The Development of meme Coins: From Entertainment Joke to Value Reconstruction

This article systematically organizes the development history of memes, analyzing typical cases and revealing its unique value logic: unlike traditional financial assets, the core value of memes is expressed as "cultural dissemination power × community consensus", rather than relying entirely on technology or practical value. Based on its evolutionary characteristics, it can be divided into three key development stages:

1. Breaking Ground / Foundation (2013-2016) - Barbaric Growth, The Tide Washes the Sand

ephemeral

Short-term popularity, lack of cultural accumulation, and rapid extinction. ( like Mooncoin, TIPS, Nyancoin ).

General of Constant Victory

Cultural symbols + community-driven, long-term survival. ( like DOGE)

2. Dormancy/Outbreak ( 2017-2021) - In the era of smart contracts, memes coin usher in a qualitative change

Meteor Shining Type

Speculation-driven, the bubble burst rapidly. ( such as UET, HOGE)

Stellar Bright Type

Ecological expansion, breaking limits. ( like SHIB's ShibaSwap )

transformation breakthrough type

Attempting to innovate, but progress is slow due to various limiting factors. ( such as the metaverse blueprint of FLOKI and the public chain binding of SAMO ).

3. Precipitation/Reconstruction ( 2022-2025 ) - The Rise of New Narratives, the Market Begins to Restructure

short-term speculative

Relying on hotspots is extremely risky. ( like the political narrative craze of TRUMP )

ecologically driven

Relying on the public chain, short-term explosion. ( like WIF, BONK)

narrative innovation

AI+Meme, concept speculation, trust crisis. ( like GOAT)

cultural symbol type

Internet celebrity IP, short-term popularity. ( like MOODENG)

Memes will continue to face the challenge of balancing "speculation and substance," while technological innovations ( such as AI, DeFAI ), and community building will become key factors. Although the market is undergoing adjustments, memes, as a typical product of the attention economy, will still maintain their unique position and influence in the cryptocurrency space.

Reviewing history, counting the context

As one of the most unique entities in the cryptocurrency space, memes have both cultural attributes and financial characteristics. Reflecting on the history of memes is also a reflection on the collision between internet culture and financial speculation.

From a sarcastic joke at the beginning to a position in the market today, memes are telling us through their experiences that in this era, perhaps cultural resonance and community belief drive value creation more than technical white papers. While the traditional financial world is still trying to create new value, memes have reshaped people's understanding of "value" itself.

In an era dominated by social media, the speed and manner of information dissemination have undergone fundamental changes. A meme that goes viral on Reddit or Twitter can gain hundreds of millions of exposures worldwide within a few hours, and this viral power has now been directly converted into financial value. Memes, as the perfect vehicle for this conversion, have written their own stories and legends on the time axis.

Breaking Ground/Expanding Foundation (2013-2016) - In the time of flourishing, the brave wave riders stand at the forefront; in the midst of great waves washing away the sand, the disheartened quietly exit the stage.

This period witnessed the original innovative journey of memes from zero to one, presenting a unique ecology of coexistence between barbaric growth and natural selection. Marked by the birth of DOGE in December 2013 and ending with the maturity of Ethereum smart contract technology in 2016, it constitutes the purest and most authentic "Genesis Era" in the history of meme development.

On a technical level, with a few exceptions, this stage of memes is almost entirely based on code forks of Bitcoin or Litecoin.

In terms of market performance, historical data from CoinMarketCap shows that the average active cycle of memes born during this period is only 11.7 months, but survivors like DOGE demonstrate remarkable vitality.

From a historical perspective, the foundational significance of this stage cannot be underestimated. In fact, history tells us that true innovation often arises when rules have not yet been established, and the experimental field from 2013 to 2016, which had not yet formed a system, preserved the most precious rebellious genes and innovative spirit for the world of cryptocurrency.

Dormant/Outburst ( 2017-2021) - Amid the ebb and flow of tides, wise ones rise with the momentum; in the midst of changing winds and clouds, the powerful are defeated and sink into the sand.

Over the past five years, the market has witnessed the transformation of memes from a fringe subculture to a mainstream financial asset. With the popularization of the ERC-20 standard in 2017 as a technological turning point, and the historical market value set by SHIB in 2021 as a milestone, memes have completed a qualitative change from "internet joke" to "phenomenal investment target."

From a technical perspective, the maturity of smart contracts has completely restructured the issuance logic of memes. According to data on the Ethereum chain, most of the memes born between 2017 and 2021 chose to adopt the ERC-20 standard or rely on other protocols, reducing the issuance cost to less than one-thousandth of ( compared to tens of thousands of dollars ) for independent chain development. This kind of technological democratization, akin to a double-edged sword, has spawned a frenzy of 'everything can be a meme', but it has also buried the potential for homogenized competition.

At the same time, on the market narrative level, CoinGecko data shows that in December 2017, the market value of DOGE first broke 1 billion USD, while during the peak period in 2021, the overall daily trading volume of the meme coin sector exceeded 30 billion USD, accounting for 12.3% of the entire cryptocurrency market. It is worth noting that the meme coins born during this stage had a significantly improved lifespan compared to the previous period.

However, it should be noted that not all memes have a higher survival rate and longer lifespan. According to the Chainplay research report, meme projects experienced an average of monthly deaths in 2020.

