Original author: Mia, ChainCatcher
Original translation: Marco, ChainCatcher
When talking to ChainCatcher about the release of Meme, Lao Mai (pseudonym) used an old joke: How many steps does it take to put an elephant into a refrigerator?
In Lao Mai’s opinion, a Meme project is like “putting an elephant into a refrigerator”, which only requires three steps: preheating coin issuance, market value management, and community maintenance.
During Meme Summer, ChainCatcher talked to several Meme coin traders. Some of them actively issued Meme coins following the hot topics and then operated the projects; some issued Meme coins wholesale, issued a lot of them and kept changing the hot topics; some bought Meme coins and turned themselves into "shareholders" and became the operators of the projects.
In this wealth-creating movement, human joys and sorrows are not shared.
According to data from The Block Pro, in May this year, about 455,000 tokens were created on the Solana blockchain, 177,000 on the Base chain, and 39,000 on the BNB Chain, not counting the remaining public chains.
Most of the tokens created on Solana are meme tokens, partly due to the popularity of Pump.fun.
It is estimated that at least 100,000 tokens are generated on the chain every day. The one-click coin issuance environment has become a paradise for the monetization of Meme culture.
Maybe when you are thinking about buying a bunch of Meme coins, there will always be one that will explode, and behind it is the same team doing the batch issuance.
However, this carnival seems to show no signs of ending, and many institutions are joining in.
The project party is working
Recently, Xiaoxi (pseudonym) placed advertisements about a Meme coin in multiple media outlets, announcing that their Meme coin is cooperating with a film and television company to create film and television works in the Meme series.
Xiaoxi introduced that he himself has been hanging out in various "local dog" groups. Many Meme projects are actually not well prepared and have not figured out what to do. They just suddenly caught up with a hot spot. With popularity and traffic, the project party quickly disclosed the payment address and then finalized the coin issuance time.
This was the case with his project.
The project team, who originally wanted to build slowly, took advantage of the Meme craze and hastily issued coins. Without any concept or product support, this project was successful.
"This success may be more due to the market's enthusiasm. Now many Meme projects' implementation or non-implementation depends on the market's enthusiasm," said Xiaoxi.
Meme projects with the support of celebrities are more likely to become popular.
The meme coin $Jenner of Caitlyn Jenner, the stepfather of the American internet celebrity Kardashian sisters, has risen by thousands of cups from Pump.fun to the secondary market.
Musk’s support for Dogecoin has become the representative of the growth in the last bull market.
Although former US President Trump did not personally support Meme, there are many tokens named after him in the market, and their prices often soar or plummet due to news about him.
However, most “grassroots” Meme projects do not have the support of influence and IP, and project traffic comes more from market hotspots.
If the project team seizes the hot spot and successfully launches pre-sales, bringing liquidity and initial funds to the project, some projects will start to do things.
“Frankly speaking, we had nothing at the beginning, but users thought we were keeping the project progress ‘secret’.” Xiaoxi said that the project was only started after we had money in the later stage.
When asked if this was a bit too crazy, wouldn’t users be worried that you would run away?
Xiaoxi said: "This coin issuance process has become the norm in the current Meme market. I can't confirm whether other local dog projects will run away, but at least we won't."
Just like Xiaoxi said, most Meme coins come from a hot spot or a market craze. Only after the funds are in place will the project party begin to study concepts, routes and future plans.
As for "whether to run away", for "10 U Ares" who chooses to invest in Meme Tugou, it is more like betting. This speculative idea makes the Meme market even more mixed.
Senior meme player R Zai (pseudonym) said, "Anything will be very chaotic in the early stages, just like everyone was skeptical about the A-shares in the 1980s. The current meme environment is much better than the last bull market."
An industrial chain is emerging for Meme coin.
Meme coin industry chain
From celebrities issuing coins to various animated characters and even “emoticon packs” issuing coins, all Meme coins are not accidental.
Lao Mai has participated in the issuance of multiple Meme projects. In his opinion, operating a mature Meme project is like "putting an elephant in a refrigerator", which only requires three steps: preheating coin issuance, market value management, and community maintenance.
This mature business matrix involves the entire encryption industry chain.
The issuance of coins starts with preheating. Meme matrix researcher Ghost (pseudonym) told ChainCatcher that one way of preheating is the self-fermentation of Meme IP. For example, IPs like "pepe" and "doge" have their own traffic and allow the public to resonate and gain mass traffic. The other way is through crazy publicity and promotion by crypto KOLs, community leaders and some industry media.
Lao Mai believes that publicity and promotion are necessary for Meme. If expectations are too high, it may make it difficult for both retail investors and whales to get involved.
When the popularity reaches a certain high point, coins can be issued. The current issuance methods are divided into pre-sale by the project party and pump fair launch.
Regarding the market value management of Meme, some project parties choose to intervene as market makers, while others choose to build it together with the community.
Ghost believes that if a project party pays too much attention to publicity in the early stage before Meme is released, the market value will be too high at the beginning, which may cause participants in pre-sales, airdrops, or the project party itself to lose control and abandon the ecosystem.
