Analysis of the Meme Track in 2024: From Viral Spread to Ecological Bridgehead

summary

Through observation and analysis of the Meme track, this article explores the current status and development characteristics of the Meme track in 2024, mainly covering the popularity trend of Meme coins, the rise of platforms, dissemination methods, and market strategies. The main points are as follows:

• Meme coin craze and spread pattern: Meme coins in 2024 showed periodic high fever, especially in the first half of the year and the second quarter. The spread of memes is similar to that of infectious diseases, with the help of social media and communities, usually accompanied by exponential growth. The development pattern in 2024 has new characteristics.
• The rise of Meme platforms: Memecoin Launchpads is an important innovation in this round. Platforms such as Pump.fun and SunPump have simplified the creation and trading of Meme coins, attracting a large number of users. Each platform has its own characteristics in terms of user base, revenue, and ecological support.
• Market liquidity and strategy: Meme has been regarded as a "bridgehead" for ecological development by major public chains and project parties. This is the biggest change in this round. Meme coins are regarded as the pioneers of ecological development of major blockchains, and promote subsequent ecological development by attracting market attention and funds. The investment strategy of the Meme track mainly involves the grasp of leading coins, trading volume and market sentiment.
• Future Outlook of Meme: With the easing of liquidity, direct official participation and the addition of VC investment, the Meme coin market is expected to continue to explode in the second half of 2024, and more professional and transparent Meme gameplay is expected to emerge.

New features of this round of Meme track

The heat continues, in a cyclical manner

Different from the previous meme craze, in this cycle, the popularity of meme coins reached an unprecedented level, especially in February to April in the first half of the year.

Whether it is the average six-fold increase in 20 popular coins such as PEPE in a week, or the continuous refreshing of the shortest time record for listing on CEX by tokens such as WIF and BOME, all of them are sending a signal to cryptocurrency market investors: the Meme craze is on the rise again.

The spread of online memes has many similarities to the spread of infectious diseases. Like viruses, memes rely on "hosts" - that is, users' sharing and dissemination - to spread quickly. Once a meme enters a popular social network, it can spread rapidly by "infecting" a large number of users, especially when it triggers strong emotional reactions or has elements that are easy to imitate. The ordi in early 2024 and the sol meme craze in the second quarter all reflect this feature.

This spread of memes is often characterized by exponential growth, where only a few people are exposed to the meme initially, but in a short period of time, it spreads to a large number of people. In addition, meme spread is also affected by network nodes - similar to super spreaders of infectious diseases, certain users with a large number of followers can significantly accelerate the spread of memes, thereby expanding their reach. This spread pattern reflects the behavior of infectious diseases in many ways, relying on close contact and interaction between people. As shown in the figure below:

 The spread of internet memes is similar to the spread of infectious diseases, as shown in this SIR model.

 Red = susceptible, green = infected, blue = recovered.

The rise of Meme platforms is a major feature of this round

Memecoin Launchpads are a major feature of the rise of this round of Meme track. For example, the emerging Memecoin launchpads Pump.fun and SunPump. In this cycle, the Memecoin platform has attracted a large number of users by simplifying the creation and transaction process of Memecoin and seamlessly integrating with mainstream blockchains. They have their own characteristics in terms of user positioning, daily issuance quantity, revenue, project success rate, ecosystem integration, marketing promotion and community participation.

As the crypto industry continues to develop, the Memecoin field is full of opportunities and challenges, and innovation is particularly important. The key to the success of the Memecoin platform lies in creating products with unique selling points that combine cultural trends and technological innovation.

Launchpad Comparative Analysis

 Image source: Tiger-Reseach

Target Users

In terms of the user groups of the two typical meme platforms, the early pump.fun is mainly aimed at Western groups, while Sun Yuchen's SunPump is more popular in Asia. At the same time, SunPump combines the marketing of Sun Yuchen and his team on Twitter and other media, and performs more eye-catchingly on TRON.

Platform income & expenses

SunPump was launched later, but by the end of August, its revenue was about 567K, and it issued about 7,500 Memcoins per day. Pump.fun, on the other hand, generates about 7,000 Memcoins per day, which is not much different from Sunpump. Both platforms charge a 1% transaction fee.

Ecological supporting conditions

Pump.fun is a third-party development, launched on the Sol chain in the early days, integrated into the Base chain around May-June this year, and later integrated into the Blast chain. In contrast, SunPump mainly runs on the TRON blockchain, supported by its payment system (with a large number of users using USDT payments) and exchange infrastructure.