Throughout the history of cryptocurrency, the most profound transformation during this period lies in the reconstruction of value perception. When DOGE was included in mainstream exchanges like Coinbase in 2021, and when the anonymous founder of SHIB could leverage a market value of tens of billions, traditional finance had to reconsider the essence of memes - as revealed in the MIT Digital Currency Initiative's 2021 report "Meme Assets and the Economics of Attention": "The value capture mechanism of assets like Dogecoin essentially transforms network attention into liquidity premiums." This shift in perception laid a crucial foundation for the subsequent social finance experiments in the Web3 era.

Precipitation/Reconstruction ( 2022-2025 ) - When the great wave collapses, true gold begins to reveal its nature; in an era of great contention, the pattern ultimately becomes clear.

Since 2022, the meme coin market has undergone a deep adjustment from frenzy to rationality. Marked by the collapse of Terra in May 2022 as a watershed moment, and the rise of the BRC-20 standard in 2023 as a turning point, the meme coin ecosystem is experiencing a brutal yet necessary revaluation of its value.

According to CoinMarketCap statistics, the overall market value of memes has shrunk by 82% in 2022, but the leading projects DOGE and SHIB still maintain their positions in the top 20 by market value. A new report "State of Memecoin 2024" released by Chainplay, the GameFi market data center, points out that "97% OF MEMECOINS HAVE DIED". The report further states: "Different blockchain platforms exhibit different death rates for memes. Base leads with a 66.91% death rate, followed by Solana at 54.03% and Ethereum at 36.59%."

Even so, we should not underestimate or speculate whether memes have already reached the end of their story. The cryptocurrency market has always been full of variables, and memes, as a particularly unique category within it, are even harder to measure with conventional perspectives.

As Mathew McDermott, head of digital assets at Goldman Sachs, said: "Meme projects that can still secure funding after 2023 must prove their ability to capture long-term value beyond simple speculation." Similarly, as noted by an a16z researcher: "This winter is filtering out speculative bubbles, leaving behind truly culturally durable digital assets." The future landscape may prove that meme coins capable of crossing cycles will ultimately become a key bridge connecting the crypto world with popular culture.

Block decomposition, deep dive into key details

Breaking Ground/Foundation (2013-2016)

The coins in this stage can be roughly divided into the following categories based on their lifecycle/community activity/market value changes, etc:

Ephemeral

In the rapidly evolving ecosystem of cryptocurrency, driven by innovation, projects that lack sustained vitality are destined to be mere fleeting visitors. They may capture market attention during specific periods, but ultimately struggle to escape the fate of being a "flash in the pan." Though they may shine brilliantly when they bloom, they find it difficult to maintain that heat for long.

Mooncoin - An unfinished "moon landing" dream

As an entertainment-type meme coin with the slogan "登月(To the Moon)", its somewhat brief life has failed to carry the ambition of this grand narrative. As Crypto Briefing stated in 2015: "Mooncoin has no actual use cases related to space or moon landing, aside from its name."

Looking back at its development trajectory from 2014 to 2018, its last GitHub commit stayed in 2018, marking the project's substantial demise. The early performance of mooncoin was quite impressive: in its first year, it set a record for a single-day increase of over 300%; the discussion volume in the Reddit community r/Mooncoin exceeded 5,000 posts in a month; after collaborating with the gaming platform Moonrocket, the project's platform shut down; it was even referred to by Coindesk as "the most serious joke coin."

However, after the highlight comes a long silence: In 2015, the delisting from mainstream exchanges led to a market cap drop of over 90%; the following year, members of the anonymous development team announced "indefinite hibernation"; it wasn't until 2018 that the project experienced a brief resurgence - but this was not due to its own breakthroughs, rather it benefited from two external factors: first, the overall recovery of the cryptocurrency market with ( Bitcoin rebounding from $13,000 to $17,000 in Q1 2018, driving a general rise in altcoins (; second, the launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket reignited the "To the Moon" internet meme, and a parody video titled "Mooncoin Countdown to the Moon" created by community members unexpectedly garnered over 500,000 views on YouTube ).

Unfortunately, Mooncoin failed to seize this last opportunity. The development team claimed to create a "lunar base" metaverse game, but in the end, the white paper never materialized, and the so-called "metaverse game" was merely a Unity demo video. After this, with Bitcoin plummeting 60% in April 2018, market enthusiasm waned, and Mooncoin completely faded from the stage. As summarized in Delphi Digital's "Cryptocurrency Cycle Report" ): "This brief revival confirms the cruel law of memes - projects lacking cultural accumulation, any technical updates are merely life-saving injections."

(## Fedoracoin)TIPS( - A niche "gentleman" recognition

FedoraCoin)TIPS( was born on December 22, 2013. Its core is not aimed at the mass market but precisely targets the subculture group of "Fedora-wearing neckbeards") and "keyboard warriors"( on Reddit. This highly vertical positioning allowed it to quickly gain popularity in specific communities in its early days, but it also laid the groundwork for limited development in the future.

On a technical level, TIPS adopted the relatively common Scrypt algorithm at the time, and the design supporting GPU mining made it quite user-friendly for regular users. This simple and practical architecture helped it quickly accumulate a loyal following in its early days.

At the same time, only two months after launch, on Reddit's r/