New trends in meme hype: donations to Vitalik Buterin and the revival of cult culture

Written by: Xiyou, ChainCatcher

On October 9, the chain detective ZachXBT disclosed the holdings of the on-chain address of Meme coin analyst representative Murad, which quickly attracted the attention of the crypto community and triggered the narrative of the revival of old Meme coins. The layout of low-market-cap MEME coins is becoming an unspoken secret in the crypto community.

In fact, since Binance listed three Meme coins (Neiro, Turbo and BabyDoge) in one day on September 15 and triggered a dispute over the capitalization of Neiro and NEIRO tokens, the Meme coin market has set off a new round of hype. During the National Day holiday, reports about the Meme project were everywhere, and the community was full of stories of getting rich overnight. Vitalik sold the gifted MEME coins twice on the chain and publicly expressed his gratitude to the MEME project, which caused the zoo coin Hippo MOODENG to increase nearly 100 times in a short period of time, attracting investors to rush in, hoping to capture the birth of the next 100-fold MEME coin.

However, unlike the previous irregular and crazy hype of Meme coins, this round of Meme coin hype mainly revolved around: the dispute over the upper and lower case letters of the naming letters, the donation of Vitalik and Vitalik to sell coins, and the revival of Cult (sarcasm culture) MEME coins.

Meme coin speculation evolved from public chain diversion to a dispute over the capitalization of naming letters

In this round of Meme coin market, the difference in capitalization has become a unique factor in speculation, and the main reason for all this is that Binance launched Neiro spot and NEIRO contracts at the same time.

The name of the token NEIRO originally originated from the prototype of Dogecoin. On May 24 this year, the prototype of DOGE, Shiba Inu Kabosu, passed away, which triggered mourning in the crypto community. In addition to mourning, Kabosu's owner announced on the X platform that she adopted a new Shiba Inu, whose English name was translated as 'NEIRO', and then multiple MEME projects with the same name were generated, covering public chains such as Solana and Ethereum, and there were different MEME projects with different capitalization on the same chain. However, with the cooling of the MEME market, many NEIRO projects on public chains have disappeared in the torrent of history, and the top two in market capitalization are only the two case-sensitive NEIRO and Neiro on the Ethereum chain.

On September 6, Binance announced the launch of the uppercase NEIRO contract trading pair, and on September 15, announced the launch of the NEIRO token. Because the token ID in the official announcement was also uppercase NEIRO, many people mistakenly thought that it was the NEIRO project that had previously completed the contract launch. After the announcement was issued, the NEIRO token soared by more than 20%. However, just when the community was crazy about it and a large number of coins were bought on the chain, some sharp-eyed users discovered that the NEIRO token contract address launched by Binance was not uppercase NEIRO but lowercase Neiro tokens. The uppercase NEIRO tokens were sold in large numbers by community users, and the decline on the same day exceeded 50%, and the Neiro token started to soar, from a market value of approximately US$15 million at the time of the announcement to US$720 million today, an increase of nearly 50 times.

The naming strategy of Neiro and NEIRO was originally intended to distinguish different projects, hoping to use the difference in uppercase and lowercase letters to attract user attention. However, Binance's simultaneous launch of NEIRO contracts and Neiro spot trading has made the capitalization dispute of MEME coins a new wave of hype.

The uppercase and lowercase dramas have been staged on major public chains in turn. Recently, the MEME token MOODENG, which was born based on the image of a hippopotamus in Pattaya Zoo in Thailand, also has a capitalization dispute: Moo Deng and MOODENG. Unlike NEIRO and Neiro, Moo Deng and MOODENG are built on different public chains. The lowercase Moo Deng was originally built on Solana on September 10, and the uppercase MOODENG was issued on Ethereum on September 15, which is actually a latecomer.

The differences in the capitalization of these coin names were originally intended to distinguish between different projects, but now they have become a highlight of MEME coin speculation, and have even been given different meanings and values ​​during the speculation process. For example, the capitalized NEIRO is considered a strong coin, and the lowercase Neiro represents a community project; Moo Deng on Solana is considered the first due to its earlier launch time, and MOODENG on Ethereum is considered the second due to its later release.

For the capitalization dispute of Meme coins, the crypto community is more confused. Many users are lost in the tangle of which one to choose. One moment is big and the other is small, and they can't tell the difference. When choosing, investors have to carefully distinguish to prevent missing opportunities due to confusion between uppercase and lowercase. This differentiation strategy has brought freshness to the market, but also increased the complexity of speculation.

