Written by: Little Pie

The Genius Foundation launched genius.fun on September 17, allowing the crypto community to create Meme tokens, pairing them with tokenized stocks like bStocks and xStocks, accumulating real equity through trading fees, and ultimately initiating shareholder initiatives or even hostile takeovers against listed companies.

On the same day, the GENIUS token surged over 40%.

This narrative sounds crazy, but in the context of the BSC Meme launch platform competition over the past six weeks, it is the latest link in a clear chain of evolution. What is happening on BSC is a rapid mutation of Meme launch platforms from "token issuing casinos" to "tokenized stock infrastructure."

Three platforms, three models, three progressive levels of ambition.

Flap: The Pioneer, "Speculate on Meme, Share Stocks"

Flap is the igniter of this round of the BSC Stock Meme craze.

It made a crucial modification to the traditional Bonding Curve launch model: allowing Meme tokens to use Binance's bStocks (tokenized US stocks) as a liquidity pool, while designating these stock assets as dividend assets. This means that holders of Meme tokens not only possess the Meme itself but will continuously receive on-chain stock tokens proportionally.

In summary: “Speculate on Meme while earning stocks.”

The wealth effect is astonishing. MarsCoin paired with SpaceX tokenized stock SPCXB, and after being listed on Binance for spot trading, its market value briefly soared to $260 million. According to data from early September, MarsCoin has distributed approximately $4.47 million of SPCXB to token holders, while another project, Bullish, distributed about $1.46 million of QQQB. With a buy-sell tax structure allocating 100% to token holders, these numbers continue to grow with trading volume.

According to real-time data from DefiLlama, Flap has generated approximately $29.85 million in fees cumulatively, with around $14.23 million in fees over the past 30 days, and protocol revenue of about $10.77 million. The platform has expanded to four chains: BSC, Robinhood Chain, X Layer, and Monad, with BSC contributing about 95% of the fees. The cumulative trading volume of bStocks has exceeded $30 billion.

Four.meme: The Follower, "First Issue Stocks, Then Create Meme"

Four.meme was a mainstream launch platform on BSC earlier, but clearly lagged behind in this wave of Stock Meme.

On September 8, CZ tweeted “IPOs will be on-chain.” Almost the next minute, Four.meme launched the 4Stock model and issued the first stock token BNC4, pegged to US stock CEA Industries (NASDAQ: BNC).

The logic of 4Stock is different from Flap.

Flap is “pairing Meme tokens with existing bStocks”; Four.meme’s 4Stock is “creating an on-chain token for stocks that do not yet have bStocks, and converting it to 1:1 when Binance lists the corresponding bStock.” It serves as a "pre-issuance" mechanism—want to speculate on SpaceX but bStocks aren’t available yet? Four.meme helps you create one first.

BNC4's market value soared to $90 million within three hours of its listing. Even crazier is the off-chain effect; BNC's actual US stock surged over 50% in pre-market trading, with the price jumping from about $3.50 to $5.50. The Meme funds on-chain are driving the stock price of NASDAQ-listed companies in reverse.

However, the problems with 4Stock are also apparent. The on-chain price of BNC4 was once 10 times that of the underlying stock price, with a token pegged to a $3.50 stock selling for over $30 on-chain. This premium cannot be described as “price discovery,” but rather is an illusion of liquidity in a shallow pool. As the hype subsided, BNC4's market value retreated from $90 million to below $30 million on the same day.

Genius: The Disruptor, "Speculate on Meme, Buy Companies"

Genius.fun has taken the ambition to a new level based on these two.

Its model is divided into three steps: the community creates a Meme token, pairs it with tokenized stocks (supporting bStocks, xStocks, 4Stocks, and Ondo products); a portion of the trading fees is used to accumulate underlying stocks, and after reaching a certain scale, the foundation will "unwrap" the tokenized stocks into real stocks, representing the community to exercise shareholder rights, including voting, proposals, and even initiating hostile takeovers.

