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Meme frenzy surges, how can ordinary users participate?

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What exactly is a Meme? What are the risks?

Original Title: "Meme Wave Surges, How Can Ordinary Users Participate?"

Original Source: Foresight News

Original Author: ADD, Cryptocurrency Researcher

"Value investing is a bubble, and the frog who gambles lives in the palace..." This famous saying circulating in the streets and alleys of the cryptocurrency world is something you must have heard of. Have you ever thought about the meme trend and opportunities behind it? When DeFi Summer and NFT Summer have passed, and the hotspots of innovation such as L2 and LSD cannot take over the banner of "value investing", another storm suddenly arises.

In mid-April, a meme token called PEPE quietly went online and rose thousands of times in just four days. The myth of getting rich overnight made PEPE famous, and the Meme Summer began.

meme 到底是什么？

"What exactly is a meme?"

When meme tokens were popularized and sought after by many, there were also many who questioned: what exactly is meme? What value does it hold? To answer this question, let's take a look back at the previous meme craze.

At the beginning of 2021, perhaps no one could have imagined that a few "tweets" from the great Musk would cause a surge in the animal-themed token craze, directly affecting the development pace of the crypto world. A "community consensus" that rallied people's hearts was vividly interpreted in May. As the tide rises and falls, many early memes have already come to an end, but two figures still maintain huge market values even in today's bear market. According to CoinGecko data, DOGE's market value still exceeds tens of billions of dollars, ranking ninth; while SHIB's market value remains around 5 billion US dollars, ranking 16th. The success of BTC has provided a prerequisite for the development of the entire crypto ecosystem, and the success of DOGE and SHIB has also directly driven the market demand for the meme track.

Meme is currently widely understood as "meme" and the most successful form of expression is also emoticons. The success of Dogecoin has made more and more attention to the fact that MEME is not that simple. "Preaching" and sharing recognition of a subculture in the community can generate tremendous power. At this point, we return to a difficult issue: which is more important for blockchain projects, technology or marketing? On meme, the answer is self-evident.

PEPE's marketing is worth a look. As a "frog meme" that has been popular on the internet for many years, the inspiration for the PEPE story comes from the classic meme "Pepe the Frog" in Matt Furie's "Boy's Club" cartoon. The early price trend of PEPE was driven by the founding team and fans sharing frog-themed memes on social media. In just one month since its establishment at the end of April, PEPE's market value has reached an astonishing $1.5 billion, with a 24-hour trading volume exceeding $1.7 billion at its peak. This trading volume is no less than that of bitcoin spot trading on some of the largest centralized trading platforms during the same period.

meme 有哪些风险？

What are the risks of meme?

彼之蜜糖，汝之砒霜。那些对 meme 敬而远之的人正是因为在看到了其背后的风险。当然，另一些人会说，「富贵险中求」。但是，正式冒险之前，请了解这些风险：

Translation:

That which is honey to them is poison to you. Those who keep their distance from memes do so because they see the risks behind them. Of course, others may say, "fortune favors the bold." However, before embarking on any adventure, please be aware of these risks:

1. Meme token issuance has low cost, and early holders can enter at a low cost.

The meme coin has no technology to speak of, and many one-click coin issuance tools can "quickly issue coins". Human nature being what it is, if there are no other special circumstances, early project insiders or degen holders may not consider holding the token for the long term due to extremely low costs, but instead choose to sell for profit in the short term. Once the FOMO sentiment weakens, the MEME coin may become a frenzy for a small group of people. Therefore, early discovery and entry are crucial in a situation where it cannot be determined whether the MEME project can obtain long-term community recognition and have long-term value.

2. Project Party RUGPULL

Rugpull has various methods, and the status of investors is completely unequal before the project. This requires investors to have the ability to identify the safety of the project. First is ExitScam, which usually occurs during the fundraising period in the early stage of the project. Generally, the project party promises to airdrop tokens to investors after the fundraising is over, but suddenly closes the project and takes away the investment funds after attracting enough investment. Then there is the contract vulnerability. The project party can leave a backdoor in the project contract, or leave a security vulnerability for hackers due to insufficient technical ability. I believe that many players who often play MEME have encountered this situation and lost their funds in vain. Another common situation is false liquidity. The project party may manipulate market liquidity, create false trading volume and trading depth to attract investors' interest. Once investors buy a large amount of tokens, the project party may sell tokens, causing the price to collapse.

3. Significant Wear and Tear on Transactions

The general liquidity of the MEME project is very poor, which can result in relatively high trading slippage. If trading on-chain, high gas fees are also required, with fees on Ethereum even reaching up to dollars. These are all issues that users need to consider before trading MEME.

How to participate in the meme wave?

The best way to participate in meme tokens is to get in early. The earliest participants in any popular meme token often reap huge profits. Decentralized exchanges (DEX) are often the first places where meme tokens circulate, but DEX has its limitations: it's difficult to judge project quality, on-chain transaction costs are high, and there is a large trading slippage. Centralized exchanges (CEX) have a unique advantage in these areas: users do not need to bear on-chain transaction fees, and project quality is screened by the exchange. Therefore, CEX is a better choice for ordinary users.

In fact, CEX is also an active promoter of this round of meme craze. So, in the competitive and incentivized DEX race, how should users choose? We have selected several trading platforms that actively participate in the MEME race for comparison, including HUOBI, OKX, MEXC, KUCOIN, LBANK, GATE, and BITGET. Through some data, let's take a look at how they perform specifically.

The first table compares the time (UTC) when these tokens were listed on various trading platforms.

The second table compares the maximum returns that early investors may have obtained from the earliest market meme tokens.

As expected, the first-mover advantage plays an important role in the current meme game industry. LBank has been the most proactive in terms of launching meme tokens, with 6 out of the 7 listed tokens being first launched on LBank, followed by MEXC. Early adoption often provides greater potential for returns. Similarly, they are also more aggressive in launching new meme tokens, providing users with a wider range of choices.

Finally, let's return to the previous question: how should ordinary users choose? If you are a risk-taker who believes in "seeking wealth in danger", trading platforms like LBank that aggressively promote meme trends may be a good choice; if you still believe in value investment, you can choose to be a spectator and patiently wait for the next opportunity in the world of cryptocurrency.