1. A Brief History of Memecoin

Looking back at this year's crypto bull market, Memecoin is an unavoidable topic. At the beginning of the year, there was BOME, in the middle of the year MAGA, and at the end of the year GOAT, with popular Memecoins emerging one after another. If we consider oracle, cross-chain bridges, and DA (Decentralized Applications) as the cornerstones of cryptocurrency, enhancing the efficiency and convenience of transactions, Memecoin is at the other end of the spectrum; it is more like a "hot search," the "traffic password" of the crypto industry.

Memecoin KOL Murad proposed in 2024 that Memecoin will enter a "super cycle," with multiple hundredfold coins being born. However, in the early days, Memecoin was merely a product of internet users playing with memes, and investors could not price it. It was only after continuous technological iterations and community expansions that Memecoin established its current status. The term "meme" is a transliteration of "迷因" (mí yīn) in Chinese, and if we look for a word in Chinese that is similar in meaning to "meme," it would be "梗" (gěng). For a meme to spread virally among people, it needs to meet three conditions: it must be full of storytelling, interesting, and have a low threshold for understanding.

Meme culture is a phenomenal topic in modern communication studies. Belgian scholar Francis Paul Heylighen proposed in 1998 that meme culture consists of four stages: "assimilation," "retention," "expression," and "transmission"【1】. The School of Communication at Central China Normal University has kept pace with the times, proposing in 2022 that the transmission of meme culture can be divided into three stages: imitation, mutation, and competition【2】.

For example, the popular meme "遥遥领先" (yáo yáo lǐng xiān) in 2023 was proposed by Huawei's executive Yu Chengdong. Initially, Huawei's products had a clear performance advantage, and Huawei's fan base was accustomed to flooding the release events with "遥遥领先," marking the imitation stage of the meme. However, as Huawei's phone prices were high and the reputation of several new models declined, "遥遥领先" turned into a mockery of Huawei by users, marking the mutation stage of the meme. During the same period, memes like "哪里贵了" (nǎ lǐ guì le), "哈基米" (hā jī mǐ), and "狗罕见" (gǒu hǎn jiàn) were competing for users' attention, marking the competition stage of the meme. Strong memes will prevail in this stage, while weaker ones will be eliminated.

Figure 1: Meme Transmission Theory: Imitation, Mutation, Competition

On a deeper level, the popularity of meme culture is due to its alignment with the Uses and Gratifications Theory proposed by British communication scholar McQuail【3】. This theory includes four utilities: mood transformation, interpersonal relationships, self-affirmation, and environmental monitoring. Firstly, meme culture is more about teasing and alleviating life, such as Memecoin IQ50, which humorously suggests that even someone with an IQ of 50 can achieve wealth. This aligns with the utility of mood transformation. Secondly, meme culture has a well-established community where fans can share "meme images," aligning with the utility of interpersonal relationships. Additionally, meme culture carries strong symbolic meanings. A significant portion of users holding MAGA identify with Trump's political views, aligning with the utility of self-affirmation. Finally, the continuously created new stories in meme culture allow users to dynamically feel the changes in the external environment, aligning with the utility of environmental monitoring.

1.1 The Birth of Memecoin

DOGE is the first Memecoin born globally. In 2013, DOGE was created on the American Reddit forum, even earlier than well-known public chain projects like Ethereum. People widely spread DOGE due to its interesting and playful Shiba Inu image. During the same period, a large number of celebrity tokens were also born, including CoinYe, PotCoin, MaxCoin, and others.

In 2015, Ethereum was successfully launched, and many infrastructure projects were established during this cycle, including the oracle Chainlink and decentralized storage Filecoin. Before 2021, Memes had not formed a complete sector; DOGE was more regarded as a cultural symbol. However, it was precisely because of the ICO boom in 2017 and the DeFi Summer in 2020 that Memecoin gained more security in trading platforms and pricing mechanisms, allowing users to trade confidently on on-chain trading platforms.

1.2 The First Prosperity of Memecoin

In 2021, DOGE, a Memecoin that had been dormant for many years, unexpectedly exploded, achieving a return rate of 81 times in just one year. Elon Musk was the biggest driving force behind DOGE's rise. In 2019, Musk was voted by Twitter users as the CEO of the Doge project, and since then, he has continuously tweeted in support of Doge. Also in 2021, Shiba iterated on a new way to play with Memecoin, deeply integrating Shiba with DeFi and innovatively launching the Shiba staking yield program, allowing users holding Shiba to earn excess returns through staking. 2021 was the true beginning of Memecoin, but it also faced a highly overlapping competitor in narrative and function—NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). The hype around NFTs overshadowed Memecoin that year, with its gaming and social narratives becoming a dazzling star in the cryptocurrency market.

