The game is likely to make a comeback, but it will come with new rules, more absurd narratives, and attract new players.
Author: Westie
Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow
Let’s talk about the Memecoin cycle, setting aside practicality, long-term vision, and even narrative significance. The core of this cycle boils down to one thing: how to get ahead.
Explosive Points: The ETF Craze and the Rise of Solana
This time, the explosive point is not ordinary market sentiment, but rather more specific events. By the end of 2023, the application for a Bitcoin ETF signaled that institutional funds were about to flood into the crypto market. Meanwhile, Solana made a strong rebound after the FTX collapse, telling a story of recovery and legitimacy.
In contrast, traditional altcoins seem outdated. Many cryptocurrencies carry the heavy burden of a bear market; those backed by venture capital, despite having roadmaps and white papers, often appear to have “artificially designed” valuations, more like strategies prepared for exit rather than exciting innovations.
Memecoins, however, bring a completely different experience: simple, direct, and fun. They are “anti-venture capital” tokens, lacking white papers and even websites. There’s just a meme, a code name, and a launch. Their appeal lies in their simplicity and high risk. Because traditional altcoins are too predictable, Memecoins have become the purest “high-risk, high-reward” bets in the market.
If Bitcoin can double due to the ETF craze, and SOL can rise from the depths, then a completely useless dog coin might just increase by 100 times. This is the starting point of this cycle: the optimism surrounding ETFs, the recovery of SOL, combined with fatigue towards venture-backed altcoins.
BONK: The First Step in the Race
Then, BONK burst onto the scene.
BONK is not complicated, nor does it have particularly outstanding meme attributes. But it was the first token to capture this wave of energy. People saw its wild fluctuations and the profits it brought, gradually forming an intuition: something is happening. This is different. This is fast.
Initially, “getting ahead” was not a conscious goal for people. It was more of a mindset of “this is very volatile, maybe I can take a small gamble.” But BONK’s performance—first explosive growth, then predictable fluctuations—gradually and subtly defined the rules of this game.
Narrative Shift: Absurdity Rising from a Limited Meme Pool
The narrative has changed. People in the crypto circle began to realize: “Memecoins are a game, and the key to the game is to find the next BONK, but make it more interesting.”
“More interesting” does not mean technical advancement or team strength. “More interesting” means easier to spread. So how to achieve that? At this stage, the gameplay of Memecoins is still very primitive, and the options for differentiation are actually pitifully few. There are no complex strategies or intricately woven narratives to reference. In fact, the ready-made, internet-native meme resources are quite limited. You are not choosing from thousands of options, but rather from a few materials that can make people chuckle.
Among these limited choices, what is most appealing? The answer is: absurdity.
In this context, “more interesting” is almost synonymous with “more absurd.” Because in an immature Memecoin world, absurdity itself is a powerful signal. It can catch attention and be quickly spread. More importantly, in a market where everyone is still unsure of what a “good Memecoin” should be, humor and that instant hit of laughter become the strongest filtering criteria.
Then, Dogwifhat (WIF) was born.
“Wif hat.” A misspelled, meaningless Shiba Inu wearing a hat. This is the pinnacle of internet absurdity. For many, the first reaction is to laugh out loud. That’s its charm. This humor, this absurdity, conveys a signal:
“This is new. This is unique. This is… early?”
The rules of the game gradually became clear, even intuitively so. It’s not just about finding a Memecoin, but finding that coin that already has viral potential before it goes viral. Capturing the current internet memes, internet jokes, and fleeting absurdity. And in those early stages, in that limited meme pool, the coin that can make people laugh the loudest and is the most absurd often naturally becomes the winner.
To find such a coin, you must get ahead.
The Hunting Ground for Memecoins: A Game of Speed and Control
The gameplay is updating rapidly. “Early” no longer just refers to the timeline after a project goes live; it’s already too late once it’s launched. The real “early” is before the launch—before the public knows, before the heat explodes, before the price rises.
Thus, tools like Photon and “memescope” emerged. The game became more tactical. Traders spend their days glued to memescope—the new Memecoin listing page of Photon. The gameplay turned into: keep an eye on memescope, refresh constantly, and buy in at the first opportunity. Pure “early” optimization—competing in speed, reaction ability, and endurance for staring at screens for long periods.
The “memescope gameplay” seems fair—technically, anyone with the tools and time can participate. But beneath the surface, a darker force is emerging: some “insiders” are manipulating behind the scenes, creating Memecoins and precisely controlling the core metrics that memescope traders rely on for decision-making.
These projects are not always grassroots movements that arise naturally. In fact, more and more Memecoins are being carefully designed as profit-making tools. The tactics of these insiders include:
Creating Memecoins out of thin air: There is no real community or natural heat from the start.
Manipulating data metrics: Artificially inflating on-chain trading data, creating false social media heat, and even manipulating the ranking system of “trending” tokens to make them appear more popular than they actually are.
