Author: Arain, ChainCatcher
Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher
In 2024, the Memecoin track emerged strongly, growing through a super cycle amidst mixed reviews, leaving many Old Money investors astonished.
In the trading battlefield of Memecoins, there are genius scammers who set up 'wealth traps' using cunning means, big players who engage in the market with precise judgment and operations, influencers who bring traffic to tokens using their influence, and promoters who sway market trends through shouting... these annual figures take the stage together, creating a carnival of Memecoins.
Alon
Without the meme launch platform Pump.fun, this meme feast might have been halved. Therefore, in this sense, Alon is a key figure in igniting the Memecoin craze of 2024.
Alon created and launched the Pump.fun platform in January 2024, providing a place for users on the Solana blockchain to create and trade cryptocurrencies, allowing users to create Solana tokens for free in just one minute.
As of December 26, 2024, the platform has created over 5 million Memecoins, including larger Memecoins such as Billy, Michi, and Shark Cat. The platform has also laid the foundation for the 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 oversaturation, it is undeniable that Pump.fun has provided a platform and opportunity for the development and innovation of Memecoins, profoundly impacting the entire Memecoin ecosystem.
Murad
One of the top Memecoin KOLs in 2024, known as the 'Meme Theologian'.
Murad has two main achievements: one is the successful investment in $SPX, and the other is becoming famous by proposing the Memecoin Supercycle theory.
Murad's theory of the Memecoin Supercycle posits that Memecoins are acquiring attributes and speculative premiums from value coins, entering a 'Meme Supercycle' where 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, the market cap of that token was only $10 million, and it has now soared to over $700 million, with paper profits reaching $8.3 million. While holding this token, he actively spread investment ideas on Twitter. His holdings and promotional activities have had a certain impact on the price trends of these tokens, attracting the attention and following of many investors. In addition to $SPX, Murad also holds tokens like giga, pepe, sigma, apu, and popcat, favoring mid-to-high market cap 'cult-like' Memecoins.
According to Murad's summary, he mainly adopts the 'Price and Belief Index' investment strategy, which posits that investors should seek projects with high belief but low prices, namely undervalued Memecoins that typically only have one or two indicators not meeting the criteria, are easy to improve, and have extremely passionate community support.
After appearing at Token2049 and giving a speech, Murad's status in the Memecoin community rose to a new level. Due to his systematic approach to Memecoin investment and strategies, more investors began to research Memecoins, including some VCs.
Ansem
Another KOL among the top Memecoin KOLs in 2024, on par with Murad.
However, compared to Murad, Ansem's trading label is heavier and believes that technical analysis is more important than fundamental analysis. Ansem primarily gained market attention for investing in BONK and WIF. On October 30, 2023, Ansem posted on social media 'bonk great coin', initially recommending BONK when its price was only $0.0000005618. Subsequently, BONK skyrocketed, and by March 2024, its price had briefly exceeded $0.000045, increasing over 80 times.
As for WIF, it can be said that it was gradually hyped up to a market cap of $3 billion by Ansem. 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'. In the following four months, the price of WIF soared from $0.09 to a historical high of $4.85, increasing over 520 times.
Due to frequently recommending some low market cap Memecoins that led to losses for followers, Ansem is currently facing some public lawsuits, with other KOLs accusing him of openly 'cutting leeks'. In response to the accusations, Ansem stated that he is merely selecting the best trades in the market and cannot ensure that every trade will succeed but claims to have helped more people than harmed them. Some analysts have backtested investment returns based on Ansem's previous recommendations, finding that most coins would yield negative returns if bought after Ansem's recommendations.
Sahil Arora
Due to being 'attacked' by multiple celebrities, this scammer from India once caused a sensation in the market, resulting in substantial losses for numerous investors.
Sahil Arora is a serial entrepreneur who started several crypto projects from 2020 to 2023. Although they ended in failure, he earned a considerable profit.
In 2024, Sahil Arora found business opportunities in Memecoin, using his influence and verified status on Instagram to contact numerous celebrities and collaborate on token issuance. He helps these celebrities issue Memecoins, typically holding 25%-40% of the token supply, and quickly sells the tokens after the celebrities' tweets, treating the investments from their fans as his 'exit liquidity'.
For example:
Spent $200,000 to have Jason Derulo tweet to promote a token;
Signed a contract with Caitlyn Jenner to issue the token JENNER for her, agreeing to pay a $50,000 advance and 80% of revenue share, but the collaboration turned into a farce, with Jenner accusing him of breach of contract and publicly cursing him, claiming he cheated her and owes her 'a large sum of money';
Issued tokens for celebrities such as Rich the Kid and Lil Pump, who also complained about similar experiences;
Data company Bubbleworks estimates that Sahil Arora earned approximately $30 million this year by acting as an agent for celebrities in issuing Memecoins.
