Building real-world projects using the MEME Coin strategy

MEME Coin can drive viral growth - as they did for the cryptocurrency market in 2024 - but they also often lead to price inflation and dumping. For most of 2024, the liquidity in the cryptocurrency market was mainly maintained through trading meme coins. According to a CoinGecko report, meme coins were the most popular theme in the second quarter of 2024, accounting for 14.3% of market share, with very similar data in the first quarter. These cryptocurrencies attract users and traders through engaging communities and humorous "meme" branding. Through these memes, people from all walks of life can come together for a common humorous and joking purpose, and potentially earn financial returns by trading meme coins. As of October 8th, the market capitalization of MEME Coin has exceeded $50 billion, indicating that the MEME community is growing at a very fast pace. Due to the lack of centralization in this field, these communities have become unique supporters of blockchain technology. These communities quickly gained popularity in a matter of minutes, with their representative tokens, and hype is the fuel that drives their growth. Most tokens engage in insider trading, leading to massive price inflation. As the hype subsides, the communities start to calm down. Over the past few years, the influence of MEME-inspired communities has skyrocketed. They highlight the obvious power of vibrant communities behind projects. If a crypto project with real-world utility has a community as strong as the MEME Coin ecosystem, its chances of widespread adoption are relatively higher. The best crypto companies and projects should be built on top of MEME-inspired communities and projects. In the following paragraphs, I will explain how this strategy can work. Leveraging MEME Hype to Drive Growth The core of meme-driven communities and their rapid expansion is a strong sense of humor, herd mentality, celebrity endorsements, and massive FOMO. Due to these characteristics, communities like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and the recent PEPE have experienced tremendous growth. The fear of missing out (FOMO) on quick profit opportunities often leads to a rush of investors after influential figures publicly support or highlight meme coins. These endorsements provide a layer of legitimacy and excitement for these meme coins and their communities, creating and sustaining the meme-driven hype. Influential people and celebrities also leverage their social media prominence to pump the value of MEME Coins they want to promote. Elon Musk has mentioned Dogecoin multiple times on Twitter, leading to Dogecoin's price reaching an all-time high. In February 2024, Elon tweeted "Dogecoin is the people's crypto," and the price surged by 50%. This year, we've seen celebrities like Iggy Azalea, Jason Derulo, and Hulk Hogan publicly discuss MOTHER, JASON, and HULK respectively with their fans. In most cases - just like all the ones mentioned - these MEME Coins ultimately end up being pumped and dumped. For example, ORC Coin, a MEME Coin endorsed by crypto celebrity Davinci Jeremie, who is known for his early endorsement of Bitcoin when it was less than $1 in 2011. ORC has such a massive community, but lacks any substantial content. No utility, no real lore. As a result, the project has been stagnant for some time. Celebrity endorsements can form a powerful MEME community, which can greatly benefit a project, especially in the short term. As the community grows, the visibility also increases, and other investors and fans/supporters will join in. The more people in the community, the higher the eventual number of users who will invest in the project. At the peak in 2021, there were around 3.6 million addresses holding DOGE. In just over a month since its launch, SUNDOG has attracted around 150,000 followers on its social media, with a market cap of $339 million. The project received a 99% positive community trust rating on the decentralized research and trading platform DEXTools, representing the community's trust in the project. NEIRO is another project with an impressive community. Most importantly, brand loyalty. Even without any actual utility, these MEME can create a connection between users and the MEME in a short time, not just for profit. This brand loyalty is priceless. Leveraging Vampire Attacks to Transform MEME Coin Communities into Strategic Launchpads I know the obvious question here is: what is a vampire attack? A vampire attack is a technique used by new crypto projects to steal users and liquidity from the projects that dominate their niche. In most cases, the newest project is usually a fork of an existing project, and it will attract users by offering a better user experience, improved products/services, higher financial incentives, and better benefits. Then, this attacker project can formulate a growth strategy from a position where it can leverage competitive advantages. Some popular protocols have faced vampire attacks, such as OpenSea, Uniswap, Cream Finance, and others. In 2022, when another NFT marketplace LooksRare started targeting OpenSea users, OpenSea was the industry-leading NFT marketplace. LooksRare airdropped over 120 million LOOKS tokens to active users, who had to migrate to LooksRare to claim the free tokens. In September 2020, Sushiswap forked Uniswap's open-source code and launched a decentralized exchange (DEX) platform, subjecting Uniswap to a vampire attack. To improve on Uniswap's status, Sushiswap introduced a yield-sharing feature backed by its native token SUSHI. Before the attack, Uniswap had over $1.5 billion in locked assets, which dropped to around $400 million after the attack, with Sushiswap gaining $1.35 billion. This severely damaged Uniswap's position as the leading DEX, forcing it to launch its native token UNI, mimicking Sushiswap's yield-sharing strategy. A version of this attack can be adapted to launch a new project on the back of an existing community momentum, specifically the MEME Coin community. Industry builders don't have to directly attempt to build a crypto community for their project from scratch, but can create a MEME Coin and market that MEME. Once the community has grown to all the important metrics, they can perform a vampire attack and launch a solid project based on that MEME. This way, they can maintain a high market value while attracting a large community to their new project, without having to start from scratch. It also provides a better long-term future for the MEME Coin, and a faster way to build a community for the new project - you could say it's almost a turnkey solution. Building a Sustainable Project Beyond the Hype The following approaches can help you build a sustainable project that goes beyond the initial hype: 1. Focus on developing projects with actual utility. The project should have a compelling value proposition, including creating a unique user experience, solving a specific problem, or providing innovative features. 2. The token economics should incentivize long-term participation while suppressing speculation. Factors like utility, distribution, and deflationary mechanisms should be considered. 3. Establish a transparent governance system that allows community members to participate in project decisions. 4. Develop a clear roadmap outlining the project's future milestones. This demonstrates a commitment to the long-term success of the project. Conclusion While the MEME-inspired strategy can be effective, it's important to consider the potential ethical implications, such as unfair launches, deceptive/misleading marketing, regulatory compliance, and community well-being. Through the MEME-inspired approach, builders can establish communities and launch viable Web3 projects, leveraging the power of hype and community. However, this must be balanced with building sustainable projects based on inherent value and utility. By mitigating risks like intense competition (in the MEME Coin space) and over-reliance on hype, this strategy can ensure your project achieves long-term success.