Written by: Cookie

$TRUMP, this token from the US President, has left many myths of sudden wealth in the cryptocurrency world. Many have rejoiced over it, while others have sighed for missing another life-changing opportunity, but more than a year has passed, the stock market has risen, the cryptocurrency world is dull, and speculation never stops. Various discussions about the Trump coin have gradually faded into obscurity.

Recently, however, someone in the cryptocurrency world has once again become the center of attention due to the Trump coin, @kimchi1x. It is said that he made 40 million dollars from the Trump coin.

Unlike many well-known meme coin players famous for making big money, Kimchi has nearly 80,000 followers on his X account, but he has almost never posted anything related to meme coin trading; instead, he never has.

His X account is filled with content showcasing wealth, flaunting food, luxury cars, and expensive watches. Since February last year, his X account has consisted solely of such tweets, with not a single word, and though he posts a few pictures or a video every few months, recording his life after becoming wealthy.

So it is a bit strange that he has suddenly become popular this time, considering he has been showing off for over a year, but this time, there is a flood of tweets about him making 40 million dollars from the Trump coin.

This latest tweet reached 25.6 million views, while previously there were only about 500,000.

Whether Kimchi actually earned so much money from the Trump coin has raised many doubts on X. Many people have made money from the Trump coin, but those who gained fame generally have on-chain records that can be verified, or they were already well-known meme coin players in the circle, leaving little room for doubt.

However, the so-called 40 million dollars profit claimed by Kimchi lacks verifiable on-chain data. @sukie234 pointed out that many of Kimchi's wealth flaunting pictures are derived from AI-generated images:

Some also mentioned that much of Kimchi's flaunted wealth comes from things borrowed from others:

Another well-known meme coin player, Orangie, had previously conducted a face-to-face interview with Kimchi before Trump launched his coin. From that interview, we learned that Kimchi only started trading meme coins in early April 2024, but he adapted quickly. By November 2024, he had achieved at least six figures in earnings in a month.

In the interview, we could see his gaming environment, with a Solana address showing a balance of 150,000 dollars appearing on the computer screen. He stated that he spends 15 hours a day scanning chains and playing games.

He also mentioned some more personal topics. For instance, at the time he was studying business at the University of Southern California, and he indicated that the main reason was his parents’ wish for him to attend there. In the video, Orangie also shared with other members in their small group through a video chat on Discord about his face-to-face meeting with Kimchi, and this small group generally consists of recognized, capable, and well-known players in the blockchain space.

In summary, I tend to believe that Kimchi's claims of earning 40 million dollars from the Trump coin are real, at least I won't question it. After all, the Trump coin has truly created many myths of wealth, with enough liquidity for these people to exit with profits.

A person's fate is determined by heaven. The interview with Kimchi by Orangie took place on January 14, 2025, and Kimchi stated during the interview that he would stop after making eight figures in dollars. A few days later, the Trump coin appeared, and Kimchi thus achieved his goal and started enjoying life after becoming wealthy.

In Kimchi's Porsche 911, there was a rather poignant conversation. Orangie asked Kimchi, "Don't you believe in holding long-term?"

Kimchi replied that he believed but has developed PTSD regarding long-term holding. Orangie thought it was because he was deeply trapped after choosing to hold long in 2021, but Kimchi said it was because he had taken large positions at high levels in $POPCAT and some other high market cap meme coins, suffering significant losses, thus transforming into a paper hands player who no longer believes in holding long.

After starting to trade meme coins in April 2024, Kimchi initially thought that the meme coin market might end with the end of that summer. At that time, he could not foresee an opportunity that would completely change his life. Later, he felt that perhaps meme coins might never welcome a "great finale."

Kimchi is lucky. The innovation of pump.fun, which greatly simplifies the issuance and trading process with extremely low costs, has profoundly changed the gameplay of meme coins. Before that, everyone was accustomed to slow-paced and relatively long cycles of community building. A significant reason why we missed that wave of opportunities was that we were stuck in the inertia of thinking about meme coins, failing to consider that attention could be monetized in such a quick and crazy way.

If you pay enough attention to the shares of meme coin players on X, you will find many young people like Kimchi. When they realized that as long as they sat in front of the computer for high-intensity hours without rest, capturing the latest on-chain movements faster than others, and just clicked the mouse, they could reap unexpected wealth, they seized what might be a one-of-a-kind opportunity in their lives and accumulated substantial wealth.

Kimchi got into meme coins because a friend from Fortnite shared with him that trading meme coins could earn decent daily income. Looking back, the meme coin boom of 2024-2025 could be the most successful "Mass Adoption" in the cryptocurrency market after NFTs.

Trump has taken a massive amount of liquidity from the cryptocurrency world with his Trump coin. Those who became wealthy because of Trump, who had no faith in cryptocurrency before engaging with meme coins, or young people who lost faith in cryptocurrency due to the fast-paced nature of meme coins, will also no longer allow the wealth they have accumulated to circulate within this market.

Though young, they have also endured the trials of the market and learned of its cruelty. They know what kind of game they are playing.

So, will meme coins never reclaim their former glory?

Not at all. Whether we are still young or not, we still want to "reverse our fate."

The choices for young people are no longer limited to stock trading. They will bet in the recently concluded World Cup, trade sneakers, hype streetwear, speculate on Pokémon cards, speculate on game skins... as long as there is money to be made, any market, regardless of how niche it is, has far more vitality than we think.

Countless young people like Kimchi, with dreams of making 1,000 dollars a day, have begun speculation in some market. Most may fall in the bloody struggles, but some will always stand on top.

Perhaps meme coins driven purely by attention will find it hard to replicate their former peaks. Recently, many players have lamented that Jimothy, a meme character that went viral globally and was promoted by the White House's X account, has just barely surpassed a 50 million dollar market cap. This may indicate that this attention-driven gameplay has encountered narrative fatigue, and a topic or character that explodes on TikTok or other social media can no longer reach heights of several billion or even tens of billions in market cap.

But this does not mean the story of meme coins has come to an end. The opportunity that may change your life might just be on its way.