The "Speculative" Era of Memecoin
Many people say that Solana in this cycle is like Ethereum in the previous cycle, and a very important proof is that the wealth effect brought by Pump.fun in this cycle is exactly the same as the wealth effect brought by Ethereum's ICO in the previous cycle. We have seen many coins that have increased hundreds or even thousands of times in just a few days.
Everyone can issue their own Memecoin on Pump.fun, which undoubtedly brings funds to the chain. There are a lot of Web3 stock funds in CEX, as well as a lot of Web2 incremental funds, and even the perfect Moonshot platform that connects Web2 and Web3 Memecoin's last mile of fiat currency trading has appeared.
Related reading: After connecting the "last mile" of Meme coins, does Moonshot also have a listing effect?
Perhaps it is because of this "wealth" effect and the extremely low threshold for token issuance that many people just "take a bite and run", many people believe that the investment behavior of Memecoin has become a speculative behavior of "passing the drum", and many Memecoin players believe that the key to chasing meme is to "run faster".
This wealth effect has attracted many new on-chain users, and the market capitalization of most Memecoins is inflated. Some "hard-found angles" can bring a lot of FOMO to many people, quickly pushing up the market value, and quickly cashing out after the market value approaches $20 million, causing a large number of early holders or project parties to be trampled and quickly return to zero, and many Memecoins with "narrative angles" also gradually showed a "zero" form after a brief surge.
Interestingly, in Web3, where the speed of information transmission is extremely fast in our traditional cognition, it takes a long time to reach a consensus and realize value discovery. Many Memecoins that have emerged now have gone through this process. For example, GOAT, after the token was issued, quickly reached a market value of around $20 million, then quickly fell back, and experienced a long period of sideways consolidation at around $10 million before its value was discovered and continued to rise. Another example is Ban, which quickly reached a market value of around $5 million after the token was issued, then fell back by more than 80% in the midst of PVP and group FUD, and only after more than 20 hours did it gather group consensus and the market value soar quickly. There are also "betrayed by the project party" like ACT and Pnut.
Why do these emerging Memecoins with narrative angles need such a long time to discover their prices? Undoubtedly, this is strongly related to the deeply rooted PVP logic. The "speculators" are always afraid that the early holders will "dump and cash out" after the price surge, and they are still in the logic of "PVP".
And all of this has seen new changes recently.
The "Crypto Gold Age" of Memecoin
Trump's election as US president has ushered in the era of "crypto gold".
Not only does it mean that mainstream cryptocurrencies represented by Bitcoin have gained market recognition, and the BTC ETF will have political endorsement, which will attract more US stock investors to invest in the cryptocurrency market, but it also means that the US political arena has relaxed the regulation of cryptocurrencies, and the possibility of DeFi tokens being regarded as "securities" and regulated has been reduced, and Meme coins can enter the investment horizon of US investors.
CoinBase has included Pepe in its listing roadmap, Binance has launched ACT and Pnut, and Elon Musk has repeatedly voiced his support for the squirrel Peanut on social media and written that he will establish a government efficiency department with the same name as Doge coin, the influence of Meme coins is rapidly expanding and being recognized. Undoubtedly, Elon Musk is a staunch supporter of Meme coins, "America is saved by a squirrel and a meme coin."
As Murad once said, "We are at the beginning of the Meme SuperCycle". The average market capitalization of Meme coins is also constantly rising. After CoinBase listed Pepe, Pepe's total market capitalization once exceeded $10 billion. After Binance launched Pnut and ACT, Pnut's market capitalization reached a high of $2.5 billion, and is currently at $1.8 billion, and ACT's market capitalization is close to $1 billion. Goat's market capitalization is around $1 billion, and Doge's total market capitalization is ranked in the Top5. The market's recognition of meme coins has visibly increased.
On November 13, Moonshot said on its social platform that the platform's fiat currency inflow has set a new record. "Non-crypto native users are pouring in in large numbers".
