If you thought the meme coin craze was just a pandemic-era fad, think again. The latest trend sweeping the cryptocurrency market is the explosion of cat-themed digital tokens, many of which are built on the Solana blockchain.
From cute furry felines to “chubby kittens,” this new breed of meme coins is leaving classic dog-inspired coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu in their wake.
While it may seem like a dustbin of speculative folly, the catcoin craze was extremely serious for investors who had made handsome returns on a seemingly uninteresting asset.
One trader reportedly turned $6,000 into over $530,000 in a matter of hours by buying into $MEW tokens early ("cats in a dog's world"). Another person minted $90 million from the same coin in one day by purchasing nearly 10% of the total supply. That's not bad for a $9.6 million investment, although the risks involved with the deal shouldn't be underestimated.
There's no doubt that these feline cryptos are a fine line and can go from cute to ridiculous in a heartbeat. Read on to learn what's driving this frenzy, potential risks, and whether the latest imminent catcoin release can still power another rapid push.
The Solana blockchain has been fertile ground for meme coins like MEW
While meme coins come in various shapes and may be supported by different blockchains, the vast majority of noteworthy cat tokens have been launched and built on the high-speed, low-cost Solana network. The list includes some famous names such as:
$MEW: “Cats in a Dog World” token, distributing 5% of its supply as an airdrop to dog-themed meme coin holders. $MEW surged over 120% in one day, briefly reaching a market cap of $470 million, making it the largest cat coin by that metric. MEW currently has a market capitalization of nearly $400 million.
$CHONK: Short for “Chonk The Cat,” this token referenced the obese feline meme and saw its price surge by 299% in a single day. Over the past week, $CHONK has gained an impressive 168%.
$WEN: Depicting an impatient cat waiting for “wen” so he can get out, $WEN is up over 100% in the past 30 days. With a market capitalization of nearly $300 million, it is one of the most valuable cat tokens.
$LMEOW: The goal of this coin is to “shift the memecoin ecosystem from the barking dominance of dog-themed currencies to the purring dominance of cat-themed currencies.” From March 29 to March 31, $LMEOW rose by 147%, with a cumulative increase of 90% in the past week.
These are just a few examples of the dozens of Solana-based cat tokens that have attracted significant interest and trading activity in recent days.
According to data from DEX Screener, the most popular trading pairs recently launched on Solana are almost all feline-themed. The on-chain analysis website shows that in the past 24 hours, CATINO, Volt, Snapcat, and Billcates have increased by 138,000%, 25,810%, 24,158%, and 22,675%, respectively.
To understand the emergence of the cat token craze on Solana, we need to look at the success of dog meme tokens like $BONK, $wif, and $BOME on the same network. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts believe part of the reason for the catcoin craze is that these dogecoins offer extremely lucrative early investment opportunities.
How can traders find these coins as early as possible? Anselm's Cat Story
You’ve probably heard many stories of traders making crazy 100x or 1,000x returns on the dumbest coins, but few actually reveal how they discovered them. It turns out it's pretty simple. Most of it is gambling. Traders love to search for culturally relevant and interesting names and concepts because they produce more big winners than anything else.
Professional meme token traders like to use tools like Photon and Unibot to snipe extremely new tokens before they appear on major DEX UIs. This is how 1,000x returns are achieved, but it’s important to remember that the vast majority of these tokens go to 0 in a matter of hours (or even minutes). Only a small fraction will make it to the big leagues, and most memecoin traders will likely lose money.
One of the best recent examples of big-win opportunities comes from popular meme coin influencer Ansem’s Twitter. He's already been associated with a bunch of wildly successful meme coins, so anything funny or entertaining related to him is more likely to explode.
Anselm posted a photo of his cat on Twitter, asking his followers to guess the cat's name. Meme coin developers immediately started printing meme coins surrounding cats and popular speculation.
The meme coin community thought the opportunity was lucrative, so they took to Facebook and searched his family members' accounts to try to find the cat's name. Eventually, someone circulated several messages on Facebook that seemed to suggest the cat's name was Steph, so the developers immediately launched the token "Ansem's Cat" with the ticker "Steph."
Over the next hour, the coin surged 80,000% before plunging 93% after the hype died down. So far, there is still no confirmation whether the cat's name is actually Stephen. If confirmed, the coin may rise again. If he reveals that Stephen is wrong, things could fall apart further. Anyway, it's just a roll of the dice.