1.3 The Super Cycle of Memecoin

From the second half of 2022 to the first half of 2023, the crypto market experienced a prolonged downturn of over a year due to the impact of the Three Arrows Capital and FTX crises. During this time, many popular projects in the primary market saw their value shrink by more than 50% in the months following their Token Generation Events (TGE). Retail investors, after suffering losses from these projects, began to awaken their self-awareness; instead of being "harvested" by popular projects supported by VCs, why not seek undervalued projects without cash-out pressure and become early investors themselves?

The rethinking of investment logic by retail investors prompted a new round of explosive growth for Memecoin in 2024. As 2024 began, the market capitalization of Memecoin continued to rise within the total cryptocurrency market. Many phenomenal Memecoins like WIF, Floki, and Punt emerged, closely tied to the evolution at the channel level. Firstly, traditional financial markets, such as Robinhood and other traditional securities trading platforms, allowed Memecoins like PEPE to go live. On-chain, platforms like Pump.fun lowered the threshold for issuing coins, leading to more hundredfold coins in the Memecoin sector.

In terms of narrative, political memes and AI memes also became new stories for Memecoin. With the favorable outcome of the U.S. elections for Trump benefiting the crypto industry, Memecoin officially entered a "super cycle."

2. Observations on Memecoin

In this section, we will first analyze the reasons for the success of Memecoin. Secondly, we will provide readers with some indicators to observe Memecoin. We believe that through in-depth research, every investor has the opportunity to become a diamond hand in Memecoin. Finally, we will categorize Memecoin by market capitalization to give unfamiliar readers a preliminary understanding of Memecoin.

2.1 Memecoin and NFT

To explore the success of Memecoin in this cycle, we must mention the once-popular NFT from the previous cycle. The brilliance of NFTs can be attributed to several reasons. The first reason is Ethereum. To this day, most NFT transactions are concentrated on Ethereum, and from the end of 2020 to mid-2022, it was the strongest period for the Ethereum ecosystem, with ample on-chain funds supporting high NFT pricing. The second reason is the "metaverse" craze in 2021; within the vast concept of blockchain, NFTs are most aligned with the metaverse's ideas of digital twins and virtual reality technology. The final reason lies in the personal vanity satisfaction brought by non-fungibility. Unlike Memecoins, each NFT is unique; for example, the highest rarity of BAYC can be several times the floor price. Similar to the logic of in-game purchases, high-rarity NFTs carry a higher social premium.

When discussing NFTs and Memecoins, well-known KOL Murad stated, "From a technical perspective, memes and NFTs are the same thing, but I believe the scale of memes will be 50 times larger. The reason is simple: even in a successful NFT project, if you really calculate the numbers, you'll find that about 3,000 to 4,000 people are promoting 10,000 illiquid JPEGs. In contrast, the situation with memes is much more efficient, and both sides are more optimized."【4】

Murad's statement is very representative; the difference in liquidity between NFTs and Memecoins is a key reason for their vastly different market performances. The high pricing and limited issuance of NFTs have led to severe liquidity issues; Memecoins, on the other hand, adopt a completely opposite strategy, attracting users to buy through low prices, resulting in a large number of tenfold and hundredfold coins, maintaining high enthusiasm for the entire sector.

Additionally, since the end of 2023, in the new cycle, Ethereum has been at a disadvantage in terms of Gas fees and TPS (Transactions Per Second) compared to Solana. Meme issuance platforms like Pump.fun have also benefited from Solana's performance advantages, with the number of new coin issuances and transaction volumes continuously increasing. In contrast, NFT issuance platforms like Opensea and Blur have seen a continuous decline in new coin issuances and transaction volumes.

Finally, from a product logic perspective, NFTs and Memecoins are completely different. The logic of NFTs is top-down; it first binds a large IP like the NBA, World Cup, or well-known artists, and then gets users to pay for the product. In terms of community building, leading NFT projects like BAYC, Cryptopunks, and Azuki have not invested enough resources and energy. In contrast, the logic of Memecoins is bottom-up; by issuing a large number of Memecoins, users are invited to join the community, gradually filtering out concepts with sustained popularity. Moreover, the issuance cost of Memecoins is far lower than that of NFTs. Although technically memes and NFTs are highly similar, the operation of Memecoins aligns with the general public, while NFTs cater more to the elite class.

2.2 Memecoin Observation Indicators

How investors price Memecoins is a challenging task; it can even be likened to scratching a lottery ticket, with high risks and high returns, but not many reference indicators. MIIX Capital once provided a scoring method for valuation. The valuation of Memecoins equals the size of the narrative + the frequency of emotional awakening + celebrity effect + media share ratio.【5】

However, the author believes that a deep dive into the Meme community reveals that the valuation of Memecoin primarily reflects the valuation of its users, with the narrative evolving from the community's tone. If a Memecoin community can satisfy three criteria—having a large number of members, high loyalty, and strong willingness to pay—the future narrative direction, whether in gaming, finance, or social aspects, will be a very good monetization method.

The price changes of Memecoin have a lot of randomness; even if investors are optimistic that a meme will become a hit, they need to delve into the community. In terms of content, there are five relatively important social media platforms: Telegram, Discord, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and TikTok. Investors need to be sufficiently sensitive to changes in the community to more easily identify high-yield Memecoins.