Most of the "dead" Meme projects on the chain showed a trend of opening high and closing low. They were either sold off by pre-sale investors or were "all in one wave" by bad project parties to raise money and run away.
In this regard, Lao Mai said, "Market value management should involve market makers. After all, it is difficult for whales to continuously arbitrage in a meme and achieve a curve rise. As for the so-called "project party control", most of them are small orders, which means "eternal profit" for the project party." (Counter-trading: refers to a common trading method in which the main force transfers money from the left hand to the right hand.)
When it comes to project maintenance, R’s experience is, “Do publicity during high peaks and push plans during low peaks.”
When the market is booming, you should do more publicity and promotion to expand the market; when the market is facing a trough, you need to plan the next step and optimize the team.
In the later stages of Meme development, Lao Mai admitted: "Going to a big law firm is the only way out."
Being listed on a major exchange means breaking out of the circle, but few Meme projects can survive in the secondary market. The primary market is the main battlefield for Memes.
Shanghai Stock Exchange has also handed over part of the life and death of Meme to the exchange, because "liquidity is mediocre and no fees can be generated", Meme coin will face the risk of being delisted by the exchange.
Therefore, when the positive effect of the Shanghai Stock Exchange is activated, the project party will also cooperate with the coin listing promotion to pull up the price. At this time, the price of Meme coin will reach a new height.
This height may become a new starting point or an end point.
"Now the exchange will face a massive sell-off," said Mac. Currently, Meme speculators will basically sell when the good news comes. "They don't mind selling at a loss, after all, selling at a loss will always make money."
Speculators are the main audience of the Meme track. How to maintain this wave of speculators is also the most troublesome problem for the project parties in the development of Meme coin.
Takeover or community consensus
No matter whether they succeed in getting rich or are blocked by Memes, the truly active people behind every project have always been the grassroots users in the cryptocurrency circle.
R Zai said: "In the early stage, retail investors who like to trade quickly may become more united after a certain period of time."
Meme coin can be understood as a symbol of decentralization, and the community is the manifestation of decentralized collective consciousness. When collective consciousness becomes consensus, the decentralization of Meme coin can become complete.
The success of a Meme coin is never just driven by the project owner, it also comes from the carnival of the community’s collective consciousness.
Community takeover (CTO) is commonplace in the Meme field, and R is one of them.
When faced with the malicious departure of the early team, R Zai and a group of like-minded community OGs and KOLs began to spontaneously and voluntarily undertake the operation of the entire Meme project.
R Zai said: "Our strength and KOL are very strong, and the future glory will be accomplished by the current long-term team."
In R’s eyes, it was the power of community consensus that saved a project from a malicious team, and it was also the community consensus that brought vitality and vigor to the Meme project.
Currently, each Meme project comes with an official TG group and Discord group as standard. In addition, official administrators will be set up to liven up the atmosphere and answer some user questions.
Most mature Meme projects will hold regular AMA activities, where project owners will show the public their latest developments and answer user questions. The community can also make suggestions to the project owners.
Compared with the centralization of mainstream currencies, the upstream and downstream connections established by the Meme community are more decentralized.
Over-decentralization — Meme becomes a speculative casino
While Meme coin has taken decentralization to the extreme, speculation has also grown wildly within it.
As for Mac, he never thought about issuing coins at the beginning. The profit-seeking and speculative nature of Meme attracted him here.
The openness, transparency and decentralization of the chain make it a natural breeding ground for speculation.
Here, Lao Mai has witnessed the emergence and disappearance of too many Meme projects.
"To me, a project is like a pet. I don't have high expectations for it. I have already seen its entire life from the moment it is born."
There are very few projects that can truly break the circle. Most projects are born and cut off over and over again, but the team behind them may be the same.
Mac defended himself: "I never think I made a big profit. In the meme industry, most of the time it's speculation. There are always losses and gains."
In Meme’s casino, people’s desires are infinitely magnified in the high-multiple increases, and more and more profit-seeking speculators begin to pour in.
Ghost believes: "There are many 'one-night stands' in the Meme market, and people are crazy about arbitrage. But after that, only the speculators who are firmly trapped and the depleted liquidity are left."
"Take a chance and your bicycle will turn into a motorcycle" is a phrase that often appears in the Meme circle. For most players who buy Memes every day, buying coins is more like buying lottery tickets.
"I buy ten popular memes every day, and there will always be one that brings a surprise," but most of the time, all ten tokens are lost.
As an investor and "Builder", R Zai looks at Meme from the perspective of investment. "Now there are many Meme coins with certain application scenarios, and they are gradually moving towards a good long-term development. As long as the investment is reasonable, I still have confidence in this area."
Meme tokens are always present in every market cycle. A group of investors who are keen on a particular meme will gather together to push up the price of an asset in a short period of time. This strategy has become popular in the crypto field, boosting the price of tokens while revitalizing the entire ecosystem.
From Solana, to Base, and now to Ton, Meme coin is leading this bull market. More and more traditional institutions are also turning their attention to Meme. Avalanche even established a dedicated Meme token fund.
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