors, they are indeed effective in the short term.
Let’s talk about other chains.
Avalanche's direction is enterprise-level adoption (subnets) and RWA. Market expectations for RWA will decrease with the onset of interest rate cuts, and we have a question mark here regarding enterprise-level adoption. The hype around Avalanche isn't about the number of users, it's about market attention. The means to attract market attention can be to frequently release positive news to raise market expectations.
An important difference between Berachain and other chains is that PoL is very obvious to users. It will promote users to compete with verifiers and project parties at various levels, while the consensus mechanism innovations of other chains have a negative impact on users. It's all innocuous, and users may just think that this is another faster and cheaper Layer 1. This is also one of the more interesting aspects of Berachain, and the Berachain community is doing very well. Therefore, it is foreseeable that after the Berachain mainnet is launched, there will be no shortage of topics and market attention, and PA will be affected by this.
2. Liquidity fragmentation (real demand of the market)
In my opinion, the solutions to solving liquidity fragmentation are the following:
Chain abstraction / intent abstraction
Shared liquidity
Cross-chain/Interoperability
No matter what abstraction it is, the simple understanding is: create a front end, and users only need to use this front end to seamlessly use the products of each chain and realize their certain intentions. The launch of Uniswap v4 may be an opportunity for this kind of infrastructure hype. But the real large-scale hype may still have to wait until liquidity & users enter on a large scale (in the middle and late stages of the bull market). To put it bluntly, the chain is not active enough, and the number of users determines the scale of demand.
Shared liquidity literally means putting all liquidity together and providing liquidity for other products in a unified manner. But shared liquidity cannot solve the problem of user experience. The demand for such products is often reflected in the B-side rather than the C-side. Personally, it is difficult for me to see the possibility of hype for this type of track - unless there is good fundamental data + building basic market awareness + large-scale CT orders for a certain project.
I won’t talk about cross-chain, as many people are already talking about it.
3. Buying and holding Bitcoin (real market demand)
During this cycle we may see a trend shift from “institutional buy + hold” to “national buy + hold”. Trading venues may then become more important as such demand drives them. Related targets include $BNB, $COIN, etc.
Moreover, we have now seen that more countries are holding Bitcoin through mining, and there is a high probability that speculation on energy-related targets will also occur (the time cannot be predicted).
4. AI (market hype demand)
We’ve seen the hype around AI a lot. Including OpenAI's continuous innovation and Huida's financial report, etc., have given the market sufficient hype expectations. I personally believe that the key to AI hype lies in trading venues. The potential of AI targets traded in venues with ample liquidity is greater than other targets. The quality of a trading venue also depends on the background of the corresponding target.
5. New Ponzi
The gameplay of the new Ponzi is difficult to predict.
At present, market attention is still focused on meme coins and the Bitcoin ecosystem. The Bitcoin ecosystem is strong, but meme coins are relatively weak. In this cycle, everyone is keen on hyping newly released assets, but Ponzi like DeFi and GameFi has not appeared. One day, the market will get tired of the hype of new assets and focus on projects with real income, such as $BANANA, or projects with full circulation + strong fundamentals, such as $UNI, $LDO.
6. Finally
Metagame is a concept I borrowed from cobie in 2021. As for the hype that may appear in the future, I am also in the fog. Before it appears, no one can clearly predict which track the next narrative-level opportunity will be.
"Increase awareness and remain sensitive" is what we need to do now.
The main topic of this article is predictions for the future Metagame. I suggest you read this old article cobie published in 2021 (the article also mentions Metagame’s rotation and exit timing): https://cobie.substack.com/p/trading-the-metagame
[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 reprinted with permission from: "PANews"
Original author: Sleeping in the rain