Targeting trader tools: Knowing that memescope and similar tools have become central to Memecoin trading, they specifically design methods to exploit these platform vulnerabilities.
Hiring market makers: Creating a false impression at the time of token launch, generating “active trading” data to make new coins appear immediately popular on charts.
Collaborating with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders): Paying influencers to “shill” the coin, creating a false impression of “everyone is buying,” triggering early FOMO (fear of missing out).
Deploying Twitter “bots”: Forming teams composed of bots or paid accounts to flood comments under tweets from major crypto accounts, drowning social platforms with token-related information, creating a false sense of heat.
Those traders glued to memescope genuinely believe they have won the “early” game, but in reality, they are always one step behind those who truly control the game rules.
The two key points of the Memecoin game—absurdity becoming the core driving force of viral spread, and insiders creating exit liquidity through manipulation of the “early” game—are now approaching their final Boss stage.
Fartcoin: The Ultimate Game of Absurdity and Attention
For those trying to create the “next WIF”—the next Memecoin that can quickly go viral—a key truth is gradually emerging: to get the public to buy your Memecoin, you must capture their fleeting attention. And in the world of Memecoins, attention is never won through complex stories or technical promises, but rather snatched through pure and undeniable visual impact.
Now, the definition of “early” has completely transformed: it’s not just about speed, nor just pure absurdity, but about meticulously crafting the ultimate attention-grabbing method of “extreme absurdity.”
This is the moment Fartcoin shines.
Fartcoin. From the perspective of a Memecoin creator wanting to attract the public, what could be more eye-catching than launching a token named “Fartcoin”? This is not just absurd; it’s absurd to the point where everyone instantly understands. The name itself is a topic generator, a natural clickbait. It seems to be precisely designed to create that kind of sensational news that cuts through internet noise: “Look at how people are actually throwing money at this ridiculous thing!”
Fartcoin has become the ultimate experiment in the attention economy of the Memecoin world. This is not just an ordinary token launch, but a deliberate, even slightly cynical attempt to turn absurdity into an attention-grabbing tool, drawing public focus. It has become a vivid and humorous proof of concept: in the game of Memecoins, especially when the goal is to achieve true virality and mainstream spread, extreme absurdity is not just a desirable trait—it is a core marketing strategy, distilled to its purest and most provocative form.
Is there a more absurd meme than Fartcoin?
Internal Games and New Market Play
Based on the manipulation tactics of the memescope era, a deeper trend is emerging: purely relying on absurd animal meme coins, although once explosively popular, is now reaching a bottleneck, and the market is becoming more rational and intelligent.
The narrative needs a new direction, a gameplay wrapped in a veneer of “legitimacy.” At this point, “content-rich” memes began to emerge—these tokens, while still essentially memes, are given a certain legitimacy through a seemingly reasonable excuse (plausible deniability). Thus, AI tokens became the new mainstream gameplay. Suddenly, buying a meme is no longer just for a dog wearing a hat, but for “investing” in the future of artificial intelligence! This provides a seemingly reasonable justification for the purchase, even if that justification may be very weak, but it transcends pure absurdity.
However, behind this thematic packaging shift, the core mechanisms of the game and the role of insiders have not changed. The real advantage still lies in information asymmetry. These insider groups simply adapted quickly to the new gameplay, leveraging their early grasp of information to maintain an edge in this new narrative. They knew about the issuance of AI coins earlier than others and continued to profit from this advantage.
Celebrity Memecoins: The Pinnacle of Absurdity and Manipulation
The gameplay of Memecoins has evolved to a new stage: the era of celebrity coins. Insiders have discovered that to create the pinnacle of viral spread and ensure someone is there to take over when they exit, the most effective way is to collaborate with celebrities who have significant influence. These celebrities often have large followings but know little about cryptocurrency, making them the “spokespeople” manipulated by insiders.
What’s more interesting is that these behind-the-scenes manipulators often disguise themselves as “high-level traders,” implying (or directly claiming) that their huge profits come from their skills rather than information advantages. This narrative frustrates ordinary players even more, as they find it increasingly difficult to enter the “early” game, as if they are always one step behind.
The “internal game” is now laid bare for everyone to see, and its gameplay includes:
Becoming an issuer: Creating tokens, controlling the narrative, and generating viral spread through extreme absurdity or stories cloaked in a “serious guise.” This is the ultimate early operation, completely controlling the pace of dissemination.
Becoming an insider: Seeking out those token issuers with high viral potential or seemingly real value, and positioning themselves before the tokens are widely discussed on crypto Twitter. The information asymmetry regarding viral potential is their greatest advantage.
Becoming an influencer: Building their own fan base, using their influence to get in early on absurd or “serious” tokens, then amplifying the narrative, creating headlines, and ensuring someone is there to take over.
As this trend of viral absurdity and control over issuance narratives intensifies, Fartcoin has already demonstrated the extreme power of absurdity. But then, TRUMP burst onto the scene.
