MEME Coin: From Internet Culture to New Patterns in the Crypto Market

The rise of DOGE in 2021 marked the emergence of MEME coins, while the explosion of MEME in 2024 heralds a shift in market investment logic. MEME coins have become a mainstream investment category favored by investment institutions and market funds.

Grassroots Culture Originating from the Internet

The origin of MEME can be traced back to the internet era. Most of the currently successful MEME projects emerged after the popularization of social media on the internet. For example, Doge, SHIB, PEPE, etc., represent the communication and interaction generated globally through the internet, which is the root of internet culture and is referred to as "grassroots culture".

MEME is everywhere, and there is a story behind every MEME. These stories spread globally through the internet, bringing people a sense of belonging, which is also an important reason for the popularity of MEME. MEME primarily germinates and spreads through channels such as social platforms, chat applications, and forums. Certain well-known social websites are the main battlegrounds for the popularity of MEME and also important avenues for people to express their opinions and vent their emotions.

MEME expresses people's thoughts in specific scenarios through concise means such as short text, innovative words, images, and emoticons like (. Its widespread dissemination encourages even those unfamiliar with MEME to learn about and integrate into it, spreading like a virus. The sense of identity is the core value of MEME, and it is also the main driving force behind the price increase of MEME coin.

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The Combination of MEME and Blockchain

Blockchain has given value to many intangible things, and MEME is no exception. Strictly speaking, BTC was also a kind of MEME in its early days. After BTC became popular, a large number of worthless altcoins emerged, leading to market chaos, and DOGE was born to satirize this phenomenon. DOGE first gained popularity in the market after 2013, and can be seen as the MEME 1.0 era.

The proliferation of altcoins and the chaos in the market during the 2017 bull market ) and the ICO chaos ( laid the foundation for the second rise of DOGE, which was also an important factor for DOGE to gain market recognition again in 2021. Even without the support of a certain well-known entrepreneur, it is possible that other public figures would stand up for MEME. DOGE-themed MEME projects such as SHIB have also begun to emerge, marking the entry of MEME into the 2.0 era.

In this round of price increase in 2024, the market chaos has transformed into overvaluation and some projects' PUA towards users, and MEME has developed again. The sluggishness of the mainstream market to some extent represents the resistance of underlying investors to the chaos of being harvested, while the fair distribution and price performance of MEME just solve everyone's pain points, naturally gaining a lot of attention, and MEME has entered the 3.0 era.

The development history of MEME indicates that an important reason for its popularity is the inaction and misbehavior of the mainstream market. Retail investors lack the strength and funds to resist such behavior and can only turn in the opposite direction. What retail investors have in abundance is enthusiasm and the ability to spread information, which is also where its value lies, and at the same time, it is the fundamental factor for choosing MEME.

Characteristics of Successful MEME Projects

Not all MEME have investment value, and there is a mix of good and bad in the MEME sector. For ordinary investors, it is crucial to identify potential MEME projects. We can summarize the characteristics of successful MEME projects in the past through analysis.

Common points of several successful MEME projects:

1. Distribution methods and low-threshold participation are one of the main factors for success. From hash power mining to fair distribution, allowing community users to participate at a low cost has accumulated a large user base.

2. Gradually shifting from early network cultural uses to more value-oriented aspects, such as the Swap of certain projects, deflationary mechanisms, low costs, and decentralized characteristics, etc. This indicates that pure price speculation is not enough to make a popular MEME token; certain application scenarios are also required.

3. There are "sponsored" and financial support from celebrities/KOLs/public figures behind them. The celebrity effect plays a key role in the success of MEME projects.

4. The price increase has allowed retail investors to profit, further enhancing the influence of MEME tokens and attracting institutional and exchange involvement.

5. The development path is contrary to high-financing VC coins, and letting institutions take over from retail investors is an important sign of MEME's success.

![The arrival of MEME SUMMER, can it establish a new pattern in the crypto market?])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-c430ffa125e8155bdd51a9679cb1dac1.webp(

The Development Goals of MEME Coin

No high market cap MEME coin gains attention solely through pure speculation. For investors, economic models and application scenarios are factors that must be considered for long-term development. Recently, MEME projects have shown a trend closer to ordinary "value coins" in their development direction, with MEME attributes becoming the main distinguishing factor.

Some projects attract a large amount of funds through innovative gameplay, promoting the development of the ecosystem of their respective public chains. The project plans also incorporate GameFi elements, with staking and gameplay becoming important factors in attracting large investors and institutions. This indicates that the MEME project party has begun to focus on long-term development rather than short-term pump.

MEME, as an early promotional tool, can quickly gather crowds and funds, but long-term development requires empowerment and planning. For technical analysis investors, such projects are also more easily accepted. The explosive growth of certain MEME projects has brought enormous traffic and trading data to the public chain they are on.

Conclusion

MEME has gained recognition from numerous investors, leveraging humor and internet culture as its user base, making it easier to generate a sense of identity. This is a low-cost and quick way to penetrate the user market and establish project communities, and it is expected to become a major grassroots project's cold start strategy in the future.

However, projects that purely rely on the MEME concept find it difficult to sustain development. Mid-term technological follow-up is crucial for attracting the attention of "regular troops" such as investment institutions and exchanges. In this process, chips may gradually shift from retail investors to institutions, driving the transformation and growth of the project. After making profits, retail investors usually develop a greater sense of identification with MEME culture, forming a positive flywheel effect that helps MEME gain more recognition.

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