Written by: OnlyApes
Compiled by: TechFlow
Welcome, friend!
The on-chain meme market has been very active recently, which is part of the reason for the delay in publishing this article. I will try to publish future articles faster.
When you first start looking at meme coins, you will be bombarded with a constant stream of coins. Thousands of coins are launched every day, but only a few are worth investing your time and money in. Today, I will share my personal framework for choosing meme coins. I have noticed that all people who have been successful in trading meme coins have similar philosophies, but they are different because of their personal life experiences.
A key aspect of choosing meme coins is understanding which ones you should buy, and this process is personal and real. Sure, there are some universal, widely recognized winners. But in some cases, with your unique perspective, you may discover some coins that others have not yet fully understood.
You can think of each meme coin as targeting a specific target market. Every good coin should resonate with a specific group of people. These groups all have unique values, beliefs, cultures, and emotional responses to events. The more you understand a coin's target market and its ability to gain acceptance within that group, the more likely you are to find a successful coin.
This is why a simple concept like “cute puppies” can gain so much traction. Almost everyone can relate to cute puppies. This is also why tokenizing existing memes can have a powerful effect. However, right now it’s too hard to know which cute puppy to buy.
There are so many currencies and cute puppies.
I would simplify the process of choosing puppies and kittens to this: only buy those that have already been successful. It is unlikely that you will encounter a new dogecoin or catcoin that will reach a market cap of billions.
If you insist on looking for Dogecoin, I recommend focusing on special cases, such as Doge's owner getting a new dog, named Neiro. Focus only on new animal coins that already have a reputation, or borrow the fame of other famous coins. However, this part of the market has become so "PvP" that I personally choose to ignore all the newly launched famous animal memes. If you must participate, either buy all the coins that are in PvP, or wait until the winner is picked before participating, and be aware of the risk of your coin being "blood-sucking". I personally can completely avoid unlimited gambling, so usually choose not to participate.
I have a key belief that you don't need to make money on any particular meme. It's completely irrelevant to buy the coin that everyone talks about for a few days, except to get some likes online. You just want to collect those coins in your meme portfolio that significantly outperform mainstream coins (BTC, ETH, SOL) and keep the gains.
Today’s focus is on providing a framework for meme coin selection. This also means being good at ignoring meme coins, especially in the early stages when you should be collecting data points.
Why do people buy Meme Coins?
This is a profound question and everyone has their own answer. Some people buy them because of the potential for huge financial gain, while others buy them because they find them fun.
In the context of Crypto Twitter, people primarily buy Meme Coins because they think other people will buy them.
Current major trends include:
- Regular crypto investors buy coins that they believe non-regular crypto investors will buy at some point in the future (mass market).
- Regular crypto investors buy coins they find interesting (crypto markets)
Both mass market and crypto market coins can do well. Until there is a real bull run and a large number of mass market participants, you need to focus on the coins that are at least doing well in the crypto market.
frame
If you want to make money fast in the meme coin space, you need to focus on the velocity of attention. In other words, when you invest in the short to medium term, the main goal is to look for potential virality.
“But who knows what will become popular!”
Any content creator worth their salt will tell you that this is simply not true. Anyone with a decent following has had at least a few viral moments.
Remember when I said everyone has unique experiences that guide their choice of Meme Coin? For me, it’s all about understanding how people react when creating written content.
Meme coins are really just forms of content that you can speculate on.
As I was creating content for crypto protocols, I was looking to improve my copywriting skills. I stumbled upon a very useful framework created by YouTube/Twitter content creator Shaan Puri.
When I sat down to analyze my Meme Coin framework, I realized that I applied many of the principles of viral content to Meme Coin selection, and it actually worked.
Just like viral content, every good Meme Coin strikes an emotional chord.
I tweaked this framework to make it more suitable for Meme Coin.
You need to focus on Meme Coins that inspire the following emotions:
Cute - "Wow"
This is usually your typical dog, cat, hippo coin. BTW: I think Moo Deng is ugly and not cute at all. But ordinary people like it, so let's just let it go to $1 billion.
