The Rise and Development of MEME Tokens: From Internet Culture to a New Landscape in the Crypto Market

The explosion of MEME Token in 2024 signifies a major shift in the investment logic of the crypto market. MEME has become a mainstream investment category that is highly favored by investment institutions and market funds.

Extension of Internet Culture

The origin of MEME can be traced back to the internet era. Currently, the outstanding MEME projects in the market mostly originate from internet social hotspots. Projects like Doge, SHIB, and PEPE represent the communication culture generated by global netizens through the internet, known as "grassroots culture".

MEME is everywhere, and behind every MEME is an engaging story. These stories spread globally through the internet, bringing a sense of belonging to people, which is a key reason why MEME can become popular. MEME mainly sprouts and spreads on social platforms, chat software, and forums, becoming an important way for people to express opinions and vent emotions.

MEME expresses people's thoughts in specific scenarios through concise means (such as short texts, innovative words, images, and emoticons). Its widespread dissemination encourages those who do not understand MEME to learn about it and integrate, spreading like a virus. A sense of belonging is the core value of MEME and the main driving force supporting the rise in MEME coin prices.

The Integration of MEME and Blockchain

Blockchain technology has given value to many intangible assets, and MEME is no exception. In fact, Bitcoin can also be seen as a kind of MEME in its early days. After the popularity of Bitcoin, a large number of worthless altcoins appeared, causing chaos in the market, and the birth of DOGE was precisely to satirize this phenomenon.

The proliferation of altcoins during the bull market of 2017 and the chaos in the market again (the chaos of ICOs) laid the foundation for the resurgence of DOGE. This was also an important factor for DOGE's renewed market recognition in 2021. Dog-themed MEME projects such as SHIB also began to emerge, and MEME entered the 2.0 era.

In this round of price increase in 2024, the chaotic market has transformed into the high valuation of VC coins and numerous "value" projects PUAing users, presenting a new development opportunity for MEME. The sluggishness of the mainstream market to some extent represents ordinary investors' resistance to VC coins and the phenomenon of being scammed. Meanwhile, the fair distribution and price performance of MEME precisely address this pain point, naturally attracting a lot of attention, as MEME enters the 3.0 era.

Common Characteristics of Successful MEME Projects

Not all MEMEs have investment value. By analyzing past successful MEME projects, we can summarize some key characteristics:

1. Fair distribution and low-threshold participation: From power mining to fair distribution, allowing community users to participate at a low cost and accumulate a large user base.

2. Expansion of value aspects: Gradually shifting from early uses in internet culture (such as tipping) to more value aspects, such as the Swap of SHIB and the deflationary mechanism of PEPE.

3. Celebrity effect and financial support: The "endorsement" by celebrities/KOLs/public figures and financial backing, such as Musk frequently mentioning Doge, WIF receiving endorsements from community celebrities, etc.

4. Price Performance: The rise in price attracts retail investors, further enhancing the influence of the MEME Token, thereby attracting the layout of institutions and exchanges.

The Future Development of MEME Coin

With the development of MEME Token, project teams are increasingly focusing on long-term planning and practical application scenarios. For example, PUFF has attracted a large amount of funding through mETH incentives, becoming a leading DeFi project in the Mantle ecosystem. In addition, PUFF also plans to introduce GameFi elements to attract large investors and institutions through staking and gameplay.

This development trend indicates that MEME, as an early promotional tool, can quickly gather crowds and funds, but to achieve long-term development, empowerment and planning are indispensable factors. Similar projects like AIDoge's success have brought huge traffic and trading data to Arbitrum.

Conclusion

The development path of the MEME Token shows that it has gained recognition from numerous investors. With humor and internet culture as its user base, MEME can more easily resonate with users. This is a low-cost and quick way to enter the user market and build project communities, which could become a major grassroots project cold-start strategy in the future.

However, projects that rely solely on the concept of MEME find it difficult to sustain development. Mid-term technological follow-up is crucial for attracting the attention of investment institutions and exchanges, the "regular army." In this process, chips may gradually shift from retail investors to institutions, driving the transformation and growth of the project. After obtaining profits, retail investors often develop a stronger sense of identification with MEME culture, creating a positive flywheel effect that helps MEME gain more visibility.