Author: Anderson Sima, Foresight News
How much would you be willing to pay for a goat?
On October 23, GOAT officially became the first meme coin with a market capitalization of over $500 million on the token launch platform pump.fun.
As of the time of writing, GOAT is temporarily reported at $0.5276, with a 24-hour increase of 35.3%, and the current market value is temporarily reported at $527 million.
On the same day, according to Lookonchain monitoring, an address withdrew 32,695 SOL (about $5.46 million) from Binance to buy MEME tokens: of which, the address spent 18,000 SOL (about $3 million) to buy 6.95 million GOAT ($ 3.39 million), at an average price of $0.43.
Someone is willing to spend $3 million to buy "inedible" goats (GOAT).
In the cryptocurrency world, new and interesting concepts emerge from time to time, igniting the market. Clearly, the frenzy at the end of October is not a "cat-dog war", but belongs to "AI+Meme".
The Wonderful Combination of AI and Memecoin
The full name of the GOAT token is "Goatseus Maximus" (goat), and this name, although a bit of a prank, has an undeniable spreading power.
It was launched on the Solana blockchain through the pump.fun platform on October 10, 2024. The creators of GOAT did not publicly identify themselves, but the main promotion behind it was indirectly facilitated by an AI robot called Truth Terminal. This AI robot was created by developer Andy Ayrey and received a $50,000 grant from a16z.
This robot was initially used by Andy Ayrey to study "the spread of internet culture and the impact of AI on ideology", and after the birth of the GOAT token, it frequently posted information related to GOAT, and the market value of GOAT quickly soared from a few thousand dollars to over $3 million in just a few days.
Andy Ayrey himself also holds 1.25 million GOAT tokens, and he said that he has airdropped some of them to friends and AI researchers, but he himself has not made any transactions.
The combination of AI and Memecoin may seem bizarre, but it is actually a product that conforms to the trend of the times. In today's era of rampant AI technology, the AI concept that gives a sense of "futurism" combined with the "down-to-earth" Meme culture is simply a tailor-made marketing strategy to attract attention.
AI technology does not need Meme to provide emotional value, but Meme needs AI to attract new attention.
Big Shots Boarding and KOLs Shilling
The GOAT token not only received the push of the AI robot, but also obtained the endorsement of some well-known KOLs. KOL Maison Ghost, who has more than 240,000 followers, praised the uniqueness of GOAT on the X platform and predicted that it might define the "new gameplay" of Memecoin in the next few weeks.
On October 18, Arthur Hayes posted on X that "Are you really going to give up on the combination of artificial intelligence + Meme coin + religion? There are still many people who believe in the flat earth theory from hundreds to thousands of years ago, so don't you think GOAT will reach a market value of $1 billion?"
Zhu Su, the co-founder of Three Arrows Capital, posted on X that he has gone long on GOAT, with an average opening price of $0.33976; Solscan data shows that the crypto market maker Wintermute has become the third largest holder of GOAT, holding 1% of the total supply.
The Essence of Memecoin: Zero-Sum Game and Attention Economy
Fundamentally, the rapid rise of GOAT does not depend on its business prospects and technological innovation, but is a classic manifestation of the attention economy. The market value of Meme coins is often proportional to the strength of the consensus, and the construction of consensus depends on continuous media exposure, meme culture, and the promotion of KOLs.
In an article published in March of this year, Multicoin Capital proposed a view: "In the field of cryptocurrencies, the main input for asset pricing is not a multi-factor model centered on risk premium or cash flow, but a perception of the amount of time, effort and money invested by the community in the asset."
In this era of information explosion, whoever can grasp the public's attention can create huge market value in a short period of time. The success of GOAT is behind its rapid spread of consensus on social media and the continuous "voice" of the AI robot.
However, please note that the economic model behind it is still a zero-sum game. Early investors gain profits by attracting latecomers, and these new entrants may only bear the subsequent losses if they fail to exit in time. For most Memes, the "lively-cooling-elimination" trilogy is the fate they cannot escape.
"Put aside prejudices and embrace bubbles." When data can become oil, attention can also become currency. If you firmly believe in the value investment doctrine emphasized by Charlie Munger, you will miss a new era of awakening.
But when you enter the Meme world, remember: this is the "dark forest", the "Venetian", the "PUBG".
I'm getting off the bus, good luck to you.