In response to this, some crypto users lamented that the rise of MEME coins on different public chains previously caused the diversion of funds, and now the MEME project on the same chain and with the same name has caused the diversion of funds due to different letter sizes, making the already weak consensus precarious, which will lead to further division and shrinkage of the market.

At present, the Meme project is not only the main position on Solana. With the rise of projects such as Neiro and MOODENG, Ethereum is still the most anticipated place. At the same time, MEME projects on latecomers such as Sui are also attracting user attention. For example, the recently launched MEME project HIPPO was also inspired by the hippo Moo Deng in the Thai zoo, and the token market value once exceeded Moo Deng on Solana.

Donation to Vitalik Buterin attracts attention and uses celebrity effect to boost coin price

In addition to the capitalization of the naming letters, donation to Vitalik Buterin has become another hot spot for Meme coin speculation. As the spiritual leader of Ethereum and the crypto world, Vitalik Buterin often plays an important role in Meme coin projects. Some MEME coin projects will donate the funds raised to Vitalik Buterin or his related foundations, hoping to enhance the credibility and influence of the project. For example, the creator of ShibaInu (SHIB) in 2021 once airdropped 50% of the total supply of SHIB to Vitalik Buterin's wallet address, which quickly attracted the attention of the crypto community and triggered a hype of zoo MEME coins; Neiro also donated to Vitalik Buterin.

In fact, most of the Meme projects only hope to attract attention by donating to the founder of Ethereum, using the celebrity effect to push up the price of the currency, trying to gain the attention and trust of the community. This connection with industry leaders is a big gimmick for Meme coins to attract investors, which can effectively attract the attention of a large number of investors in a short period of time and become a highlight of speculation.

The Hippo MOODENG, a Meme project on the Ethereum chain that attracted much attention during the National Day, became popular by donating to Vitalik. Since Hippo originally originated from the Solana chain, and its market value quickly exceeded 100 million US dollars, it was known to the community. However, the capital Hippo MOODENG on the Ethereum chain is a latecomer, and its market value has not yet exceeded 10 million US dollars, and not many users pay attention to it.

On October 5, Vitalik sold Meme tokens on the chain, including MOODENG. After the news broke, the market value of MOODENG tokens surged to $10 million within minutes and started a steady rise. The MEME projects ITO and KABOSU sold in the same batch also saw a sharp rise after the sale. ITO rose by more than 222% in a short period of time after the sale, and KABOSU rose by more than 70%.

On October 7, Vitalik sold MOODENG again, and then donated 260 ethers (about $642,000) to the charity Kanro, and publicly thanked MOODENG for bringing positive results to the real world.

Some community users believe that this is a rare positive evaluation of MEME tokens by Vitalik. Through donations and charity, the air coins in the currency circle are sold, and the value is transferred to solving some real problems. It can be regarded as a shift from virtual to real for Crypto.

V God's sale of coins and public thanks have aroused great interest and attention in the market for MOODENG, a hippo on Ethereum, and pushed MOODENG's price to soar. The market value quickly exceeded $100 million from the million level, and the popularity also exceeded that of Hippo on Solana.

With the V God-related narrative of Ethereum Neiro and Moodeng going viral, MEME projects directly donating to Vitalik's wallet address has become a new trend of speculation, and Vitalik's move to sell coins will attract investors' attention and follow suit, thereby driving up the price of the coin. Currently, MEME coins are transferred to Vitalik's wallet address every hour.

There are even crypto users who have designed a set of SOPs for the success of MEME projects by "donating MEME coins to Vitalik": MEME projects donate to Vitalik - Vitalik sells coins (attracts attention) - Vitalik tweets his thanks for the donation (pushes up the price) - goes on the exchange.

Cult mockery culture Meme coin revival

Cult Memecoin is a token that combines Internet pop culture and cryptocurrency. These coins are usually created around specific communities or pop culture phenomena, and often have strong community-driven characteristics. They are often presented in a humorous or sarcastic way, such as Dogecoin, which was originally created as a joke, Shiba Inu (SHIB), who calls himself the "Dogecoin killer", and the popular PepeCoin, which was born based on the popular Pepe frog.

On Token2049, the article "MEME Coin Super Cycle" published by MEME Coin analyst Murad has aroused widespread discussion in the crypto community. The list of MEME tokens he counted and screened has been widely circulated in the crypto community and has become the bible of Meme Coin trading.

Murad's Meme Coin list screening criteria is to select tokens that have been online for at least six months and have experienced a sharp drop, with a market value of between 5 million and 200 million US dollars, mostly built on Solana and Ethereum.

