Author: flowie, ChainCatcher
Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher
2024 is the year of the meme explosion, with the meme craze running throughout the entire year. As of the time of writing, CoinGecko data shows that memes represent a market worth over $100 billion. Memes are not only the battlefield for retail investors but have also become a battleground for major institutions, CEX, and public chains to compete for traffic.
Compared to the past, which mainly focused on zoo-type memes, 2024 can be said to be a year where everything can become a meme, with angles you cannot imagine. This article reviews the main types of meme speculation concepts in 2024, as well as research institutions' predictions for the development trends of memes in 2025.
The seven major hot speculation concepts of memes in 2024.
Political concept meme
The 2024 U.S. elections have spawned and heated up many political concept meme coins. On March 5, 2024, CoinGecko added a new section for PolitiFi tokens.
Political memes can be said to have initially revolved around Trump, with a 2023 meme token named TRUMP seeing an increase of over a thousand times, astonishing the community. The 2024 election is a key year, and various memes named after important political figures like Trump, Biden, Harris, Vance, and others have once again become hot topics for speculation. Representative tokens include TRUMP, BODEN, KAMA.
In addition to political figure tokens, slogans and famous quotes from political figures have also generated a large number of memes. For example, the meme coin MAGA is named after Trump's campaign slogan 'Make America Great Again.' The meme coin FIGHT, themed around the attack on Trump, saw a significant price increase after Trump's post 'FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!!!'.
Additionally, memes represented by PNUT have also been endowed with the meaning of expressing political demands. A trendy squirrel was captured and euthanized without sufficient communication, leading to a political controversy seeking animal protection and expressing reasonable demands, causing the meme PNUT to go viral. Aside from PNUT, a batch of similar meme tokens expressing political demands, such as the monkey Jorgie taken away by police, also emerged.
AI concept meme
In October, an AI Bot called 'Truth Terminal' (@truth_terminal) 'spoke' its own meme coin name GOAT, and Marc Andreessen, founder of a16z, invested $50,000 worth of Bitcoin in it. GOAT skyrocketed from 0 to $270 million within just 4 days of its creation, with a price surge of 150 times, attracting community attention.
Since then, various meme coins integrating AI concepts have flooded the market, leading to multiple sub-sectors. Representative AI Agent memes include GOAT, GNON, VIRTUA, FUN; AI + infrastructure is represented by ACT; AI investment DAO meme is represented by ai16z; AI + art meme is represented by slop; AI + animal meme is represented by Shoggoth and others.
Hotspot mapping meme
This is also a very interesting phenomenon this year, as every hot topic almost always has a corresponding meme. For instance, in August 2024, after the release of the Chinese-made 3A game (Black Myth: Wukong), which became extremely popular, numerous meme coins like $WuKong emerged on various chains following that trend.
Memes can also easily ride the wave of hot events. In November, after Sun Yuchen announced he bought Maurizio Cattelan's iconic work 'Comedian' for $6.2 million, a meme coin called Ban, themed around Cattelan's banana, capitalized on the Sotheby's auction of the banana and the interaction with the SpaceX Starship launch.
Additionally, if players do not participate in the hot trading of altcoins in a timely manner, a group of them will choose to wait for meme coins related to trending concepts to trade. On December 2nd, the price of XRP reached a seven-year high, surpassing Solana's market value. After many missed out on XRP's nearly 400% increase, they turned their attention to memes related to XRP. By around 1 PM that afternoon, the trading volume on the chain within that ecosystem had exceeded 70M, with the number of transactions reaching 330,000. The XRP-named $RIPPLE surged over 400% within 24 hours, while the $589 meme, calling for XRP to rise to 589, soared over 160% in the same period.
Desci concept meme
DeSci, or decentralized science, is not a new concept born this year. However, in November, Binance Labs announced an investment in the DeSci concept project BIO Protocol. After CZ and Vitalik discussed their insights on DeSci, several DeSci memes surged, making the concept widely discussed, aiming to inject meme liquidity into fields such as medicine, physics, and chemistry.
For example, representative projects include the Desci concept meme coins RIF and URO, both of which come from the meme issuing platform Pump.science launched by the Desci project Molecule DAO. RIF and URO represent the compounds rifampicin (RIF) and uric acid (URO), aiming to support medicine through meme coins.
RIF and URO were not hot at their launch, but with the influence of Binance and CZ, they continuously broke new highs, with a market cap reaching nearly $3 million, and their price surged by 20 times within two days.