The five communities have different roles. Telegram and Discord have some overlapping functions, but Telegram is positioned for convenient user communication, so the same Memecoin may have multiple communities. The overlap between Telegram group users and token holders is relatively high, leading to more discussions about token prices. From the perspective of Discord's product positioning, its primary users are gamers, so Discord communities have systematic classifications and sections, with a higher entry threshold. This makes it suitable for users to systematically understand a Memecoin. X leans towards project promotion and KOL voices. X has a high update frequency and content that is provocative. In terms of video platforms, TikTok has more viral dissemination potential compared to traditional YouTube and has become the main battleground for the new generation of Memecoin social media dissemination.

In addition to the five major communities mentioned above, subcultural communities like Tumblr, 4chan, and Reddit are the cradles for nurturing new memes. Articles from third-party media and research institutions also have a significant impact on the dissemination of Memecoin.

On the trading front, Memecoin investors need to maintain sensitivity to on-chain data. Some early Memecoins were only traded on-chain, with centralized exchanges listing them only after reaching a certain market cap, which fundamentally differs from investing in DeFi, GameFi, and Infra projects. For early projects, users can use bots like GMGN, Bonkbot, and Maestro to follow trades, and they can also refer to data analysis platforms like Dune to closely track "smart money" addresses.

2.3 Initial Exploration of Memecoin

The classification system of Memecoin is quite complex and can be explored from multiple dimensions such as market capitalization, themes, and underlying public chains. However, for readers new to this field, using market capitalization as the initial classification standard is more intuitive. In terms of market capitalization, Memecoin can be divided into five stages: maturity (over $10 billion), quasi-maturity ($1-10 billion), growth ($100 million to $1 billion), bottleneck ($70,000 to $100 million), and startup (under $70,000)【6】.

As of the end of November 2024, the only Memecoins with a market cap exceeding $10 billion are DOGE and Shiba, both of which are also the earliest Memecoin projects in terms of time. Among them, DOGE has consistently remained in the top ten of the entire cryptocurrency market cap rankings. Next, there are nine Memecoins in the $1-10 billion range, including PEPE, BONK, WIF, FLOKI, BRETT, POPCAT, and PNUT. Except for PNUT, which has recently seen a continuous price surge, breaking the $1 billion mark, other projects have matured in community operations and will need further development in their narratives.

Additionally, there are 46 Memecoins in the $100 million to $1 billion range, and the composition of these tokens is relatively more complex. However, crossing the $100 million mark indicates that the project has expertise in community, narrative, and promotion. The division of bottleneck and startup stages is based on the graduation standards of the mainstream one-stop token issuance platform Pump.fun (tokens with a market cap exceeding $69,000 can be listed for trading on the decentralized exchange Raydium). The graduation rate of only 1.6% on the Pump.fun platform indicates that the number of non-graduated Memecoins is significantly higher than that of graduated Memecoins.

Figure 2: Overview of Memecoins with a Market Cap Exceeding $1 Billion

3. Memecoin Ecosystem

After gaining a preliminary understanding of Memecoin, this chapter will introduce the various participants in the Memecoin ecosystem, including project founding teams, fans, public chains, one-click token issuance platforms, decentralized exchanges, centralized exchanges, market makers, and KOLs.

Figure 3: Memecoin Ecosystem

3.1 Founding Team

The founding teams of Memecoins can be either anonymous or non-anonymous. Currently known non-anonymous Memecoin teams include DOGE, BOME, and PEPE. The founding team is responsible for a series of decisions regarding Memecoin's subsequent financing, social media operations, exchange listings, and future narratives, making the team's capabilities crucial to the price of Memecoin. Memecoin Slerf (Sloth) once faced difficulties when the founder accidentally burned the raised funds and subsequently failed to refund investors adequately.

3.2 Fans and Community

Fans are the most important factor in measuring the valuation of a Memecoin. Memecoin fans are a complex group that can be divided into holders, creators, and enthusiasts. Holders' primary demand in the community is for the Memecoin to rise quickly; they also act as promoters, marketing their favored Memecoins on social media platforms like Telegram and X. Content creators publish their own memes, short videos, and written content to attract more fans to join the community. Enthusiasts may not yet hold tokens or create content but join the community because they like the image of a particular Memecoin and may later become creators or holders.

3.3 Public Chains

Memecoins represent traffic, a hot resource that public chains need to compete for. For example, Ethereum and Solana have launched MOO DENG and Moo Deng, respectively, based on the hippo prototype. Currently, the most active chains in the Memecoin ecosystem include Solana, BNB, and Ethereum. Some Memecoins choose to launch on multiple chains, allowing for trading across chains【7】.