Yesterday, the on-chain detective ZachXBT disclosed the Meme coin holdings of Murad's on-chain address. He held approximately US$24 million worth of MEME coin assets. The top four are SPX, GIGA, RETARDIO, and POPCAT, and the recent trend is very encouraging.

Among them, the abstract index token SPX, which ranks first in positions, has risen by about 20 times in the past half month. The project is a derivative of the story of reversing the S&P 500 index, with the narrative being a cute girl saving the cryptocurrency circle; GIGA is the Meme token on Solana, which has risen by more than 200% in the past 7 days. The project was originally a tribute to the legendary Ernest Khalimov's original Gigachad, and it is also a satire on social expectations, sparking discussions about toxic masculinity and so on; the MEME project POPCAT is derived from the popular naughty cat emoticons on the Internet, which has risen by about 90% in the past 7 days; and RETARDIO positions itself as a symbol of courage, resistance and community cohesion.

These MEME coins have a common feature, that is, they all have some Cult temperament, that is, they are covered with a layer of nonsensical, non-mainstream, abstract appearance elements, usually related to popular Internet culture, memes or specific subcultures, and are called Cult Memecoin.

Precisely because of cultural identity or user group foundation, Cult Memecoin is usually promoted by the community and spread through social media and viral marketing.

Some crypto users have pointed out that most of the Cult Memecoins on the market are old projects that have experienced a round of increases and washouts. When choosing, users should look for the bottom rather than the top, the community that continues to promote the token, the increasing number of new holders, and elements similar to Cult culture.

A good meme needs to have "special narrative and tone + strong spontaneous community + strong market maker"

According to the Coingecko data platform, the total market value of the Meme coin sector has exceeded 50 billion US dollars, and the number of asset types included is more than 2,000, which is the sector with the largest number of currencies in the crypto market.

Crypto KOL @ririfish once expressed that the MemeCoin market is growing stronger and stronger. They are no longer a tool for short-term speculation, but represent a new trend of decentralized culture and consensus. The reason why these projects have long-term market resilience is that the community is not just a passive investor, but the core force driving the development of the project. The community has given these tokens lasting vitality through the spread of memes, social interaction and participation in project development.

Crypto asset player Vincent@thecryptoskanda has repeatedly emphasized that MemeCoin is no longer just a crypto track, it has become a "property", which is reflected in the fact that MemeCoin is no longer just a discussion around price fluctuations, but is gradually integrated into the decentralized culture, representing an identity and market consensus, which embodies the unique power of decentralized communities and transcends the traditional IP-driven model.

Crypto KOL@CXOegg wrote in his latest tweet that a good MEME has "special narrative + meme's own tonality + a strong spontaneous community + a strong market maker", none of which can be missing.

Ririfish also pointed out that the success of MemeCoin does not only rely on the support of IP, but also on the unique narrative created by the community. Even projects without strong brand support, such as Shiba Inu and Pepe Coin, still rely on the power of the community to gain a foothold in the crypto market. The growth of these MemeCoins shows their unique cultural symbols built through community interaction, meme dissemination and collective creation.

In general, if MEME coins want to succeed, they first need a fascinating story. The design of the token and the community culture must be unique and attractive to resonate and stimulate the interest of investors, and stand out from many projects; at the same time, there needs to be a strong spontaneous community. An active community is the key to promoting the success of MEME coins. The power of the community can influence market sentiment and investment decisions; in addition, there needs to be strong supporters and traders behind them to drive the price of the currency at critical moments.

For example, before Neiro was listed on Binance, there were many pictures of the Northwest Community’s promotion, community members marketing in overseas regions such as Turkey and Vietnam, and donations from the CTO team to charitable organizations; the Hippo MOODENG project community on Ethereum revealed that it had made three donations to the Thai Zoo and conducted offline marketing in North America, attracting the attention of Neiro’s top whales, Pepe developers, and V God through airdrop donations.

Regarding how to participate in MEME coins, @CXOegg said that there are currently tens of thousands of plates on the market every day, and the same narrative still has different names (Ticker), the same name competes on different chains, and now the same name on the same chain has various dramatic events due to different capitalizations. It is difficult for users to bet on a potential project in the early stage.

There are currently three strategies to choose from: one is to directly choose mature and high-market-value old memes that have been tested by a round of market fluctuations, such as PEPE, WIF, etc.; the second is to take over medium-sized memes with a market value of several million or tens of millions, but individuals need to have very strong ability to identify and screen projects; the third is to keep an eye on new projects on the primary market chain, but the failure rate is very high.