TRUMP. The hottest meme in the world? Suddenly, even meticulously crafted absurdity seems insufficient. Who can surpass Trump in topic heat? Almost impossible.
Imagine how you would feel as a Memecoin trader when TRUMP goes live. Anyone paying attention can see this is a typical internal manipulation. 80% of the token supply is transparently locked for insiders. On-chain data clearly shows the presence of token snipers and pre-issuance privileges. These should be warning signals, but in the face of TRUMP, none of this matters.
Because this is Trump—the elected president of the United States. This is the Memecoin of all Memecoins, the ultimate celebrity coin. Of course, you would buy it. It feels like a whole new set of game rules. Even if the internal manipulation is obvious, it becomes irrelevant when it comes to Trump.
Then MELANIA was issued.
When MELANIA went live, the entire market seemed to lose its vitality in an instant. In what was once a bustling club, everyone suddenly woke up. The “internal game” that was already very apparent in TRUMP was completely exposed in MELANIA. The operational methods of both are identical, but MELANIA’s “naked money grab” is even more transparent. The difference is that the meme effect of TRUMP briefly masked everyone’s cynical feelings, while MELANIA had nothing left to cover it.
In fact, this “internal game” has long been obvious, but before MELANIA, people chose to look the other way. Now, with the emergence of MELANIA, the scam has been thoroughly exposed, and the cycle has been broken.
TRUMP also became an ultimate case: it clearly demonstrated how the “internal game” reaches its peak. This is not just a meme; it is also a political and cultural force launched with the privileges of insiders and a predetermined aura of success.
Is there a larger, more transparent “internal game” than TRUMP and MELANIA?
Echoes of 2021: The “Early” Cycle of NFTs
Does the entire Memecoin cycle feel familiar? Back to 2021, that was the peak of the NFT craze.
What was the catalyst at that time? The price of ETH skyrocketed, driven by the DeFi summer. NFTs then became the “high-risk, high-reward play” of ETH—a bet that could yield higher returns.
Soon, the spotlight focused on PFP (profile picture) projects. “Community” became a buzzword, but in reality, the core of the game was to find the next Bored Ape—a project that could rapidly increase in value and cultural influence.
Like Memecoins, people realized: the key to the game lies in the “early.” But in the NFT world, “early” means scrambling for whitelist spots. Spamming Discord, interacting on Twitter, completing various tasks—the whitelist scramble became the memescope of the NFT world, with everyone desperately chasing pre-issuance opportunities.
The pursuit of “early” escalated. People realized that the earliest way to participate was to become a creator. Soon, celebrities began to flood in.
Steph Curry and Jimmy Fallon started flaunting million-dollar JPEGs, while Logan Paul publicly scammed his fans. Who’s next? The NFT space seemed to reach a peak driven by celebrities, and a sense of narrative fatigue began to emerge.
Speaking of the shift in cycles… NELK, the team that marked the peak of the celebrity NFT craze in 2021, has recently launched their own Memecoin—Fullsend. If this isn’t a signal, what is?
These similarities are shocking. Although the asset classes are different, the underlying game mechanics are completely consistent: the endless pursuit of “early,” ultimately leading to self-consumption. At some point, the game reaches a dead end; you need to completely reset this game.
The End of Absurdity: Resetting and Reflecting on the Cycle
As the Memecoin cycle gradually approaches its end, the echoes of the NFT craze still linger. We see tokens like LIBRA launching, and people seem to be putting everything on the line, trying to recreate the glory of TRUMP trades. This phenomenon is what George Soros refers to as the “twilight zone” in market cycles—a stage where people know the game has lost its meaning but continue to participate.
As Soros pointed out, the core characteristic of this stage is that “people continue to play the game even though they no longer believe in it.” The belief in the magic of “early” is gradually unraveling, but the habit of chasing Memecoin surges is deeply ingrained.
Soros also warned that “eventually, a crossover point or critical point will come when the trend begins to reverse, market sentiment shifts, leading to a catastrophic acceleration of declines (8), which is what we commonly refer to as a crash.”
At this point, we must ask ourselves: Can this narrative play out in new ways? Are there more layers to this game?
Will there be a more absurd meme than Fartcoin?
Will there be a larger, more transparent “internal game” than TRUMP and MELANIA?
The answer is likely no. At least not in this cycle.
The Memecoin cycle, defined by the endless pursuit of “early,” seems to have reached its end. It is driven by hype, absurdity, and promises of “early,” but like all hype cycles, it is destined for self-destruction. When the underlying mechanics of the game are seen through, and the illusions gradually shatter, this pursuit of “early” ultimately consumes itself.
However, humanity’s desire for “early” will not disappear. This psychology is deeply rooted in the culture of cryptocurrency.
Perhaps this Memecoin cycle has ended, but that desire still exists. The game is likely to make a comeback, but it will come with new rules, more absurd narratives, and attract new players, once again yearning to be the one who discovers the “early” opportunities.
Friends, please take care.
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