Figure 4: Trading Volume of Public Chain Memecoins (November 3 to November 10)

3.4 One-Click Token Issuance Platforms

In January 2024, Solana's one-click token issuance platform Pump.fun was officially launched, and in less than a year, Pump.fun has created multiple hundredfold coins. As of mid-November, Pump.fun has issued a total of 3,409,324 Memecoins, with protocol revenue reaching 1,291,142 SOL. One-click token issuance platforms not only reduce the issuance and marketing costs for Memecoin project teams but also significantly shorten the time cycle for token issuance. Pump.fun has made one-click token issuance an important infrastructure for building the Memecoin ecosystem on public chains. Multiple public chains, including TRON, TON, and BSC, have also launched their own one-click token issuance platforms【8】.

Figure 5: Daily and Cumulative Token Issuance Numbers on Pump.fun in 2024

3.5 Decentralized Exchanges (DEX)

Before the emergence of one-click token issuance platforms, Memecoins often first raised funds on social media X, and after successful fundraising, tokens were distributed to investors, with DEX subsequently listing trading pairs. After the introduction of one-click token issuance platforms, the entire operational logic has changed. Raydium maintains close cooperation with Pump.fun. When a Memecoin is successfully deployed and issued on Pump.fun and its market cap reaches $69,000, liquidity from Pump.fun will automatically be added to the Raydium exchange.

Raydium's success with Memecoins is disrupting the traditional DEX positions of platforms like Uniswap, Jupiter, and PancakeSwap. According to data provided by Coinmarketcap, Raydium has become the number one DEX in trading volume for November【9】.

Figure 6: Ranking of Trading Volumes on Decentralized Exchanges

3.6 Centralized Exchanges (CEX)

Centralized exchanges are the next step for Memecoins to reach a broader audience of investors. Once they successfully list on mainstream CEXs like Gate.io, OKX, and Binance, it can further drive up the token price. Gate.io's innovation zone will list Memecoins and provide detailed analysis articles on them. From the perspective of expanding the investor base, the next step for Memecoins after listing on centralized exchanges is ETFs, becoming independent index funds that allow qualified securities investors to purchase. Although there has been significant interest in a DOGE ETF, no Memecoin ETF has been approved yet【10】.

Figure 7: Launch of Memecoins in Gate.io's Innovation Zone

3.7 Market Makers

Market makers are an important part of the entire cryptocurrency chain, including firms like JumpTrading, Wintermute, DWF Labs, and Auros, which are the behind-the-scenes drivers of cryptocurrency price trends. They act as both supporters for some projects and catalysts for the collapse of many tokens. With the increasing popularity of the Memecoin market, more and more market makers are choosing to embrace Memecoins. Among them, Wintermute is currently the market maker holding the largest total amount of Memecoins. Wintermute holds multiple Memecoins, including Moo Deng, Pepe, and WIF, and as of November 8, the total market cap of Wintermute's Memecoin holdings exceeded $110 million. In contrast, DWF Labs, which previously announced its entry into the Memecoin space, currently shows no Memecoin holdings in its public addresses.

3.8 KOL (Key Opinion Leaders)

In the Memecoin ecosystem, before KOLs make their statements, project teams, market makers, and the KOLs themselves have already accumulated a significant amount of tokens at low prices. The statements from KOLs often serve as the final push before a price surge. Core personnel from market makers also play a role similar to that of KOLs. Currently, influential KOLs in the Memecoin ecosystem include successful individuals like Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin, who have built a certain reputation through their previous ventures, as well as grassroots leaders like Murad, who have gained popularity through repeated successful coin recommendations.

KOL neso on the X platform summarized the decisive factors in the growth stages of Memecoins by market capitalization. It is worth noting that the algorithmic push from one-click token issuance platforms also plays a crucial role in the stage of Memecoins with a market cap below $3 million【11】.

Figure 8: KOL neso's Revelation on the Golden Dog on the X Platform

4. Memecoin Classification

This chapter will classify Memecoins based on thematic dimensions, and it will also conduct an in-depth analysis of several representative Memecoins from multiple perspectives, including public chains, channels, and communities.

4.1 Zoo Themed Memecoins

Animal themes have always been a hot track for Memecoins. Currently, among the top ten Memecoins by market capitalization, nine are related to animals. In terms of animal popularity, categories like dogs, cats, frogs, penguins, hippos, and squirrels are constantly rotating. The Memecoin market exhibits clear cyclicality, with animal-themed tokens taking turns leading the charge, making it necessary for investors to conduct in-depth research on the zoo theme.

(1) DOGE

DOGE is the first meme in history, and its price trend is also one of the barometers for the entire Memecoin track. As the purest concept coin associated with Elon Musk, DOGE experienced a dramatic upward curve during the week of Trump's election. DOGE's market cap rose from $23 billion on November 5 to a peak of over $62 billion. The following analysis will examine DOGE from both community and on-chain perspectives【12】.

