Written by: 0xGrandpa
I. What are we witnessing?
The crypto market in early 2026 is undergoing an unprecedented cultural upheaval:
Western traders searched for the exact meaning of "我踏马来了" (I'm here!) on the X platform, trying to understand why these five Chinese characters could support a token with a market value of hundreds of millions of dollars. Memes like "老子" (Laozi) and "斌安人生" (Binance Life), originally from the Chinese internet, have become everyday topics in the global crypto community.
This marks the first time that Chinese subcultures have gone global on a large scale in the form of financial assets, and it is also the first time we have seen that an emoji or a slang term can attract hundreds of millions of dollars in real funds within 72 hours.
However, these tokens lack any traditional value backing. There's no white paper, no technical team, no use case, not even a complete narrative. Yet their market capitalization can surge from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of dollars in 72 hours, or plummet by half in three hours. All traditional financial valuation tools—price-to-earnings ratio, cash flow, technology roadmap—fail here.
Instead, a completely new pricing logic has emerged: attention equals value, consensus equals truth, and emotion equals liquidity.
He Yi replied on X with "Wishing you a fulfilling life on Binance," and four days later, the token's market capitalization reached $524 million. On-chain data showed that some people entered at $3,000, and their account value rose to $1.6 million. Countless others chased the price at the peak, only to lose everything in the subsequent crash.
Of course, this is not a simple speculative bubble. The word "bubble" is too mild; it implies a kind of "irrational" deviation, as if people could simply return to normalcy once they regain their senses.
But the problem is: when consensus itself is the only anchor, when everyone is playing the same zero-sum game, what is "normal"?
Meme Coin's candlestick chart is the most honest recorder of emotions in this era. It records not only price fluctuations, but also the anxiety, fervor, and disillusionment of this generation—some found an opportunity to change their fate here, while many more were left with a permanent record of losses.
II. From Internet Jokes to Financial Assets
In December 2013, IBM engineer Billy Markus and Adobe employee Jackson Palmer spent two hours copying and pasting the Bitcoin code, changing the logo to a Shiba Inu, and naming it Dogecoin.
Their initial intention was to satirize the cryptocurrency speculation frenzy at the time, but the "joke" went up 300% within 72 hours of its release, and a large number of tipping activities appeared on Reddit, with people using it to buy pizzas for strangers and tip content creators.
Dogecoin's success proves a disruptive fact: in a decentralized finance system, consensus itself can be a source of value.
You don't even need to create an actual product or solve a specific problem; as long as enough people believe it has value, it truly has value. And the most effective tools for building consensus are precisely those cultural symbols that can evoke collective emotions.
From 2013 to 2021, Meme Coin remained on the fringes for a long time.
Early imitators such as Nyancoin (Rainbow Cat) and Coinye (a tribute to Kanye) mostly had a short lifespan. Their failure lay in their over-reliance on the spread of a single symbol and their lack of community building and narrative evolution.
The turning point came in 2021, when SHIB (Shiba Inu Coin) saw a more than 100,000-fold increase in value within six months. More importantly, SHIB proved that newcomers could seize the market through "narrative layering"—grafting new storylines onto existing memes.
In 2023, the emergence of one-click token issuance platforms such as Pump.fun ushered in the industrial production stage for Meme Coin. Thousands of new coins are born on the Solana chain every day, from PEPE's "Sad Frog" to various AI concepts and zoo-themed coins, showing unprecedented fragmentation and short-cycle characteristics in the market.
However, at this stage, Meme Coin was essentially a derivative of Western internet culture, and the Chinese community was more of a follower than a creator.
The Chinese Meme coin craze of 2026 represented a new mutation. It was no longer content with imitating the Western Doge or Pepe, but directly transformed local Chinese internet memes—the crude expression "I'm coming," the blessing phrase "Binance life," and the playful transformation of traditional cultural symbols like "Laozi"—into tradable financial assets.
Behind this transformation lies a collective counterattack from the Chinese crypto community after years of "cultural discounting":
We no longer need to explain to the West why this joke is funny, because consensus operates within our own language system.
III. The Real Force Driving This Carnival
Psychological mechanisms: Dopamine and the fantasy of changing one's fate
Of all the factors driving the Meme coin frenzy, psychological mechanisms occupy the most central position. This is not "irrationality" in the traditional sense, but a rational choice amplified in a specific environment—when the path to wealth accumulation in the real world becomes increasingly rigid, and when the rate of return on traditional investments continues to decline, the "extreme odds" offered by Meme coin become an irresistible psychological temptation.
Looking at the data from "Binance Life" makes it easy to understand. On October 4, 2025, this token was listed on BNB Chain. He Yi, the founder of BNB Chain, replied to the community with the phrase "Wishing you a Binance life," which was subsequently followed by a reply from CZ. In just four days, the token's market capitalization surged from an extremely low level to $524 million, with early participants reaping over 6000 times their initial investment. On-chain data shows that address 0x8844 invested only 5 BNB (approximately $3000), and within days, its value increased to $1.6 million.
The impact of this wealth myth of "turning 3,000 into 1.6 million" far exceeds any rational argument; it directly breaks through the psychological defenses of ordinary investors.