The "Investment" Era of Memecoin
Binance is also working hard to support the development of Meme coins. The previous logic of CEX listing Meme coins was mainly to look at the market capitalization, supplemented by the so-called "Listing Fee", but Binance's listing of ACT and Pnut heralds a new beginning of CEX's support for Meme coins.
What is important for Meme coins is no longer the market capitalization, but the community and the angle, after all, a total market capitalization of $20 million for ACT can still be listed on a top CEX, and after the announcement, it also produced a very prominent wealth effect, and the current ACT market capitalization is $800 million, and individual investors can use information arbitrage to make more than 10 times the profit through pure manual means.
This wealth effect not only reflects Binance's recognition and support for the Memecoin industry, but also points the way for the Memecoin community. Communities with outstanding narratives and angles, and excellent community culture, have a good chance of being listed on CEX. We can also see from the recent new projects launched by Binance that nearly half of the newly launched projects are Memecoins, using the CEX channel to spread the Memecoin culture and better develop the Memecoin culture.
For individual investors, the investment angle for meme has changed, it is no longer about rushing into the PVP, meme coins without angles and lacking narratives are no longer popular, some primary investors believe that this is actually more beneficial to the market, no need to "dig for gold in the shit" and stuff a bunch of coins that can't even launch, consume the principal in PVP, but instead look more at the angles and narratives, and then build the community and promote the project to be listed on the exchange, this is more in line with the essence of memecoin, rather than just relying on "rushing early and running fast" to make money.
The market's imagination space for Memecoins has been further opened up, and the situation where the market value approaches $20 million and then quickly cashes out, causing a large amount of trampling and exiting, resulting in an almost "zero" ending, has become less common. The market used to think that the dividing line for whether it was a "large MC memecoin" was $20 million, and many "medium MC memecoins" were just falling at the $20 million threshold.
But now, Pepe is preparing to be listed on CoinBase with a market capitalization of over $10 billion, ACT has been listed on Binance with a market capitalization of over $500 million, GOAT has a strong AI meme narrative platform behind it with a market capitalization of over $1 billion, and after Elon Musk's frequent support for Pnut, Pnut's market capitalization has exceeded $1.5 billion. The market is once again full of expectations and aspirations for the "large MC memecoins" above $1 billion. The market is gradually realizing that Murad's saying that "the direction of the Memecoin super cycle is for 7-8 Memecoins to become huge >$20 billion digital tribes".
For DEVs who issue Memecoins, the pricing of Memecoin market capitalization has increased, with less "cutting a wave and running", more focus on community building, more focus on building the culture itself, and a more complete process of connecting with CEX.
And this is also a blessing for individual investors. Investing in Meme is more like investing. Examine the angles and community, find early-stage meme coins with potential, wait for price discovery, and get listed on CEX to reach more Web3 groups or Moonshot's Web2 groups.
There are more and more "diamond hands" voices in the market, and the market positions the market value of meme coins at billions or even tens of billions of US dollars. Many people say "Pnut is either 4B or zero, and I absolutely won't sell in the middle!" The logic of PVP seems to have changed. The players who bought Pnut early have now made a profit of over 210,000 times, with a cost of 0.1sol and a profit of over $4 million, but they still hold firmly.
As of the time of writing, many "large MC memecoins" that had some achievements but ultimately did not fully break out, and whose market value has seen a significant decline, have seen a significant increase in their market value.
Many meme coin projects that we once thought had "gone to zero" have had their value rediscovered, and their value may be explored in the expectation of being "Listed on CEX" in the future. There are also many meme coins that truly represent a community culture that have been issued, returning to the original cultural value of meme coins. Behind them may be an AI agent, or a new "internet celebrity animal", or an eagle that needs to be released.
As Murad said, "Meme coins are a test. Seeing them as jokes and funny pictures is a failure. Understanding that they are unstoppable tokenized communities is the true enlightenment." We have seen the signs of the Meme SuperCycle gears starting to turn, and the meme culture has moved beyond PVP and opened a new chapter.