Since its establishment in 2013, DOGE has built a complete community system. Telegram is an important stronghold for DOGE, with several Chinese-speaking communities having over 10,000 members, and English communities like @DogeChainOfficial and @DOGE_COINS20 also showing very high activity. The Discord community "Own The Doge" requires users to verify their DOGE holdings to participate in discussions, and it currently has over 6,000 members. On social media, the X platform benefits from Elon Musk's role as CEO, and users have also chosen him as DOGE's CEO. After Trump's election, the government efficiency department led by Musk chose to name itself D.O.G.E. Therefore, DOGE has a unique advantage on the X platform, with the official Dogecoin account boasting over 4 million followers and related discussions frequently trending on X. On video platforms, YouTube creator Squillian consistently updates animated content related to DOGE, with several of his short videos surpassing 1 million views, and the account has 940,000 followers【13】.

Figure 9: Doge-themed Short Videos by YouTube Creator Squillian

On the trading front, DOGE's trading volume on centralized exchanges (CEX) far exceeds that on decentralized exchanges (DEX), as DOGE has completed listings on all major CEXs. On-chain funds often seek higher yield growth rates, leading them to choose smaller market cap Memecoins. Historical data shows that early on-chain Memecoins included only DOGE and Shiba, but Shiba had a larger trading volume due to its better financial attributes. Entering 2024, newcomers like WIF, BONK, and MEW have become the largest tokens by on-chain trading volume. DOGE's holdings are relatively dispersed; aside from one whale holding over 20% of DOGE tokens with an address starting with DEgD, the top 100 holders only account for 65%【14】.

Figure 10: Ranking of On-Chain Trading for Memecoins

Figure 11: DOGE Price Trend Over the Past Year

Figure 12: Top Five On-Chain Addresses Holding DOGE

Figure 13: Holding Proportions of the Top 100 DOGE Holders

(2) PEPE

The development of PEPE aligns well with the three-stage theory of meme propagation: imitation, mutation, and competition. The name PEPE comes from the comic work "Boy's Club" created by American cartoonist Matt Furie in 2005, which features four main characters, one of whom is Pepe the Frog. "Boy's Club" was initially a niche work that gained some influence only after being serialized online, completing its run in 2010. After 2010, PEPE spread across various subcultural forums, gradually becoming a commonly used meme on platforms like Reddit and Tumblr. Internet users continuously used PEPE memes to express their feelings, marking the imitation stage of meme culture.

Around 2015, PEPE underwent both external and internal mutations. Externally, PEPE was portrayed as a happy character in the comics, often causing laughter among friends over trivial matters. However, internet trends gradually shifted towards self-deprecation and self-dissolution. Consequently, the usage of PEPE's smiling expression decreased significantly compared to its crying expression. Users unfamiliar with PEPE's story even labeled it as the "sad frog." Internally, during Trump's 2016 campaign, PEPE was frequently used to support him, and many of his supporters changed their avatars to PEPE. During this phase, PEPE even became associated with extreme ideologies like white supremacy【15】.

Figure 14: Trump's 2016 Tweets Related to PEPE

Over the seven years from 2016 to 2023, PEPE survived as a dominant meme, while many meme concepts related to Trump gradually lost popularity and became weaker memes, no longer mentioned. In April 2023, PEPE Coin was born. The founder was not its original artist Matt Furie, but photographer Zachary Testa, who holds a marketing degree from the University of Arizona and possesses a keen marketing insight.

Testa's goal for PEPE was to challenge the dog-themed Memecoins represented by DOGE and Shiba, bringing back the entertainment spirit of Memecoins to the community. PEPE's high-profile declaration of war attracted more attention from cryptocurrency users. In the year and a half since 2023, PEPE has spawned several popular Telegram communities, with the PEPE community having over 60,000 subscribers, while PEPU, built on the PEPE image, has over 130,000 subscribers. In terms of content, new characters from the frog family, such as Apu, Groyper, and Peepo, have emerged based on the PEPE prototype. YouTube creator saratoga has produced multiple short animated videos themed around PEPE, with the highest view count exceeding 60 million. From the perspective of social media dissemination, PEPE even shows a trend of surpassing DOGE【16】.

Figure 15: PEPE-themed Short Videos by YouTube Creator saratoga

PEPE is not only a new force against the dog-themed Memecoins but also, in the rapidly developing environment of the Solana Memecoin ecosystem, has become the highest market cap Memecoin on Ethereum, serving as a barometer for the prosperity of the Ethereum Memecoin ecosystem. Due to the historical reasons mentioned earlier, PEPE is an asset closely associated with the U.S. elections. After Trump's election, PEPE's market cap rose from $3.3 billion on November 5 to $10.4 billion on November 14, an increase of over 200%【17】.

On-chain, since PEPE has been listed on multiple exchanges, the top five holders are all wallet addresses from centralized exchanges. Besides exchanges, the fintech company Revolut holds 1.94% of PEPE for its clients, while the brokerage firm Robinhood holds 2.45% of PEPE for its clients. Among independent addresses, only the on-chain address starting with 0x3f holds over 1% of PEPE, and the other crypto assets held by this address do not exceed $1,000. The on-chain address marked as the PEPE team currently holds only 0.2% of PEPE【18】. In the past year, the number of on-chain addresses holding PEPE has surged from 154,900 at the beginning of January to 329,400 by the end of November【19】.

