It took Doge 4 years to break through the market capitalization of US$1 billion, while BOME only took 3 days. It seems that I would rather take the local dog market than the VC market, which seems to have become the inner reflection of more retail investors. But as memes become more and more popular among retail investors, VCs seem to be unhappy.
The top VCa16z criticized meme coins one after another. A16z first posted a document on its official website to point the finger at the SEC, accusing the encryption policy of allowing memes to run rampant but not protecting real blockchain innovation.
a16z Crypto CTO Lazarrin later complained on the X platform:
Memecoin destroys the long-term vision that keeps many people in crypto and is not technically attractive; it is not attractive for builders.
Michael Dempsey, managing partner of Compound VC, also accused “meme coins of causing a massive loss of real builders.”
However, VC put the blame for destroying crypto innovation on meme coins, which quickly aroused dissatisfaction in the crypto community.
Solana Lianchuangraj stood up to defend meme coins. He sarcastically commented on the argument that "meme coins have caused a massive loss of real builders." If these so-called real builders are so fragile that they are afraid of meme coins, then he will not be able to succeed at all.
Retail investors in turn questioned the value coins promoted by VCs. A heated debate about the value of memes has evolved into a rant about VC coins/value coins.
A reverse education from the community to VC
VCs who like to educate users are educated by users.
First, the meme currency that undermines crypto innovation cannot be ignored. @MarinadeFinance quipped that people often make excuses, but there is nothing and no one that can stop you from building something truly innovative.
And @XBEBEeth said, no one hates these real builders, they just hate the "builders" who use gorgeous narratives to deceive users.
Instead of criticizing meme coins as having no value, it is better to reflect on whether the innovation advocated by VC is real innovation. @mfer7166 believes that pseudo-innovation should be criticized more. And the problem is not meme, but that in this cycle, the industry has no epic narrative.
They only dare to speculate in memes, which expresses the helplessness of retail investors.
AI+Crypto, DEPIN, RWA, modularization, Bitcoin Layer 2... VCs are becoming more and more adept at concocting some unclear narratives. It is best to let the project team superimpose these concepts and then sell them to second-level retail investors, hoping They pay for these long-term visions.
It’s not like retail investors in the past didn’t accept this approach, hoping that some new narratives would be applied on a large scale, and they could drink some soup even if they couldn’t eat meat by following projects endorsed by VCs.
But times have changed. Retail investors began to realize that the technological innovations advocated by VCs seemed to be just hype, and no actual progress was seen in the implementation of applications. In terms of speculation, if you follow VC, you will not only lose your money, but you may also lose all your money.
The "no takeover" bull market theory mentioned some time ago has resonated with many people. But @connectfarm1 bluntly said that there is no way to connect with each other. If you don’t connect, you can’t connect:
This round so far is called the "bull market that does not accept each other's orders": institutions are changing, chain-level narratives, valuations of 1 billion, selling coins will be unlocked as soon as they are listed on the exchange, and retail investors will not accept it.
brc20 is issued fairly, and retail investors speculate on high bids with high-intensity execution. There is no time and space for big money at the bottom, and institutions will not accept it.
The coins that Binance takes the lead in supporting are not listed on OKX; the coins that OKX takes the lead in supporting are not listed on Binance. Each one is looking for thugs, and everyone has a bunch of projects in their hands, and the exchanges are not taking orders from each other.
The East is playing Inscriptions, and the West is playing DePIN. Now the West is starting to play Inscriptions and Runes, and the East is forming L2 again. The East and the West are not taking over each other.
Advocating playing with the new rather than playing with the old, the old market cannot be supported alone, the new market is not yet mature, imitations come out one after another, and the old and new do not succeed each other.
The stock game has been battle-tested for a long time, each other is very smart, and the only ones left behind are elites.
At present, the market value of so-called value coins is rising but the currency price is generally not rising. Retail investors are frustrated by value coins with large market value, high valuation, low circulation, and continuous unlocking.
Some newly listed value coins on exchanges have generally lost their wealth-creating effect. WLD was already valued at US$3 billion before its launch. On the day after its launch, the FDV was as high as US$28 billion, which was equivalent to OpenAI's valuation at the time. How much room for growth does such a high market value leave for the secondary market? Bitcoin Layer 2 leader Merl and other new coins have also been falling since their launch.
Moreover, there are too many new concepts and the sectors move quickly, making it impossible to understand them. @Eason_Jiang_’s experience is that after holding a valuable currency, the price of the currency went on a roller coaster and returned to "the place where the dream began". The profits retreated significantly or even got trapped because the attention went to other tracks.
It seems that retail investors are no longer able to buy the buy the dips and chase the highs. ARB, the leader of Ethereum Layer 2 and the value currency representative, fell from US$2 to US$1. Retail investors wanted to buy the dips, but VCs unlocked a large number of coins, and the coins in the hands of VCs doubled, and they may be buried in the end.
While the entire cryptocurrency has yet to be applied on a large scale, 90% of the current market is speculators. Although memes have no intrinsic value, retail investors are closer to a million-fold opportunity than value coins.
@BTCdayu expressed the sentiments of many retail investors, "Meme coins are very simple and can be released better. Basically, everyone directly gambles in a relatively fair environment. Its greatest value is actually one - buy me and I will do it." If not, it can rise 100 times.
Although the fairness of memes needs to be put in quotation marks, retail investors are more tolerant of memes than the overt intentions of VC coins.
Meme is nothing more than a game between players. Life and death can only take a few days. Most users use small funds to bet on a big return. Even if most of them lose money, they still lose cleanly and do not have to suffer PUA that lasts for several years.