Creators receive 1.25% of the trading fees, and 0.25% is used for token buybacks and supply locking. Tokens "graduate" to PancakeSwap after reaching a threshold of 15 BNB.

In the words of genius.fun: “Capital formation should not belong solely to investment banks, private equity firms, and activist investors. A Meme can attract global attention in a matter of hours, and a token can turn that attention into a liquid market and a decentralized treasury for accumulating real assets.”

In translation, using the viral propagation of Memes to raise funds, using the redeemability of tokenized stocks to accumulate real equity, and using on-chain governance's coordination ability to replace Wall Street's activist investors, ultimately initiating on-chain hostile takeovers against listed companies.

Currently, $GSTOCK has become the first leader, with Genius officially congratulating it on being the first token on the platform to reach a market cap of $10 million, raising the question: “Will GSTOCK secure a board seat in a BNB treasury company?”

CZ's Shadow and Binance's Strategy

Throughout the entire BSC Stock Meme wave, the roles of CZ and Binance are intriguing.

CZ tweeted on September 8, “IPOs will be on-chain,” and Four.meme almost simultaneously launched 4Stock. Binance’s bStocks (tokenized stocks issued by Backed Finance) are the underlying assets of the entire ecosystem. Binance has successively launched trading pairs for NiuLai and MarsCoin, directly igniting the wealth effect of the Flap platform.

These "coincidences" put together make it hard not to speculate that Binance is intentionally promoting BSC as the main battleground for tokenized stock trading. bStocks provide the underlying asset layer, each launch platform provides distribution and trading layers, and Meme culture provides the viral propagation layer, ultimately consolidating all traffic and trading volume on BSC and PancakeSwap.

The appearance of Genius.fun raises the narrative ceiling of this ecosystem by a notch; if a community really initiates a hostile takeover of a listed company through on-chain equity accumulation (even a micro-company like CEA Industries), the story’s propagation power will far exceed the rise of any single Meme token.

Cold Water Needs to be Sprinkled

The models of the three platforms sound imaginative, but each carries clear risk exposures.

The dividend model of Flap relies on trading volume. Dividends come from the trading volume of Meme tokens; when the heat fades and trading volume shrinks, dividends will also drop to zero. MarsCoin distributed $4.47 million of SpaceX stock, but the source of these dividends is the trading fees paid by new buyers, a structure that requires continued influx of new funds.

Four.meme's 4Stock has a serious price decoupling risk. BNC4 is selling for $30 on chain while the underlying stock sells for $3.50, a 10 times premium. If the bStock converts at 1:1 upon launch, on-chain premium buyers will face significant price difference losses. 4Stock is not a stock, but a speculative token with the option of "potentially becoming a bStock in the future."

The "hostile takeover" narrative of Genius.fun faces regulatory risks. The SEC’s "innovation exemption" has just delineated a compliance line for tokenized stocks, allowing issuers to block their stocks from being traded as tokenized assets. A platform openly claiming its goal is to “initiate hostile takeovers against listed companies” will almost certainly attract the SEC’s attention.

The total scale of the underlying assets (bStocks) in the entire Stock Meme track is approximately $118.5 million. This pool is too shallow. When dozens of Meme tokens compete for bStocks' liquidity simultaneously, the depth on the asset side is simply insufficient, which is also the fundamental reason why the on-chain premiums are often several times.

The competition of Meme launch platforms on BSC is visibly evolving from “pure Meme casinos” to “tokenized stock infrastructure layers.” Flap has proven that Stock Meme has market demand with its dividend model, Four.meme has shown that the "Meme first then bStock" pre-issue path is feasible with 4Stock, and Genius.fun tries to connect the attention economy of Memes with real-world corporate governance.

The outcome of this war depends on two variables: to what extent Binance will expand the categories and depth of bStocks (which determines the size of the underlying asset pool), and whether regulators will tolerate the existence of "using Meme tokens to accumulate equity in listed companies."

This battleground is far from settled.