When social media is flooded with screenshots of "someone turning $85 into $140,000," and when stories of "smart money making a fortune" are repeatedly circulated, people systematically overestimate their chances of becoming the next lucky one, while ignoring those silent losers.
This cognitive bias is amplified to the extreme in the Meme coin market. The transparency of blockchain makes the "get-rich-quick myth" verifiable, while stories of losses are often drowned out by the noise.
The deeper driving force comes from emotional compensation.
Against the backdrop of slowing global economic growth and solidified social mobility, people face the dual pressures of present anxieties and future uncertainties. Buying Meme coins, to some extent, carries the symbolic meaning of a "ticket to change one's destiny."
While traditional investment requires long-term accumulation, risk hedging, and professional knowledge, Meme Coin only requires "clicking the mouse at the right time." This simplified decision-making path itself provides psychological comfort—it makes people believe that wealth can be acquired without relying on existing resources and social networks.
But the cruelest thing is the game structure itself.
The Meme coin market is almost a pure PvP (player versus player) environment, where every profit corresponds to a loss for the other party. This zero-sum game fosters a unique "chain of suspicion": I worry you'll sell first, you worry I'll sell first, and everyone is guessing "when will the others leave the game?"
This ultimately leads to a paradoxical result—the more rational the trader, the more likely they are to flee during the first surge. This is because they understand that market consensus is fragile and the liquidity crunch is instantaneous.
This is why most Meme coins exhibit a "peak at the open" trend: all participants are playing the same "musical chairs" game, but there aren't enough chairs to go around from the start.
Dissemination Mechanisms: Attention Hegemony and Traffic Pricing
If psychological mechanisms explain "why people are willing to buy," then propagation mechanisms answer "why this coin and not that coin." In a market environment where thousands of new tokens are created every day, propagation efficiency becomes a crucial competitive barrier.
The advantage of Chinese Meme Coins in spreading lies primarily in the contagiousness of their symbols.
The phrase "我踏马来了" (I'm here!) encapsulates the direct expression and emotional catharsis unique to the Chinese internet, conveying a "breaking the mold" attitude without requiring complex cultural background. The traditional cultural symbol "Laozi" is imbued with a multifaceted meaning in the modern context, encompassing both self-deprecation and arrogance. "Binance Life" cleverly transforms a commercial brand into a blessing, forming an intimate and playful community code.
These symbols share common characteristics: visual simplicity (suitable for emojis and logos), emotional richness (quickly evoking resonance), and semantic ambiguity (leaving room for secondary creation).
But symbols are just the starting point; what truly determines the depth of dissemination is the traffic pricing mechanism.
In the world of Meme Coin, there's a cruel but true formula: Traffic = Valuation.
A reply from He Yi on the X platform, an emoji from CZ—these seemingly casual interactions are actually equivalent to injecting "liquidity expectations" into a certain token. The "Binance Life" case is the best proof: after He Yi tweet on October 4, the token was flooded into more than 14 whale addresses holding more than one million US dollars within 24 hours, and the number of on-chain transactions surged by 300%.
The endorsement by top KOLs created a kind of consensus—everyone thought that others would buy in because of this tweet, so they rushed to buy, ultimately forming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What is even more alarming is that this kind of dissemination has formed an efficient cross-platform closed loop.
A message first spreads in WeChat or Telegram groups, then appears in "science popularization" interpretation posts on Xiaohongshu, followed by discussions in the English community of Platform X (usually accompanied by machine translation misinterpretations and derivative works). On-chain data shows that whale have entered the market, and then screenshots of exchange candlestick charts are shared on social media. A new wave of FOMO (fear of missing out) is ignited.
The entire process can be completed in 6-12 hours, a speed that renders any "calm analysis" sluggish and powerless.
However, this presents a communication paradox:
When the spread of Meme Coin reaches its peak—for example, by trending on Weibo or being reported by mainstream financial media—it often means that the attention dividend has been exhausted.
Because the most valuable stage in the lifecycle of Meme coin is the period when "small-scale consensus is spreading," rather than the moment when "everyone knows about it." Once the spread exceeds a critical point, the market enters a state of "depletion of buyers," because everyone who could be persuaded has already entered the market.
This is why experienced traders choose to exit when mainstream media starts reporting on it, at which point the understanding spread curve has already peaked.
Social Mentality: "Anti-VC" Narratives and Virtual Tribes
The rise of Meme Coin can be understood from a sociological perspective as a symbolic rebellion of "grassroots finance" against "elite capital." This rebellion was not an organized movement, but a collective expression that spontaneously formed through market behavior.
The "anti-VC narrative" is the most explicit manifestation of this resistance.
In traditional crypto projects, venture capital firms (VCs) typically acquire a large number of tokens at extremely low prices in the early stages, and then slowly cash out in the open market through mechanisms such as lock-up and release, which puts retail investors at the bottom of the value chain from the very beginning.
The launch model of Meme Coin (everyone buys at almost the same time and at the same price) is given a certain moral superiority—it symbolizes a rejection of the traditional financial hierarchy.