Figure 16: PEPE's Market Cap Changes Over the Past Month

Figure 17: Main On-Chain Addresses Holding PEPE

Figure 18: Number of On-Chain Addresses Holding PEPE

(3) Moo Deng

Moo Deng is a small hippopotamus from Thailand that has become a beloved animal internet celebrity due to its habit of biting its keepers. Before its issuance on the Pump.fun platform, Moo Deng had already gained some popularity on YouTube and TikTok. In terms of community, Moo Deng's Telegram community has nearly 15,000 members, with the main content being daily on-chain transaction reports and some user-generated content. On video platforms, the main TikTok account for Moo Deng, bestofmoodeng, has 53,000 followers, documenting the daily life of the hippo. Another TikTok account, moodeng101067, mainly produces animated short videos about Moo Deng. On X, Moo Deng has two main accounts: Moo Deng and Moo Deng Fun Page, with 100,000 and 80,000 followers, respectively.

To capitalize on the excitement of the U.S. elections, the staff at the Thai zoo had Moo Deng choose between cakes representing Trump or Harris, and the hippo ultimately chose to eat the cake with Trump's name. Moo Deng is a very successful case of online marketing. However, due to the short time frame, it has not yet accumulated a sufficient fan base or user-generated content.

Moo Deng is a Memecoin on the Solana chain, issued in September on the Pump.fun platform. There is another token on the Ethereum chain with the exact same name, MOO DENG, in all capital letters. Although both use the same animal IP, they are two different tokens. Moo Deng has experienced multiple price increases, rising from an early price of $0.03 to $0.56. In just two months, the token has undergone several price surges【20】.

Figure 19: Moo Deng's Price Changes Over the Past Month

In terms of holder distribution, the largest holder is the centralized exchange Gate.io, which holds 10.12% of Moo Deng. Another major centralized exchange, Kucoin, holds 2.25% of Moo Deng. Additionally, market maker Wintermute holds 5.81% of Moo Deng. The on-chain address starting with CQxg quickly built a position in Moo Deng, holding tokens worth $34 million, making it the second-largest on-chain address by holdings. The on-chain address starting with 969u bought Moo Deng on September 23 and has already realized over 10 times the return.

Figure 20: Main On-Chain Holding Addresses for Moo Deng

4.2 Political Memecoins

As 2024 is the year of the U.S. elections, political Memecoins were once a major narrative in the entire cryptocurrency industry. However, following Trump's election as the 46th President of the United States, political Memecoins have seen a significant decline. The tokens associated with Trump and MAGA both dropped over 50% on November 6, the day Trump was elected. Political Memecoins stand in stark contrast to DOGE and PEPE, which benefited from Trump's victory. One reason for the decline in political themes is that, after the election, such Memecoins quickly lost their narrative direction.

From the perspective of audience selection, political memes have an even stronger filtering effect than zoo and AI memes. Users holding Trump-themed Memecoins and joining his Telegram community tend to lean right politically, while those holding Biden and Harris-themed Memecoins lean left. For these two groups with differing political inclinations, if the relevant communities can focus on operations and continuously launch attractive activities, it should not be difficult to find a monetization business model in the future.

(1) PEOPLE

Unlike many Memecoins, PEOPLE has had a clear vision from the start. The PEOPLE token is the core token of ConstitutionDAO, playing multiple roles in the ConstitutionDAO ecosystem, including exchange, governance, and ownership. DAO members once crowdfunded to purchase a copy of the U.S. Constitution and aimed to make it belong to the internet. After failing to win the auction, PEOPLE completely transformed into a Memecoin, representing citizens' pursuit of the spirit of the Constitution.

In terms of community operation, Constitution DAO has significant shortcomings. After the auction failure, ConstitutionDAO announced its dissolution and refunded the donors' funds. Since then, the project's updates on X have noticeably decreased. X had previously tweeted at the end of 2022 about participating in a new auction for the Constitution but later announced its withdrawal from the auction.

The People token was issued on the Ethereum public chain in 2021, and in May 2024, as the excitement around the U.S. elections increased, the price of People surged from $0.025 to $0.135, an increase of over 440%【21】. Since People has already been listed on multiple major exchanges, the distribution of on-chain addresses shows that several of the main holding addresses for People are wallet addresses from centralized exchanges. The number of on-chain holding addresses has not changed significantly in the past year, growing from around 17,000 to 18,500 on-chain addresses【22】.