Of course, not all VCs are rejecting memes. Some VCs also understand current affairs and join if they can't beat them.
Mechanism Capital has already begun taking a position in memes. Its co-founder Andrew Kang said on his social platform that Mechanism Capital has completed the first batch of positions for 2024, and the underlying assets are Trump-themed meme tokens and NFTs.
DWF Ventures has publicly stated that it will be interested in investing in projects similar to large-scale community participation in the future.
DWF Ventures said that Meme coins will become a new GTM (go-to-market) strategy for many ecologies and projects, and believe that Meme coins will serve as an effective marketing strategy in the following vertical areas: infrastructure ecosystem, consumers and games, people with Meme currency background New project.
Variant co-founder Li Jin started organizing meme marathons. He wrote, "I was born too late to explore the earth; I was born too early to explore the universe; I was born at the right time to hold a meme hackathon."
Meme temporarily takes on the heavy responsibility of Mass Adoption
The seemingly worthless meme may be shouldering the heavy responsibility of Mass Adoption.
@mdudas refutes a16z CTO:
Meme coins have attracted many users, and have even made chains such as Base, Blast, and Solana active.
In fact, compared to some VCs' disdain for memes, meme coins have become the top priority in enabling the public chain ecosystem.
Last year, Solana’s founder, Anatoly, took the initiative to popularize Silly Dragon, and Solana continued to reap Meme dividends. The explosion of BOME coin has made Solana rank first in the number of active addresses. Three days after BOME went online, Solana’s active wallet addresses increased from 1.24 million to 2.42 million, a 95% increase.
In addition, Solana chain network fees and revenue have also increased significantly.
It was questioned that no one is using the public chain, at least because of the meme, some people are using it. Solana's huge success in memes has also attracted the attention and imitation of other public chains.
Base creators say Meme coins will be the key to getting millions of users to join the Base network. A new proposal from the Arbitrum community plans to establish a Memecoin fund.
Some public chains even started issuing meme coins.
On March 17, Aptos launched the official Meme coin $LME.
On March 18, Bitcoin Layer 2 public chain Ligo announced the launch of Meme coin SOLIGO on Solana.
There are also public chains holding meme innovation competitions to encourage meme innovation on the chain.
BNB Chain recently officially announced the launch of the "Meme Innovation Battle" event, competing for a prize pool totaling US$1 million. TON announced the launch of Memelandia, a cultural center for meme coins and community tokens, with rewards for becoming the top meme coins and community tokens on TON.
The TON Foundation also airdropped over $2 million in TON to active Meme currency traders in the ecosystem.
Fantom began to develop meme framework standards. Recently, Fantom Foundation co-founder Andre Cronje tweeted that he is busy conducting due diligence on memecoin so that a framework can be established to launch, support and cultivate community-safe meme coins on Fantom.
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, previously mentioned when talking about memes:
Expect to see higher quality interesting projects that contribute positively to the ecosystem and the world around them (not just attract users).
In fact, in addition to being responsible for the traffic of many public chains, some meme coins have also begun to work.
Shib, known as the "Dogecoin Killer", announced the launch of the Layer 2 solution Shibarium Beta version early last year, aiming to reduce the load on the blockchain network and improve the user experience of the metaverse and game applications.
Meme jumped the gun, will there still be a copycat season?
Meme coins and value coins are not completely opposite. For most retail investors, it is a track to participate in.
Generally, in the three stages of a bull market, Bitcoin rises; after Bitcoin rises, Ethereum rises, driving hot Altcoin to soar together. Finally, the crypto market entered a comprehensive upward phase, and meme coins began to rise.
But in this cycle, the order of sector rotation seems to have been rearranged, with meme coins taking the lead and becoming the main line in this cycle.
After the meme broke out, will the copycat season dominated by so-called value coins come? It is also the issue that retail investors are most concerned about.
Shenyu said in a recent interview that the copycat season may not come:
Because the current Player in the market is different from the previous Player, from the perspective of miners, after the Bitcoin spot ETF was passed on January 10, risk hedging has been carried out months in advance to cope with the risk of Bitcoin halving.
Shenyu mentioned that this cycle is characterized by funds flowing into Bitcoin mainly through ETFs and other channels. It remains to be seen when these funds will flow to other cryptocurrencies.
Crypto trader Thiccy also expressed pessimism about whether the altcoin season will come. Thiccy said that due to more and more projects issuing coins, FDV has grown faster than the circulation, increasing by about 70% year-to-date:
There are now 3-5 new tokens being added to the market every week and everyone seems happy. But ask yourself, who will be buying all these tokens. Unless there is a massive influx of institutions or retail players, this will just be PvP forever.
Crypto KOL @BTCdayu believes that the copycat season has passed:
The current total scale of Altcoin, especially various L2 and new narratives, is already at the high point of the last bull market.
However, there are still investors who believe that the copycat season will not be absent. At a time when the market is generally not optimistic about value coins, encryption researcher @0xNing0x believes that this is the best time to build a position:
At this stage, I quietly buy top assets in the modular public chain, RollAPP, AI Agent, ZK hardware acceleration, RWA, Bitcoin L2 and other sectors, and actively serve as the exit liquidity of the market.
@0xNing0x's logic is that the golden rule of investment has always been "I take when others give up, and I give up when others take". When meme coins account for an increasing proportion of everyone's investment portfolio, Alpha opportunities with truly high profit-loss ratios begin to emerge in the value coin sector.