Lggy Azalea
Australian rapper Lggy Azalea is considered a leading figure in the celebrity Memecoin trend of 2024. In fact, Sahil Arora had also attempted to help Lggy Azalea issue the Memecoin $LGG, but it was not very successful.
Lggy Azalea decided to issue a Memecoin herself. The reason was that she discovered someone impersonating her to issue a coin on Telegram, so she launched the token MOTHER on Pump.fun on May 28, 2024, focusing her 7.6 million follower X account on promoting the MOTHER coin. She deleted all posts before May 29, published 2,245 posts about MOTHER, placed a link to MOTHER's Telegram channel on Instagram, and paused her OnlyFans to direct fans to the Telegram channel. Within a week of its issuance, the price of MOTHER coin surged by 1200%.
Subsequently, Lggy Azalea appeared in Spaces across multiple communities, interacting with community members, responding with voice messages, and making an appearance on the ThreadGuy podcast to share her insights on cryptocurrency and Web3.
As Memecoins became increasingly popular, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin expressed dissatisfaction with the celebrity Memecoin craze, believing that these coins were only intended to make celebrities and early users wealthy without any real use. Lggy Azalea immediately clashed with V God, posting a meme of herself holding a baby version of V God, indicating that 'he is both angry and hungry', leading to a temporary 150% increase in the price of the $MOTHER token, and also spurring the rise of 'family tokens' like $DADDY and $SON.
Lggy Azalea not only confronts but also opens an online store after dealing with V God, allowing purchases of T-shirts and other products only with MOTHER. She also announced that mobile phones and monthly phone plans can be purchased with MOTHER or SOL, avoiding the devaluation of $MOTHER.
Caitlyn Jenner
Caitlyn Jenner is a celebrity of the American flag television program and a former athlete. Like Lggy Azalea, Caitlyn Jenner's media influence and public image attract more attention to Memecoins, but unlike Lggy Azalea, Caitlyn Jenner's issued Memecoin was not successful, ultimately leading to her being sued by investors.
In May 2024, Caitlyn Jenner issued 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, while tagging several well-known crypto KOLs, referring to them as 'crypto kings'. Subsequently, she posted a Story about the $Jenner token, which was also shared by her agent Sophia.
Due to Caitlyn Jenner's previous lack of involvement in the cryptocurrency field, her fans suspected that her account had been hacked. However, Caitlyn Jenner stated that her account was not hacked and released a video of herself to dispel rumors, confirming that $Jenner was indeed issued by her team.
During a period of significant price fluctuations due to various doubts, Caitlyn Jenner's Twitter account held a Space, where her manager Sophia intended to personally dispel rumors. However, Sophia stated during the Space that the team might issue a new token, prompting the market to start selling $Jenner. Although Caitlyn Jenner later claimed that the team would only focus on $Jenner and would not launch other tokens, it was to no avail.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, Caitlyn Jenner earned 2,381 SOL (approximately $405,000) within the past four days of May 2024 by launching 12 MEMEcoins on Solana.
On November 13, 2024, Naeem Azad and Mihai Caluseru, as citizens of the UK and Romania, respectively, filed a class action lawsuit in the California federal court against Caitlyn Jenner and her manager Sophia Hutchins, accusing them of fraudulently soliciting investors to purchase unregistered securities, resulting in significant losses for them.
Spent $400,000 to consume his own fan value, attracting legal troubles; one wonders if Caitlyn Jenner feels it was worth it.
James Wynn
The annual new king of promotion, who made $25 million from heavily investing in PEPE, also faced backlash due to poor behavior.
James Wynn quickly bought PEPE coins within one day of its launch and promoted them extensively on Twitter. On April 16, 2023 alone, he posted at least 24 promotional contents about the PEPE coin, helping to increase its popularity on social media and attracting more investors and Meme community attention.
On May 1, the price of PEPE coin increased by 100 times compared to James Wynn's cost, and James Wynn was found transferring his PEPE coins to multiple new addresses, gradually consolidating assets into his main wallet jwynn.eth, and eventually transferring funds to the exchange address. Media reports indicate that James Wynn earned about $25 million during the PEPE token's surge, with an initial investment of only $7,644.
Subsequently, James Wynn began promoting the ELON token. On April 24, 2024, James Wynn tweeted, 'I think I have a 1000x for you guys, who wants it?' Just one hour before posting the tweet, he had completed the layout of two accounts for the ELON token. He then announced information related to the ELON token, causing its price to surge nearly 100 times in a short period.