Figure 21: PEOPLE's Price Trend Over the Past Year

Figure 22: Main On-Chain Holding Addresses for PEOPLE

Figure 23: Changes in the Total Number of On-Chain Addresses Holding PEOPLE

(2) MAGA

The full name of the MAGA token is Trump's political slogan: Make America Great Again. MAGA Coin is a limited liability company registered in the U.S., inspired by Trump's iconic red MAGA hat. MAGA quickly gained attention in the crypto community, thanks to strong support from Trump supporters and the MAGA movement. Its main features include active community participation, lively Trump debates, MAGA rallies, and the potential for significant media attention due to Trump's controversial image and ongoing presidential campaign. Unlike many Memecoins whose operators choose to remain anonymous, MAGA's operations are primarily managed by professionals Diligent and Mark.

MAGA's main social media platform is X; the project team has not registered on Discord, YouTube, or TikTok, and while there is a community on Telegram, it is not well managed. The main content on X consists of various celebrities wearing MAGA hats, and there has yet to be more in-depth content creation.

The MAGA token successfully launched on major exchanges in May 2024, and with the increasing excitement surrounding the U.S. elections, the price of MAGA surged from $0.0007 to $0.004, an increase of over 470%【23】. On November 6, just two days after Trump announced his election as President of the United States, MAGA experienced a sharp decline, dropping from $0.00019 to $0.0007, a decrease of 63%. In terms of on-chain address distribution, several of the main holding addresses for MAGA are wallet addresses from centralized exchanges, with Gate.io's cold and hot wallets holding 16.6% and 4.9%, respectively, making it the exchange with the largest holdings of MAGA tokens. Over the past year, the number of on-chain addresses holding MAGA has rapidly increased from around 2,000 to 23,800【24】.

Figure 24: Price Trend of MAGA After Issuance

Figure 25: Main On-Chain Holding Addresses for MAGA

Figure 26: Changes in the Total Number of On-Chain Addresses Holding MAGA

4.3 AI Memecoin

AI Memecoins began to attract significant investment in the cryptocurrency space starting in September 2024, with GOAT leading the charge as the top-performing AI Memecoin, increasing its market cap from less than $120 million to $1.2 billion in less than a month. This surge has led to more AI Agent companies issuing Memecoins on the Pump.fun platform.

Rationally analyzing the current AI Memecoin craze, it is evident that there is a certain misalignment with the timing of AI Agent launches. An AI Agent refers to an entity that can perceive its environment, make decisions, and execute actions, acting as a human intelligence assistant. Discussions about AI assistants began as early as the end of 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT 3.5. In February 2023, Microsoft released Copilot, officially defining it as an AI Agent. There is at least an 18-month gap between the rise of AI Agents and the explosion of AI Memes. The main reason for this is the scarcity of applications that integrate AI with blockchain. Bittensor, as a mining network, allows different AI models to solve algorithmic problems in the blockchain, rewarding the most efficient AI models with tokens. Bittensor is one of the most ingenious cases of AI and blockchain integration to date, but after maintaining a certain level of discussion in the first half of 2024, its prominence has gradually diminished. Although AI Memecoins do not exhibit significant innovation in design, Memecoin enthusiasts, as the most rebellious and avant-garde group in Web3, have embraced the narrative of AI × Web3, providing the market with a new storyline.

(1) GOAT

GOAT is the first AI Memecoin to spark a community FOMO frenzy. The birth of GOAT originated from an AI Bot called "Truth Terminal." This AI was fine-tuned by developer Andy Ayrey based on the Llama-70B model and was inspired by a previous AI dialogue experiment conducted by Ayrey. In the experiment, two AIs based on the Claude Opus model engaged in autonomous dialogue, unexpectedly generating the concept of the "Goat of Wisdom." Ayrey used the dialogue and related articles to train the "Truth Terminal" model. Subsequently, the "Truth Terminal" began spreading the "Gospel of the Goat" on X, attracting the attention of the crypto community, and the anonymous project team issued the GOAT token, with the name alluding to the "Gospel of the Goat." The "Truth Terminal" model publicly supported the GOAT token, further boosting its popularity【25】.

GOAT was not issued by the "Truth Terminal," but rather by an anonymous team on the Pump.fun platform, which is distinctly different from other Memecoins issued by AI Agents. GOAT has yet to establish a complete community, and content creation is limited to analysis articles about GOAT. The "Truth Terminal" AI Agent will continue to post on X, preaching the "Gospel of the Goat."

The GOAT project has a legendary backstory and has maintained a steady influx of funds since its issuance. On October 20, a tweet from the "Truth Terminal" misspelled the word "Group," leading to suspicions that there was manipulation behind the "Truth Terminal." On that day, the price of GOAT quickly retraced from $0.51 to $0.26. However, after Andy Ayrey explained the error, on-chain funds chose to believe that this AI Agent narrative could continue. As of November 17, the price of GOAT was $1.15, having increased over 400% from its lowest price on October 20【26】.

Figure 27: Price Trend of GOAT After Issuance

In terms of holder distribution, the largest holder is the centralized exchange Gate.io, which holds 7.34% of GOAT. Market maker Wintermute also holds 3.63% of GOAT tokens, making it the third-largest holder of the project. The on-chain address starting with 4Jpe has been analyzed by X users as a "smart money" address, which has successfully invested in Memecoins multiple times in October, yielding substantial returns; this address currently holds 13.3 million GOAT tokens. The number of GOAT holders has significantly increased in the past month, growing from around 30,000 in October to over 67,000 by mid-November, an increase of over 100%【27】.

