Written by: TechFlow
In today's meme general pullback, who is the most popular retrograde? No doubt, it must be the expressionless ChillGuy with his hands in his pockets.
The emoticon guy in the picture above, who became famous from the overseas version of Douyin "TikTok", made waves in just 24 hours: the market value once exceeded 600 million US dollars, increased dozens of times in 24 hours, and the trading volume exceeded 700 million US dollars. The trading volume in the last hour also exceeded 100 million US dollars.
Just a few days ago, it was just spreading on TikTok.
What’s interesting is that while we are still lamenting the catchphrase “Just Chill”, crypto players have already demonstrated what “Real Chill” means with practical actions: from posts by the President of El Salvador to retweets by Musk, from TikTok to Twitter, everything can become the focus of attention and hype.
ChillGuy performed a perfect "lying down and winning" by lying flat on his back.
If you still don’t know why an emoji can make waves, here’s a quick storyline review.
At first, I was just a calm guy.
ChillGuy itself is actually a character created by artist Phillip Banks in 2023. The anthropomorphic character wears a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, with his hands in his pockets - just a cool-looking guy.
The artist gave it a simple character setting: "He is a calm guy who doesn't care about anything at all." At the same time, this post triggered a widespread imitation trend on social media.
Subsequently, this "Chill Guy" image gained explosive popularity on TikTok. People were attracted by this image with his hands in his pockets, a blank expression, and seemingly not caring about anything. It perfectly illustrates the attitude of young people facing the pressure of life today: instead of being anxious, it is better to chill.
Users have imitated this pose, with various scenarios: Failing the exam? Just Chillin. Stressful at work? Just Chillin. Life is not going as you wish? Just Chillin again.
This contrasting sense of humor and "bad attitude" towards life unexpectedly hit the funny spot of Generation Z. The related video received more than 20 million views in just two months, spawning countless imitation videos and emoticons.
This type of video should have been lost in the vast amount of content on TikTok, but netizens were attracted by his attitude of "don't take life too seriously". Especially in this anxious era, people seem to have found some resonance in this emoticon package: life is about learning to chill.
The tipping point, from emoji to speedrunner
5 days ago, when the $CHILLGUY token was born on the SOLana chain, even the people who issued the token probably didn’t expect what would happen next.
Initially, the price of CHILLGUY was lukewarm, but it suddenly rose yesterday, with the market value exceeding 200 million US dollars, the coin price reaching a high of around 0.23, and the trading volume exceeding 100 million US dollars.
Obviously, there are reasons why a popular emoticon package on Tiktok can become popular. Putting it in the crypto where attention is capitalized is naturally what smart money calls a "good angle."
Data doesn’t lie. Compared with PNUT, which became popular in the previous election, it took 11 days to accumulate 60,000 holders; while it only took Calm Brother 4 days to have 80,000 holders.
You have to marvel at the power of the attention economy and popular events.
Of course, the perspective of the emoticon package Chill is only the basis. What really catalyzes it must be the superposition of a series of factors.
Here I have to reiterate the well-known theory in the classic communication book "The Tipping Point". For an event to become popular, three major elements are indispensable:
The first is the rule of key figures --- influential people spread and explain
The second rule is the stickiness factor -- popular things should have the characteristics of being memorable.
The third law is the law of environmental power --- the environment in which a trend occurs is very important and affects its spread and acceptance.
For the latter two rules, it is obvious that the calm expression with both hands plugged in fits the popular fashion among young people, and the overseas version of TikTok and the current Meme super cycle also provide sufficient environmental power.
Everything is ready, except for the key person to lead the way.
First, the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, tweeted a ChillGuy emoji without even a caption. The tweet received nearly 80,000 likes in just a few hours.
Then, Musk arrived late.
A tech blogger posted a post to test and introduce Grok's AI performance. The test results included the image element of "CHILLGUY". Musk reposted it to show his interest.
Although it is not an open endorsement, it is clear that the law that memes related to Musk always become popular is still in effect.
Today (21st), after a combination of events, CHILLGUY began its speedrunning journey, and its market value once again increased from 200 million to more than 600 million US dollars; as of press time, the price has fallen back, but the market value is still around 300 million US dollars.
Memes that have quickly risen to over 100 million US dollars are already rare, but Dan Ding Ge has taken the lead in today's general meme pullback environment and successfully achieved a quick market value pass and a win without any effort.
What is more noteworthy is that Google Trends shows that in the past 24 hours, the search volume for "how to buy ChillGuy" has skyrocketed in the United States. The first result displayed when typing in "how to buy" is Bitcoin, and the second is ChillGuy. At the same time, a large number of corresponding tutorials have emerged on YouTube and forums.
Combined with the news that Phantom Wallet topped the Google Store download rankings a few days ago, more young players outside the circle seem to be rushing into the market.
Some exchanges also responded quickly. For example, crypto.com has issued an announcement to launch CHILLGUY.
However, the artist who created the original image of Dan Ding Ge himself did not want to become famous in this way.
He expressed his opinion in a post on Twitter:
"I've become so overwhelmed by the amount of bad information I'm getting about crypto that I've decided to take a break from Twitter."
Earlier, there was news that Philb held the copyright of chillguy and was thinking of suing the meme coin of the same name. This also caused the CHILLGUY token to fall by more than 50% at one point, but it has now recovered.
Nine out of ten gambling losses, there is still one Chill
In this round of ChillGuy carnival, some people are happy and some are sad. On-chain data shows that some early players have indeed achieved "uneasy wins":
According to AI Auntie’s monitoring, smart money spent 22,134 USDC to buy 5.01 million $CHILLGUY in 2 days from November 17 to 19, with the cost as low as $0.0044;
Currently, the smart money has sold 60% of its positions, and there are still 2 million tokens distributed to two new addresses, with a floating profit of 760,000 US dollars
Smart Money Original Address:
28MyYrYpRwAwiACFwKQbzJ7LXAq3tSBPTJzrmG6ep1Fi
Transfer and sub-warehouse address after making money:
DiJA72nChAfqbwbqBpmFdEk7gBFT97JZSBx7faArjGYe
28MyYrYpRwAwiACFwKQbzJ7LXAq3tSBPTJzrmG6ep1Fi
(TechFlow TechFlow: The above information is for data display only and is not investment advice.)
What is even more worthy of reflection is that some Twitter users further analyzed the address and found that he intensively participated in on-chain dog-beating PVP, and was an out-and-out "P youngster"; but his record was also nine losses out of ten, and the results were mainly losses.
However, one CHILLGUY turned his losses into profits, and one critical hit made him laugh off all the pain.
Some people got up early and used 1SOL to pursue their dreams, but they were late.
According to Lookonchain data , a trader used 1SOL to buy more than 30 million CHILLGUY shortly after the opening, which is now worth 10 million US dollars.
But he sold it early and ended up making only 0.6SOL profit.
What can we learn from these comparisons?
Energy, luck, timing and mentality are all essential, but even if you have all of them, you may not succeed.
With your hands in your pockets, you find that the Meme market is full of competitors; the only thing you can do is to stay calm, lower your expectations, and wait and see.