TikTok concept meme
Around November 2024, a meme character called ChillGuy went viral on TikTok. This character is a personified figure wearing a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, appearing very calm and is extremely popular among young people, with related videos garnering over 20 million views in just two months.
With the popularity of CHILL GUY, a meme coin of the same name CHILLGUY was born on the Solana chain. Celebrities like Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Musk also helped this meme coin gain popularity by retweeting CHILL GUY elements. $CHILLGUY increased by 7000% in just five days, with a total market cap exceeding $500 million at its peak.
The demographics of TikTok users and those investing in cryptocurrencies and meme coins may overlap significantly, comprising mainly Generation Z and Millennials. Therefore, TikTok may become a creative generator for meme coins.
In addition to CHILLGUY, meme coins related to TikTok concepts, such as MOODENG, APPLE, WAIT, HUZZ, and GRIDDY, have also received significant attention.
Zoo meme
Zoo memes remain one of the easiest narratives to spread and the most resilient. Following Doge, new stars like Neiro and MOODENG emerged this year.
Neiro is a meme named after a new pet adopted by the owner of Doge, which exploded in popularity on the night of Trump's Bitcoin conference speech, overshadowing Trump's themed NSYB (never sell your bitcoin) meme, and sparked a controversy over capitalization in memes.
MOODENG's prototype is a trendy baby pygmy hippopotamus born in Thailand. The rise of MOODENG has also driven the phenomenon of Crazy Animal City on the Solana chain, with various animals like penguin PESTO, baby elephant TOTO, monkey GEORGIE, beaver BOBR, and frog omochi becoming hot spots for speculation.
While Doge dominates the market, cat culture meme themes are also a new direction for speculation, giving birth to memes like MEW and others that rebel against 'dogs.' Cat-themed memes like MIGGLES, which gained popularity from a Coinbase promotional video, have also emerged.
In addition, the previously mentioned PNUT and other memes expressing political demands also belong to the animal-themed meme category.
Celebrity meme
Celebrity memes continue to be an important direction in trading memes. This year, in addition to Trump and Musk, who are two major meme hotspots, some artists and entertainment stars issuing coins have also become a trend and gained significant attention.
At the beginning of this year, the BOOK OF MEME (BOME) issued by Pepe meme artist Darkfarm went viral across various social platforms, rising 20 times within just three hours of its launch, and its market cap surpassed $1 billion in just three days, whereas Doge took four years to exceed $1 billion in market cap.
Throughout the year, several celebrities released tokens, including Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender father of the Kardashians, who launched JENNER, and female rapper Iggy Azalea, who released MOTHER, both achieving hundreds of times in increase, allowing celebrity memes to sweep the crypto community once again.
However, celebrity memes are often extremely short-lived, and these issuing meme coins have been criticized for seeking quick profits. Vitalik has also expressed dissatisfaction with the experiments of celebrities issuing MEME coins.
Predictions for meme trends in 2025: larger scale, AI memes may become leaders.
Messari and DWF Labs both believe that the popularity of memes will continue in 2025. Messari has mentioned three aspects that will drive the growth of memes.
In terms of infrastructure, some high-throughput chains provide sufficient block space, allowing meme transactions to avoid high costs.
In terms of user experience optimization, applications like Moonshot and Pump.fun continue to lower entry barriers and simplify transaction processes, potentially attracting more retail participants.
Additionally, meme coins, as speculative outlets, are similar to gambling and may continue to attract users seeking entertainment and profit in the current macro environment.
Bitwise also predicts that a larger scale of meme coin frenzy will emerge in 2025, stating that tokens issued by AI agents will become leaders in this wave.
Apart from the narratives provided by AI, the Web3 ecosystem incubator Nomos Labs has also mentioned more technologies empowering meme development, such as attempts to link with NFTs, and integrate with payment scenarios and DeFi. Nomos Labs believes that technological empowerment will be an important highlight for meme coins in the next phase. 'In the long run, only when the technological narrative is grounded can meme coins perhaps eventually escape the fate of short-term speculation.'
The practicality of memes may further highlight in 2025, with venture capital firm MV Global stating that decentralized science (DeSci) is expected to achieve significant growth in 2025, driven by practical meme coins.
However, the meme calling king Murad, who exploded in 2024, has a different viewpoint. He believes that in a bull market, practicality may become a constraint, and pure speculation will enhance the performance of meme coins. However, he also mentions that future meme coins may indeed add DeFi functions, evolve into investment DAOs, and even create fashion and lifestyle brands.
