Author: Frank, PANews

On March 17th, the crypto artist Dekadente (Twitter ID: @0xDekadente) posted the following content on Twitter:

"The Solana Memecoin presale is now live!

Send SOL to: BL1gBdtuYRYSepKKpoy1GCNSmS1JeGSiNb7tdB2HQzor

Minimum 1 SOL 50% presale and 50% LP. All SOL will be converted to LP and the LP will be burned. RT and reward multiplier deployment address. Ends within 24 hours!"

This tweet received over 4.8 million views, and the address raised 169,982 SOL tokens, worth over $32 million.

In the following days, the project was delayed for various reasons and did not release tokens or airdrop as scheduled, until the token SMOLE was hastily launched on the afternoon of March 21st.

A performance art with only horror and no surprise

The presale of meme coins has recently become a new trend on Twitter, initially initiated by Darkfarms, the creator of the Pepe Meme image. On March 10th, Darkfarms attempted to raise 500-600 SOL for a new meme coin called BOME (BOOK OF MEME), but the enthusiasm of fans fixed the amount at 10,131 SOL. Subsequently, Darkfarms deposited the entire amount into the LP pool, creating a meme coin with almost the most liquidity. This move sparked widespread discussion and recognition, and the value of the BOME coin subsequently increased by about 577 times within a few days. Following the wealth effect, more and more crypto artists or KOLs began to imitate this presale model, to the extent that the number of meme coins issued on the Solana chain reached 9,943 on March 15th.

Dekadente is the creator of the NFT projects CryptoCheems and DystoPunks. In the past 180 days, only one transaction has been completed for the CryptoCheems project on Opensea, with a transaction price of 2.77 ETH at its highest point in 2021, and the most recent transaction price was 0.15 ETH. It can be said that CryptoCheems and DystoPunks do not seem to be outstanding NFT works, but this does not affect the enthusiasm of their creator Dekadente in the new round of meme presale.

According to Dekadente's tweet, "Many people asked me to create a memecoin on Solana because my first NFT collection was a meme." Subsequently, he conducted a poll on Twitter, with 73.4% of people expressing support for his presale of a meme coin.

In Dekadente's presale, there was no limit on the number of tokens sent, only a 24-hour limit. Dekadente even encouraged everyone to send multiple times or send a large amount of SOL tokens.

"Someone just sent over 1,700 SOL, a small transaction," Dekadente wrote.

In the days following the presale, Dekadente stated that he was unable to add an LP pool on Raydium, thus delaying the airdrop and token issuance. This also raised concerns among many users in the community, as this voluntary act of sending money may be difficult to legally protect.

Human experiments ultimately succumb to human nature

The post-listing performance of SMOLE did not continue the legend of the previous meme presale coins, rising only briefly after listing before immediately falling. Its market value reached a staggering $220 million at its peak, ranking among the top 20 meme coins by market value. If it could replicate a similar increase as BOME (100x increase), its market value could potentially exceed $10 billion. However, unfortunately for the hopeful users, SMOLE fell to around its listing price within about 4 hours of listing, almost breaking.

In any case, the users who sent money to Dekadente are fortunate, as this artist did not run away with the funds.

However, another group of users may not be so lucky, as many fundraising projects that received funds have disappeared without a trace, leaving users empty-handed.

On March 17th, a project called Solbot received support and retweets from multiple Twitter blue V accounts after announcing the presale coin, ultimately raising 2,870 SOL. After depositing 1,717 SOL into the liquidity pool, the project's Twitter account was banned. The token quickly fell after a brief surge, and as of March 21st, it had fallen by over 99% from its peak. The remaining 1,153 SOL (worth $217,000) still remains in the project's wallet, with no response or explanation.

Similar cases have been numerous in recent days. However, due to the lack of effective regulatory environment, most of the losing users have silently accepted their losses and hope to hit a project that can make them rich. According to ZachXBT's incomplete statistics, 33 projects on the Solana chain collectively raised 796,000 SOL (149 million USD) in this round of fundraising. As of March 20th, nearly half of these projects had not fulfilled their promises to issue tokens. Solana co-founder Toly also retweeted ZachXBT's statistics, calling on investors to stop doing this.

A mockery of value investors?

Behind the noise, perhaps an objective discussion about the essence of this round of meme coin presales should be conducted.

From the various financing forms emerging from the crypto community, the direct sending of addresses and then asking users to send money seems to have become the most straightforward way of fundraising. Trust is no longer based on white papers, project plans, or luxurious teams. This has been a source of frustration for many teams actually developing products.

The reason behind this may not necessarily mean that the cost of building trust has become cheaper. Instead, it is a microcosm of the entire crypto industry's lack of a trust environment. For users, especially those enthusiastic about meme coin trading, participating in a project that may be perfectly packaged, with limited shares but ultimately not ideal, may not be as good as blindly betting on some large-scale events that may return to zero but have a very small chance of making a fortune.

Previously, meme coins were issued in the thousands every day on the chain, almost without endorsement, relying solely on users' hunting instincts. Therefore, this round of presale memes, for these users, actually increased the foundation of trust (at least some KOLs endorsed it), even if they encountered a run, there was still someone to hold accountable. Fundamentally, it is a gamble with a small amount of funds against the influence of KOLs. This seems more like a mockery of the project parties who have put in a lot of effort to package themselves.

Does this mean that such straightforward meme coins are a better choice for users?

The answer is likely no. Previously, PANews conducted a detailed analysis of the risk-return ratio of meme coins (see extended reading: How to scientifically speculate on "Shiba Inu"? A detailed account of the entire process from trading strategy to finding the "golden dog").

Looking back at the recent frenzy of presale coins, we find that the best-performing tokens, represented by BOME and SLERF, among the 12,787 tokens issued on Solana from March 12th to March 21st, are truly rare. The rise of these two tokens, BOME being the first token to start the trend, and SLERF because the founder accidentally destroyed the token, was essentially a random event. As the frenzy cooled down, almost all presale tokens experienced significant pullbacks. Apart from early investors, latecomers had little opportunity for profit.

Participating in presale meme coins is essentially a form of speculation with very low probability, an extreme interpretation of speculation and FOMO emotions in the crypto community, and the return on investment may not even be as good as buying a lottery ticket.

A user posted the following tweet, prompting deep reflection:

"Cryptocurrency presales:

SOL raised $2 million in 2020

BNB raised $15 million in 2017

Ethereum raised $18 million in 2014

In 2024, a random Twitter user raised $32 million"

After 10 years, Ethereum's market value has reached $430 billion. However, in a month, today's lively presale coins may be completely ignored.

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