"Binance Life," as the pioneering project of this wave of Chinese memes, owes its popularity, in part, to the fact that it originated on the grassroots platform Four.Meme, rather than being distributed through private placements or pre-sales. This is an important part of community consensus.
The deeper social psychology lies in the identity recognition of "virtual tribalization".
When someone buys "Laozi," they gain not only a holding, but also membership in a virtual tribe that shares a specific cultural symbol. In this tribe, people reinforce their sense of belonging by shouting "Laozi is the cultural ceiling of Chinese memes," and demonstrate their loyalty by creating emojis and participating in community polls.
This tribal identity is the sociological basis for Meme Coin's survival even after a crash—even if the price is halved, as long as community consensus remains, the token retains the narrative space for a "comeback."
However, we must be soberly aware that this narrative itself is full of contradictions.
In practice, the market is often manipulated by a small number of "smart money" investors who possess both informational and financial advantages. Ordinary investors who enter the market after seeing news on social media may find their entry price tens or even hundreds of times higher than that of early adopters. The true rules of the game remain in the hands of those at the top of the information asymmetry pyramid.
Philosophical Underlying Factor: The Financialization of Nihilism
A core issue with the Meme coin phenomenon is: when we pay real money for a digital symbol that has no practical value, what are we actually buying?
Traditional financial theory states that asset value derives from the discounted value of future cash flows, or is based on scarcity and use value. However, Meme Coin completely overturns this logic—it neither generates cash flows nor possesses practical functions (it doesn't even have the most basic cryptocurrency attribute of being a "payment tool"). Its entire value lies in the circular argument that "others also believe it has value."
This value structure echoes Jean Baudrillard's theory of "simulacra": in postmodern society, symbols have detached themselves from the real objects they refer to and become self-referential "simulacra".
Meme Coin is a pure simulacrum: it does not refer to any value creation in the real economy, but when enough people believe it has value, it does have real exchange value at this moment.
This logic of "consensus is truth" is both absurd and irrefutable—because in a decentralized, unregulated market, the right to define value itself is decentralized.
From a more radical perspective, the popularity of Memecoin reflects a kind of "financialization of nihilism".
When grand narratives collapse, when people no longer believe that technological progress will inevitably lead to a better future, and when "long-term value investing" is repeatedly proven to be unable to outrun luck and timing, "meaninglessness" itself becomes a kind of meaning.
This mindset is particularly prevalent among Generation Z investors, who grew up in a low-growth era following the financial crisis and naturally lack trust in the narrative of "steady wealth accumulation," and are willing to accept high-risk, high-volatility gambling games.
IV. The Essence of Finance: Who Really Makes Money in This Game?
Let's get back to the most practical question: In this frenzy, who's making money? Who's losing money?
First, traditional financial valuation frameworks seem to fail here. Tools like P/E (Price-to-Earnings Ratio) and P/B (Price-to-Book Ratio) cannot explain why a token with no cash flow can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Instead, metrics such as social media mentions, KOL influence, and community activity become the benchmarks. When a token's market capitalization far exceeds what its attention and popularity can support, it often foreshadows a sharp short-term correction.
Secondly, we must be wary of a "liquidity trap." When the Meme coin narrative reaches its emotional peak—with widespread online discussion and mainstream media coverage—it's a peak moment in the sense of communication studies. But this is precisely the turning point where financial liquidity begins to dry up, because all potential buyers have entered the market, leaving only existing funds engaged in a game of cat and mouse. Any slight disturbance could trigger a stampede of selling.
The "He Yi account theft incident" on December 10, 2025, is a typical example. Hackers used the stolen account to post false recommendations, causing a certain token to surge in price. The hackers then invested approximately 19,000 USDT through two new wallets to buy the token, cashing out about $43,000 at the peak, making a profit of about $55,000. However, after CZ (Cai Xing) refuted the claims on X (a cryptocurrency exchange), the token plummeted 78% within 30 minutes, leaving countless investors who bought at the peak trapped.
In the Meme coin market, consensus takes time to build, but collapse can happen in an instant.
Finally, we must see the true nature of this game. The financial essence of Meme Coin remains an extremely high-risk zero-sum game. Behind those stories of "$85 turning into $140,000" are hundreds of silent victims whose assets have been wiped out. On-chain data records everything: behind the 14 million-dollar profit addresses in "Binance Life" are more than 47,000 loss addresses, with a median loss of 62%.
In a system where there is no value creation but only value transfer, the concentration of wealth is inevitable.
V. What kind of crossroads are we standing at?
The Chinese Meme coin craze of 2026 was essentially a sensor of the times' emotions. It recorded the anxieties, humor, rebellion, and greed of this generation in the most straightforward and brutal way.
- In an era where certainty is increasingly scarce, people yearn to use extreme uncertainty to offset the mediocrity of life.
- In a society where social mobility is rigid, even a gamble in which most people are destined to lose is more attractive than "accepting fate".
This frenzy will eventually subside, like all speculative bubbles in history. But the traces it leaves behind will not disappear.
Consensus can be financialized, cultural symbols can be priced, and attention can be traded.
Regardless of how we evaluate all of this, one thing is certain—
We have entered an unprecedented era in which the definition of value is being rewritten.