Other Meme Platforms

 Image source: Rootdata, Chain Catcher

In addition to Pump.Fun and SunPump mentioned above, there are also Launchpads for various segments, such as Memehub.ai, which is a launch platform based on the AI field, wonton.fun, which is an exclusive launch platform on the Ton chain, and Satspumpfun, which is the launch platform for the BTC ecosystem.

The main public chains and functions they support are different, as shown in the table above.

Typical Launchpad-- Sunpump

SunPump outperforms most Meme Launchpads

Justin Sun, founder of TRON, pointed out that although the Meme coin market is still in its infancy, TRON is implementing a long-term strategy, focusing on building a solid infrastructure and continuously optimizing the user experience to meet the needs of different users.

Justin Sun mentioned that SunPump, as the Meme launch platform of the TRON chain, together with TRON's payment network DEFI layer, has built a three-layer system, of which SunPump is an important part.

• First, as a widely recognized stablecoin payment network, TRON has surpassed Ethereum and Solana in terms of daily revenue to become the leading stablecoin payment platform.
• The second is the DeFi layer, which provides stable returns on investment.
• The third is SunPump, a platform that combines mature DeFi technology and blockchain performance, focusing on high-risk, high-return investment opportunities.

SunPump has several advantages:

1. Strong team: The SunPump team has a deep understanding of the Meme market and can accurately grasp investor needs and predict potential user groups to ensure leading product quality.
2. Liquidity support: The TRON platform has issued more than $60 billion in stablecoins and has more than 2 million active users per day, far exceeding Solana. TRON's large user base and high transaction volume provide strong liquidity for the Meme market.
3. Community support: SunPump has strong community support, especially from Asia, which has laid a solid user base for it.

With the continuous launch of SunPump tokens, the active addresses on TRON reached 1.9 million in August, while the active addresses on Solana were 1.09 million, demonstrating TRON’s clear advantage in this field.

Meme Ecosystem and Liquidity

The author believes that Meme’s performance in this round is quite eye-catching and it has grabbed a lot of market attention. One of the biggest features is that all parties in the market have combined liquidity with the Meme ecosystem, using Meme to activate and lead the market’s enthusiasm, liquidity and ecosystem. This is mainly reflected in the following two aspects:

• Meme has been regarded by major public chains and project parties as a "bridgehead" for ecological development. This is what I think is the biggest change in this round. From the founder of Sol wearing silly dragon's clothes at the beginning, to the recent pump.fun, to NOT's "fascia gun track", all of them are Meme first. Meme is equivalent to the hook product in the web2 product matrix. It can be the first to enter the market and deposit funds through Meme, and then it will be absorbed by the infrastructure in the ecosystem such as defi, lending and other products. Attracting funds through Meme and then launching products with utility is one of the strategic paths for the development of ecological parties and project parties in this round.
• The difference in propagation time provides liquidity with flow time. There is a time difference between the traditional outsider's concept and web3. A small number of people enter the cryptocurrency circle, and the first thing they encounter is the high-yield wealth-making myth of the Meme sector. High volatility means that they have the potential to achieve high returns in a short period of time. Retail investors who can enter the circle may be attracted by this opportunity to get rich quickly. In addition, many Meme coins have a lower unit price than Bitcoin, which allows retail investors to buy a large number of tokens with a relatively small investment amount. For retail investors with limited budgets, this low-threshold investment is more attractive.

Meme as a case study of ecosystem liquidity

As mentioned above, this round of Meme is used as the vanguard of liquidity by major chains, project parties, and ecosystem parties, and there are many cases.

• Linea chain: $Foxy.

$Foxy is the official foundation of Linea Chain, and the parent company of MetaMask participated in launching the meme. Although not much was disclosed in the early stage, the driving force behind it was Linea Chain and its related parties. Combining the KOL round of financing and publicity, Foxy achieved a return of about 40 times on the first day of listing on the exchange.

• Base chain: $Degen, $Enjoy, $High.

There are countless meme issuances on the Base chain. Among them, $Degen, which was popular in February and March 2024, is the most representative. In the early days of Degen's development, it was originally a community meme project with 100% meme attributes. As Degen's high-hat gentleman attributes became more and more prominent, Degen was later given utility by the official APP as a tip token for the Farcaster social platform, but its meme attributes were still unchanged. It is equivalent to 80% of the meme attributes + 20% of the utility attributes. Not to mention the support for Degen from the various ecosystems of Farcaster and base in the later period. As for $High, it is the meme of the Zora public chain.