On April 27, the price of ELON suddenly dropped by 70%. James Wynn then announced on Twitter that he had sold all his positions and stated that the ELON token had issues. In fact, he had cleared his positions using another rarely used address as early as 3 PM on the 25th, and his selling behavior led to the collapse of the ELON coin. According to statistics, both of James Wynn's accounts were among the top ten in profit during this operation, with profits of approximately $350,000.
James Wynn's clearing actions directly led to the collapse of the ELON price, damaging James Wynn's image in the community, with accusations of him 'cutting leeks'.
Justin Sun
Such a character celebration still requires Sun Ge.
In August 2024, Tron launched the beta version of SunPump, claiming to be the first Memecoin platform in the Tron ecosystem focused on fair distribution. SunPump can be understood as a counterpart to Pump.fun. Although Tron claims that SunPump is not a project of Justin Sun, the public still associates him with SunPump.
After the launch of SunPump, Justin Sun spared no effort in promoting it and predicted that the Tron chain would soon give birth to a Memecoin worth over $1 billion, claiming a deep integration of Tron with Meme culture.
Additionally, Justin Sun has also made moves in other areas of Memecoin. For example, investing $10 million in the forked token SHIB Ultra, making him the largest investor in that project.
In 2024, Justin Sun's most notable moment in Memecoin was the 'expensive banana' incident. He bought the conceptual artwork by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan (a banana taped to the wall) for $6.24 million and ate it during a live stream to pay tribute to Meme culture, sparking public discussions about Meme culture. Through this event, he successfully combined art with Meme culture and expanded the reach of memes.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk has become a heavyweight figure in the cryptocurrency circle. Although he did not deliberately advance the historical process of Memecoins, he certainly has a notable role in the history of Memecoin development. Elon Musk believes that memes are a form of modern art that can effectively convey information and emotions. He once stated, 'Whoever controls the meme controls the world.' This statement reflects his understanding of Meme culture.
Elon Musk's most widely recognized investment in Memecoins is Doge (Dogecoin). In 2020, Musk began frequently posting about Dogecoin on Twitter, such as tweets like 'dogetothemoon', pushing Dogecoin from a relatively niche cryptocurrency into the sight of global investors. In early 2021, Tesla CEO's tweet 'doge' with a rocket emoji caused Dogecoin's price to skyrocket, breaking the historic $1 barrier. Additionally, Musk once planned for Tesla to accept Dogecoin payments, but that plan was later paused. In April 2023, Musk changed the icon of X to a Shiba Inu, causing Dogecoin to surge by 30% that day. In 2024, Musk paid tribute to Kabosu, the original dog behind the Dogecoin meme, in a post on X, sparking a bullish trend for Dogecoin.
In addition to Dogecoin, Musk also unintentionally promoted some Memecoins (note that this is different from promotion):
In December 2023, Musk announced the launch of the first AI model GROK, and a Memecoin of the same name was established, which quintupled in price over two days (though it was later revealed that GROK was created by a scam artist, and the coin subsequently plummeted);
On January 9, 2024, Musk changed his Twitter bio to (CTO) chief Troll Officer, leading to a surge in the price of TROLL;
On January 16, 2024, Musk posted a meme image, and the text, which included meme and smiley elements, caused 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 have attracted significant attention in the cryptocurrency community, often resulting in a surge of Memecoin creations themed around him or inspired by him, such as the 'ClosedAI' token, which increased by over 2800% within three hours after Musk criticized OpenAI.
Recently, Musk changed his Twitter avatar to a meme image resembling the Pepe frog and directly changed his name to Kekius Maximus. PEPE responded by surging, and multiple Memecoins based on the concept of Kekius Maximus also experienced a brief spike.
Donald John Trump
The incoming president of the United States, also a former president, Donald John Trump is often mentioned alongside Musk and brings some trading opportunities for Memecoins. At least for now, Donald John Trump is the one taking the shots.
In May 2024, during an NFT gala for Trump cards held at Mar-a-Lago, an attendee introduced him to the meme coin 'boden' with a market cap of $240 million, to which Trump replied, 'I don't like that investment.' However, subsequently, this meme coin surged 25% on Wednesday, reaching a peak of $0.42.
On August 12, 2024, a $TRUMP Memecoin related to Trump was said to have traders spending 0.052 ETH (around $96 at the time) to purchase 608,650 'TRUMP' tokens, which at one point in June 2024 had a market cap soaring to $788 million.
