Some MEME have already gone beyond the logic of pure storytelling or pure traffic, and have begun to become a means of value bearing.

Author: Blockchain Knight

The biggest topic in the industry over the past week, apart from the sudden crash in the Crypto market, was the various chain reactions of liquidations. Although BTC has fallen from its peak of $100,000 to below $80,000, a drop of only 20%, compared to the many Memecoin that have fallen by more than 80%, BTC seems to be relatively mild.

From the chart below, we can see the current situation of the Memecoin market. As the main battlefield, Pump.fun, its trading volume on Ray has dropped from a peak of over $3 billion per day to around $144 million currently, a drop of over 95%, naturally corresponding to the overall market decline.

Of course, in a sense, it is hard to imagine that the rate of decline will be so fast, as it has only been 1 month, and the Meme craze that has lasted for half a year seems to have already fallen into the bottom.

Faced with the decline in various trading data and the plummeting market capitalization of related Meme, the market has also been filled with mockery of Meme and various big shots have started to make fun of those arrogant PVP players over the past week, so is the narrative of the Meme movement, which started as an anti-VC movement, doomed to end in death?

First, let's briefly review the "rise to fame" of Meme and look at the value of its existence.

Meme itself is not a sudden outbreak of the past year or more, it has existed since the dawn of BTC, that is, when the Internet began to become popular, Meme has already taken root in people's hearts, all kinds of weird emoticons or various Internet cultural terms can be called Meme.

The earliest (2013) Memecoin to enter the Crypto market is DOGE, which still has a market capitalization of $30 billion and has been popular for more than a decade. Of course, previously Meme was mainly mentioned as a single asset in the Crypto industry, far from forming a cultural narrative similar to the Internet, until last year when Meme became the representative of anti-VC, it suddenly grew into a topic worthy of attention and participation by the entire industry.

Subsequently, with the influx of celebrities and traffic organizations into the Meme wave (especially the huge money-making effect), we welcomed the "Meme Summer", and gradually evolved from a single asset category to the largest and hottest narrative in the industry.

The change in the market capitalization of Memecoin over the past year, as shown in the chart below, can give us an idea of the impact of this narrative. In just 3 months, the total market capitalization soared from $36 billion to a peak of $137 billion, a terrifying growth rate. Of course, the current decline is also quite fast.

Subsequently, by the end of 2024, we see the Meme story beginning to evolve from a pure traffic narrative to some empowering Meme related to Agent, DeFAI and Desci. Meme itself has also changed from the worthless thing in everyone's mouth to a way of issuance with certain specific functions.

Finally, the political Meme related to Trump, which brought the climax to Meme but also invited "death", has become the most complained about point by everyone, and since then, the grand drama has begun to draw to a close.

Looking back on this Meme wave, we came from anti-VC, but in the end were defeated, experienced exaggeration, and stepped through countless potholes, but ultimately failed to escape the fate of being washed away, falling into nothing more than another form of VC harvesting.

From these starting points, people are still anti-VC, still full of respect for the traffic in the industry, and from this logic, the "breeding ground" of Meme seems to have not changed, so it will still exist, at least it will not perish.

Secondly, since the end of last year, some MEME have already gone beyond the logic of pure storytelling or pure traffic, and have begun to become a means of value bearing.

Therefore, whether it is IP topics, celebrity effects or issuance methods, this asset category will not disappear, and may even have new evolutions, after all, the things it carries are gradually changing, and MEME has also returned from a kind of hype to the logic of "MEME+Agent", "MEME+Desci", "MEME+DeFAI" and other innovative directions.

Finally, looking at the price itself, many Memecoin have already experienced or are experiencing a downturn, so facing them, using the classic lines of "Hamlet" to say, there are only two paths: "To be, or not to be".

And the only ones who decide the direction of these MEME are the community and the teams that dominate the community (including the capital). As long as they still have the courage to fight on, these MEME that have fallen into the abyss will have the hope of rebirth, just like DOGE a few years ago. After all, those who cannot kill them will only make them stronger, this is the spirit of Crypto, and also the true value, so let's see which MEME are still building, this is the answer.

Postscript: On the evening of March 2nd, the day after this article was written, Trump posted on social media that the Presidential Working Group was pushing a Crypto asset reserve strategy including XRP, SOL and ADA, abruptly changing the market's depressed trend of the past week. Will this be a turning point? Even in the trough, we must be full of hope, who knows if the market will "suddenly come like a spring breeze".