Interesting - "Haha"
Everyone has a unique sense of humor, but ideally you want something that makes you laugh to make a lot of other people laugh, too. If your sense of humor isn't understood by anyone, you're probably out of luck.
Shock and amazement - "Incredible!"
Stunts like villains fighting, someone setting themselves on fire, or anything that triggers a sense of wonder.
Ridiculous— "What the hell?"
Similar to shock and wonder, but with a greater focus on stupidity. "Brainless" coins like Skibidi Toilet fall into this category.
Angry — “This is so offensive / No way”
Anything controversial. Racist meme coins count here. (Note: the actual buyers are not people who are outraged by the concept of the coin. The real goal is to make other people outraged, thus sparking discussion and attracting attention.)
Disgust — "This is disgusting"
I don't have a good example here for Meme Coin, but I mention it because it applies to content. I think it's the weakest emotional trigger for me because I don't want to see something I find disgusting repeatedly in my meme collection.
We live in a world of endless content.
You need emotional triggers to grab people’s attention.
Meme coins are just tokenized attention.
Note: Emotional triggers are not the only reason for the success of Meme coins. A better way to think of the framework is that when emotional triggers are present, it has a higher probability of success. There are many other factors at play in the Meme coin space (such as holder base, distribution, mainstream meta). Emotional triggers help memes get noticed.
Often, coins that are extensions of an existing brand, following, or recognizable movement can bypass the need for an emotional trigger. Because people have already made an emotional connection, attention follows. This was a big driver of the ZYN thesis I released in March. When you add an emotional trigger to these types of meme coins, they have the potential to really explode.
When you combine multiple emotional triggers together, the results can be pretty wild. Racist joke meme coins do well for this very reason. They spark anger and disgust among people who don’t like these coins, while others find them funny. This creates an emotional collision that attracts attention. Think of coins like Retardio, George Droyd, Indian Call Centre (R.I.P.). (Putting aside a discussion of the morality of racist meme coins for this post — I’m just explaining why they’re rising and why.)
A good example of something ridiculous and funny is CHABENISKY, the parody coin of Mark Cuban. It also uses his celebrity to attract more attention. Some people are attracted to it because it is funny, others because it is weird/ridiculous, and some may be angry at Mark.
Don’t assume that you are buying a coin for the same reasons as everyone else. Ultimately, the value of your coin is determined by the value of the network of holders. A coin needs to be able to reach out to the target network of buyers and make them emotionally attached.
In short, in Meme Coin, emotional quotient (EQ) is far more important than intelligence quotient (IQ).
Management Tips
Meme coins have proven to be a permanent part of the cryptocurrency scene. This means that it is worthwhile to invest time in mastering the creation and trading of Meme coins. They are the easiest opportunity for anyone to create a project that could potentially reach millions.
A lot of people ask me what bots and tools I use on Solana, so this might deserve its own post. You may not believe it, but I use the Jupiter frontend and Phantom wallet most of the time. A few weeks ago, Jupiter released their trading terminal, and I tested it out, and my execution efficiency has improved a lot. I have probably lost tens of thousands of dollars in the past few months trading with basic tools.
It's not perfect (slippage set too high can be a nuisance when executing trades during periods of high volatility), but it's definitely better than what I was using before. If you guys think there are other trading bots that are better, let me know and I'll try them out. Jupiter's commission is 0.50% per trade, which is enough for me. I like to keep it simple and focus on my meme selection rather than the complexity of various tools.
IMPORTANT: I have not done any research on the security of this trading terminal. You should not put your entire portfolio on Meme Coin. If you do, please do not send your entire funds to any trading bot. This is only for handling smaller investments through actively managed strategies. As I mentioned in my previous article, the Meme Coin space is more about following trends and finding coins to add to your Meme portfolio. Because of the asymmetry, you don't need to risk as much in the size of your portfolio.