STEPH isn’t the only coin trying to profit from the tweet. A lot of developers are throwing a lot of stupid guesses at Solana trying to make a quick buck. Some of them performed well for a few minutes or hours, but most have dropped to $0.
Setting the trend: $BOME and $SLERF
The Book of Memes ($BOME) token pioneered the highly successful “crypto-to-wallet” pre-sale model, allowing investors to purchase new Meme tokens simply by transferring Solana (SOL) to the developer’s digital wallet .
This brilliant and unorthodox fundraising strategy allowed $BOME to jump-start with $2.4 million in upfront funding. After minting, the $BOME token was listed on Binance and its market cap soared to a staggering $1.4 billion.
Not to be outdone, another Solana meme token called $SLERF (Sleepy Sloth Relaxation Fund) raised $10 million by letting users send SOL to wallets.
The developers then accidentally burned these funds before the coin was released. However, that ultimately didn’t matter as the community rallied around $SLERF, which would see the token’s market cap rise to over $500 million once it landed on exchanges like Binance.
The viral success stories of $BOME and $SLERF are huge inspirations for memecoin creators and opportunistic investors looking to replicate those returns by putting their money into new coins.
Enter CatCoin and $SLOTH
While some catcoins floated in low orbit, it wasn’t until the launch of $MEW at the end of March that the catcoin craze really took off. Not only did $MEW tap into the zeitgeist by airdropping 5% of its supply to other popular dogecoins, but like $BOME and $SLERF before it, it executed a highly successful "send to wallet" presale.
$MEW's momentum and solid meme concept as a "cat in a dog world" led to several imitators appearing within days, each with their own quirky cat-related themes. Soon, trading activity in “Kitcoin” surpassed that of Dogecoin in both total market capitalization and hype.
The $SLOTH presale reportedly raised over $5 million in just five days via its groundbreaking “send to wallet” model. Cryptocurrency influencers are now openly declaring that $SLOTH has the potential to be the “next Dogecoin or SHIBA INU” due to their experience riding on the uptrend of other successful Solana meme coins.
Investors are showing huge interest in getting in on the next potential 10x and 100x meme cryptocurrencies before they hit exchanges. For now, the cute kittens are the star.
Risks and Disadvantages of Investing in Cryptocurrency Mania
Of course, it would be naive to ignore the obvious risks and drawbacks associated with investing in cat tokens and the rest of the meme coin craze, which are listed below:
No underlying value: Unlike asset-backed cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) or smart contract platforms like Ethereum and its native token Ether (ETH), memecoins have no utility, use case, or technological innovation to underpin their value. They generate momentum purely based on their ability to go viral among cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Extreme Speculation: If a token’s value is derived entirely from fleeting market sentiment, that means an astronomical rally is possible if investors lose interest or the next shiny meme object captures the market’s attention will be erased quickly.
Pull Potential: Since meme tokens are primarily centralized projects controlled by anonymous teams, the risk of a “pull” scam where developers dump their holdings on unwary investors is very real. New cat coins are created in large numbers with varying degrees of legitimacy and mostly with zero audits.
No fundamentals: Unlike traditional stocks or established cryptocurrencies, memecoins lack fundamentals such as profitability, revenue, product roadmaps, or strategic plans for sustainable ecosystem growth.
Liquidity/Listing Issues: Many cat tokens have low liquidity and trading volume, and only a few are listed on reputable centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. This adds additional risk to retail investors, who may try to enter or exit positions during volatile times, only to find they have no one to turn to on the other side of their trades.
While some people would never justify gambling on a highly speculative asset with no underlying intrinsic value or use case, others are clearly willing to take such a gamble. The market has spoken, with millions of dollars being made or lost every day from the simple fun and entertainment value of flipping cat-themed cryptocurrencies.
Essentially, the zero-to-hero, rags-to-riches appeal is a key factor in attracting a new generation of memecoin enthusiasts.
So while the inherent risks of cat token casinos are clear, the cool cats in the cryptocurrency space aren’t stepping out of the meme coin spotlight anytime soon. It remains to be seen whether this gamble will turn out to be a cat's meow, or lead to another lifeless fad that will be consigned to history.