Figure 28: Current Top Ten Holdings of GOAT

Figure 29: Number of Addresses Holding GOAT

4.4 Other Memecoin Themes

The themes of animals, politics, and AI alone are far from encompassing all the types of Memecoins currently available. The one-stop issuance platform represented by Pump.fun issues over 30,000 different themed Memecoins daily, bringing new concepts to the Memecoin sector. Therefore, many themes are still in their infancy, such as art Memecoins represented by BAN and scientific Memecoins represented by URO. In the future, more new themes of Memecoins will be discovered, and these new themes are unpredictable for everyone.

Conclusion

Judging Memecoins does not require expertise in programming, algorithms, or cryptography. Investors choose Memecoins based primarily on three aspects: IP, community, and funding. First, it is essential to assess whether an IP has sufficient storytelling and ongoing appeal. Second, it is crucial to determine whether users in the community believe in the development of this Memecoin and are willing to pay for it. Finally, it is necessary to evaluate whether on-chain whale addresses are positioning themselves in a particular Memecoin ahead of time. A positive cycle for Memecoins consists of four events: 1. Attracting new users; 2. Operating the community, increasing user-generated content and discussions; 3. KOLs expressing optimism, with market makers boosting the token price; 4. The project team releasing new narratives or favorable news about mainstream exchange listings. Each time holders experience a positive cycle, their support for a particular Memecoin increases, and after multiple positive cycles, they become believers in that Memecoin.

Figure 30: Positive Growth Cycle of Memecoins

Risk Warning

The Memecoin market is full of uncertainties. Its price is significantly influenced by community sentiment, market speculation, and other factors, which may lead to substantial fluctuations in a short period. Due to the lack of regulation and technical support for Memecoins, investors need to exercise greater caution.

References:

【1】Philpapers, https://philpapers.org/rec/HEYWMA

【2】Audiovisual Focus, https://www.doc88.com/p-49429321007839.html?s=like&id=3

【3】University Chinese Construction, https://www.doc88.com/p-73647194721893.html

【4】Odaily, https://www.odaily.news/zhtw/post/5198963

【5】Medium, https://medium.com/@miixcapitalen/miix-capital-pepe-research-analysis-report-a681be1f949f

【6】Coinmarketcap, https://coinmarketcap.com/view/memes/

【7】Dune, https://dune.com/vijays/memecoin-volume-by-chain#memecoin-volume-on-different-chains-over-the-past-7-days

【8】Dune, https://dune.com/hashed_official/pumpdotfun

【9】Coinmarketcap, https://coinmarketcap.com/en/rankings/exchanges/dex/

【10】Gate.io, https://www.gate.io/en/learn/articles/a-comprehensive-guide-to-gate-io-s-pilot-trading-section/4545

【11】X, https://x.com/neso/status/1780078970022809663

【12】Arkham, https://intel.arkm.com/explorer/token/dogecoin

【13】Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/@Squillian

【14】https://www.coincarp.com/currencies/dogecoin/

【15】BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37493165

【16】Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/@saratoga.

【17】Coinmarketcap, https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pepe/

【18】Arkham, https://intel.arkm.com/explorer/token/pepe

【19】Coincarp, https://www.coincarp.com/currencies/pepe/richlist/

【20】vybenetwork, https://alpha.vybenetwork.com/tokens/ED5nyyWEzpPPiWimP8vYm7sD7TD3LAt3Q3gRTWHzPJBY?tab=overview

【21】Arkham, https://intel.arkm.com/explorer/token/constitutiondao

【22】Coincarp, https://www.coincarp.com/currencies/constitutiondao/richlist/

【23】Arkham, https://intel.arkm.com/explorer/token/maga-hat

【24】Coincarp, https://www.coincarp.com/currencies/maga-ethereum/

【25】aicoin, https://www.aicoin.com/en/article/427026

【26】X, https://x.com/CryptobigM/status/1845838005459632538

【27】vybenetwork, https://alpha.vybenetwork.com/tokens/CzLSujWBLFsSjncfkh59rUFqvafWcY5tzedWJSuypump?tab=overview

Disclaimer:

This content does not constitute any offer, solicitation, or advice. You should always seek independent professional advice before making any investment decisions. Please note that Gate.io may restrict or prohibit all or part of its services from restricted areas. Please read the user agreement for more information, link: https://www.gate.io/en/user-agreement.

About MemeBox

MemeBox is a new brand under Gate.io dedicated to the prosperity of the MEME ecosystem, aiming to explore the potential and opportunities of the Meme market. MemeBox is committed to perfectly integrating technology and culture, gathering global Meme culture enthusiasts with an open and inclusive attitude, and jointly promoting new trends in Meme culture!

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