Author: Nancy, PANews
With its round body, cute appearance, unique name and exaggerated expression, this little dwarf hippopotamus Moo Deng (Bouncing Pig) from Thailand became a global sensation overnight and quickly became a meme-making machine. Under the unstoppable charm of the "Bouncing Pig", this new international Internet celebrity has driven the "hippopotamus economy" to flourish, and crypto investors have also started to pan for gold in various ways, even reappearing the zoo market, and driving a substantial recovery in the MEME economy.
Recently, a two-month-old pygmy hippopotamus at Khao Kheow Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand, has attracted worldwide attention for its amusing interactions with its keepers. This Cancer hippopotamus is very rebellious, wanting to "eat" the keepers, being scared out of control by water jets, and struggling to take a bath and nearly falling... These expressions that come with their own memes have also made Moo Deng a popular meme that everyone is vying to create, and it has even appeared in Time Magazine, and Twitter and Walmart have also released meme-related bouncing pigs.
The popular bouncing pigs are also very profitable. According to the Bangkok Post, the bouncing pigs attracted a large number of visitors, bringing in 12 million baht (about 360,000 US dollars) in revenue to the Thai zoo in the first three weeks of September, attracting more than 80,000 visitors. Due to the large number of visitors, the zoo also implemented a limited viewing time measure and opened a 24-hour online live broadcast. Not only that, the zoo is also applying for the copyright and trademark of "Moo Deng Hippo", and is selling bouncing pig peripheral products to raise funds to improve the living conditions of the animals.
This hippopotamus fever has also swept the crypto circle, and various MEMEs with the same name are flying everywhere. Among them, Moo Den (MOODENG) on Solana is undoubtedly the most popular, and the token has become the MEME coin with the largest market value in the Pump.fun ecosystem.
According to DEX Screener data, MOODENG has increased by more than 28,000 times in more than half a month since its creation, and its current market value has exceeded the 200 million US dollar mark, making it the seventh largest MEME in Solana by market value.
Under the strong market performance, there are high-yield investors, but there are also many investors who miss out and sell at a loss. According to Lookonchain monitoring, a 5FGcB address spent 9.8 SOL (about $1,331) on September 10 to buy 38.7 million MOODENGs. It has now sold more than 30 million MOODENGs and still holds $1.33 million worth of MOODENGs; according to Arkham monitoring, a trader invested $800 in MOODENG four hours after its launch, and now holds more than $5.4 million worth of MOODENGs, and has not yet sold them. However, Lookonchain also monitored that a certain address spent 1.5 SOL (about $203.5) to buy 19.4 million MOODENGs, and sold them at 7.64 SOL (about $1,039), with a profit of $835 (4 times the return). If the address holds until now, the profit will reach $2.65 million - a return of more than 13,000 times.
Stimulated by MOODENG, some investors began to closely follow the hype of online celebrity animal narratives on platforms such as TikTok and Youtube, including penguins (PESTO), frogs (omochi), capybaras (CAPY), pandas (HUAHUA) and otters (DEGEN), which are being paid attention to by the market. Stimulated by such animal trends, on-chain transaction volume has increased significantly, especially Solana.
Taking the data on DEX Screener as an example, in the past 24 hours, the trading volume on Solana has exceeded US$960 million. Among them, the top 10 trading volumes contributed about US$170 million, accounting for 17.8% of the overall market. Half of these projects are from animal MEMEs, and their total trading volume exceeds US$130 million. This also means that animal MEMEs are the main driving force behind Solana's trading volume.
In the final analysis, the reason why the Internet celebrity animal economy is booming is not only due to the viral traffic effect of popular Internet memes, but also because these animals are becoming a spiritual and cultural symbol and a carrier for young people to vent their emotions. In particular, those animals with strong personalities and emotional resonance are more likely to gain "believers", which is why consumers are willing to pay for animal IPs such as Moo Deng. However, this kind of popular culture is always changing with each passing day, and the logic behind its rise is more worthy of investors' attention.