There are many other cases, listed here:

• Manta Chain: $10 million Moon Mission Meme Grants announced in June 2024
• Avalanche chain: $COQ, $KIMBO, $TECH, $GEC. The Meme liquidity strategy of the Avalanche chain will be mainly issued in the first half of 2024 and supported by the Avalanche official foundation.
• Fantom: Launching Meme Season for Sonic Memecoin. Starting in June.
• zkSync: Meme tokenizes Zeekcoin $MEOW.

Distribution of major Meme projects in 2024

Banker Coin

BOME/ SLERF/ MEW/ MANEKI …

The author classifies coins from various large pools into market maker coins. Their characteristics are that the pools are large and the price is pulled up very quickly. The position capacity that can be invested is not only large but also the multiplier is high. However, at the same time, the market value is often so high that it is difficult for people to enter the market.

Hot News Coin

GME/ BODEN/ TREMP/ DJT/ NCAT…

Hot current events, such as the words and deeds of popular figures such as Musk, Trump, or Roaring Kitty, can often find corresponding meme coins on the chain, but at the same time, this type of meme coin will also cause price fluctuations due to various news. For example, DJT Trump coin attracted many people to speculate because of rumors that Trump's youngest son Barron Trump was involved, but it also plummeted due to the news that famous CTs such as Zach XBT and GCR revealed the inside story; similarly, $GME caused crazy speculation due to the return post of Roaring Kitty, but soon after, it plummeted because Roaring Kitty's live video was meaningless.

Community Coin

POPCAT/ MICHI/ SC/NEIRO

The author believes that this type of cat and dog community token is a type of meme with high odds but also high failure rate. The high odds are because this type of token often has a long enough bottom time to accumulate cheap chips, but at the same time, it is easy to fail because the scarcity is not high enough. Whether the token avatar is eye-catching is the first point, but more important is the community atmosphere.

In addition, the author believes that community-type meme coins will slowly gather consensus among retail investors when the market environment is good, driving prices to slowly rise. However, when the market environment is bad, the decline will be the fastest due to factors such as the large number of dispersed chips held.

Celebrity Coin

MOTHER / RNT / PAJAMES

Celebrity coins have been a trend on the SOL chain in recent weeks, but most celebrities have no intention of operating tokens for a long time. Many of them are just a one-time thing. However, if celebrities with huge traffic outside the circle are willing to operate, the tokens have great potential. Currently, the most successful celebrity coin is $MOTHER. Rapper Iggy Azalea promoted her own tokens with tens of millions of fans, and actively interacted with CT in the circle and communicated with community members, which is why the popularity has lasted for so long.

other

WEN/ BONK/ WIF …

In addition to the above, there are of course many types of hot meme coins, such as $WEN launched by the Jupiter team, or $Bonk, which is rumored to be launched by the Solana Foundation to revitalize Solana. They all reached such a high market value because of the participation of the formal team behind them. In addition, $WIF, which has the largest market value among Solana Memecoins and is also the weather vane of Solana Memecoin, is the most difficult meme coin to classify. It was born as a community coin but was favored by capital later, so it jumped up and became the strongest target of Memecoin in this round of bull market.

Outlook for the second half of the Meme track

The historical bottom of the Shanzhai Index

In addition to the above-mentioned support points, the outbreak of Meme in the second half of 2024, from the current macro cycle, the Altcoin Season Index is 35. From the trend point of view, this is also an important reason why the author believes that the Meme track will return in the second half of the year.

Official participation and consensus on the Meme track have been formed

With the launch of platform Meme, ecological Meme and various Meme launchers, the Meme track has not only been favored by retail investors, but also directly affirmed and participated by the official. From May to August this year, various official launch platforms have been launched and Meme tokens in this ecological niche have been announced. Compared with the previous period, the consensus of the Meme track has become stronger and stronger.

As a pioneer in ecological construction and project development, Meme's future development is expected to be manifested in four aspects.

First, continue to establish major Meme foundations, support programs, or community programs to support the development of Memes in this ecosystem in the form of innovation funds;

Second, VC investors joined in. Starting from the second half of 2024, many VCs announced their participation in Meme infrastructure investment, from Meme's resistance to VC to VC's embrace of Meme.

Third, the way to play Meme is more professional and transparent.

Fourth, after the liquidity is created, there will be more undertaking units, which means that secondary products based on Meme will have a new development. For example, Meme management tools, secondary dissemination platforms for meme production, and secondary creation tools based on Meme will also have a wave of development.

Liquidity tends to be loose, and the Meme environment is better

We are heading towards a looser macro environment as interest rates are expected to trend downward in the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025. Memecoin is expected to grow due to its small market capitalization, high awareness and low barriers to participation.