Original author: Armonio, AC capital
Twitter： @armonio_liang
Human beings chase popularity, and popularity creates value. This is the history of mankind that keeps repeating itself.
Tulip bubble = popularity + limited supply.
This is the most famous and earliest super meme in mankind. Entering the 21st century, the information age has gone through web2.0 with unlimited replication and entered web3.0 with limited information.
Information can spread on the Internet at the speed of light, and the entities carrying popular value have suddenly transformed from offline bags, luxury watches, and luxury cars into a string of non-replicable data online. Payment scenarios are accompanied by mobile terminals in every corner of the world. Bong! Meme explosion, resulting in a bizarre meme world.
In the world of Meme coin, whoever creates popularity, especially Internet popularity, can directly monetize the popularity through tokens.
So, how to create popularity? This article first puts forward the popular theory of Meme, and then uses this theory to deconstruct the rise of BTC and Bome.
The Secret to Cryptocurrency Popularity
The epidemic of information is essentially the same as the epidemic of disease. In communication studies, the SIR model is used for information dissemination models and virus dissemination. Interested students can read it. I will not go into details here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidemiology。
The process of information dissemination is divided into two parts: information infection and information immunity.
Information contagion: We transform ordinary people into believers of popular information.
Information immunity: Believers of popular information escape the influence of popular information and become outsiders.
The core of making an information popular is to let the rate of infection exceed the rate of immunity. As long as the number of infected people exceeds the number of immune people per unit of time, the number of followers of popular information will increase, and the information will expand in popularity. On the contrary, fashion is on the decline. So how to increase the infection rate and reduce the immunity rate?
There is no doubt that the more new people (who have not been exposed to the information) the information can reach, the rate of infection will increase. The higher the quality of the information, the more sticky it will be, the easier it will be spread, and the harder it will be to get rid of it. Here I combine communication science and social psychology to summarize four important exogenous factors for the success of Meme:
Four elements
content:
Content is information. It is the main body of communication and determines the attributes of communication. The communication groups that should be preferred and the communication nodes that should be prioritized are all determined by the information itself. For example, $People naturally has a left-wing color, and left-wing people will naturally have feelings for it. There are natural advantages in using such concepts to impress left-wing people. Another example is $Doge, which is very friendly to dog lovers. Moreover, this affinity exists for a long time.
Content stickiness. Certain concepts are time-sensitive, such as memes about recent political figures or memes about sporting events. Once the political elections are over and the events are held, the epidemic in the real world ends. The epidemic of on-chain information driven by the epidemic of real information will lose its fuel, and the state of infection > immunity may gradually transform into infection.<Immunity status.
The affinity of content includes the ability of secondary dissemination. A good communication event must lower the communication threshold. The simpler and more direct it is, and it can be spread by ordinary people, the wider the spread will be.
environment:
The environment consists of two parts: time and space.
1) Time: currency circle cycle
The timing is for the economic cycle unique to the cryptosphere. The explosion of Meme requires attention in the industry and users are willing to participate in gambling. In the past, it was in the middle and late stages of the bull market. After all the project stories were lackluster, Meme, a pure cultural communication, made its debut. The Meme craze started by inscriptions is an important change. The industrys attention is attracted by Meme itself. Cultural communication is no longer an alternative if the project content cannot be continued, but has become a way to attract traffic. Of course, the general background of BTC’s inscription Meme is 1. The BTC ETF is about to be passed, and BTC will become a mainstream asset and gain mainstream world attention. 2. The BTC halving is imminent. After the BTC halving, a bull market is expected, which has attracted attention.
2) Space: community
Space refers to community. The definition of community is a group of people with a common purpose. Having a common purpose means that this group of people have common attributes. If the disseminated content matches the attributes, faster dissemination efficiency can be achieved. Just like different diseases spread at different rates among different people. Malaria is more prevalent in places with poor sanitation, such as Africa, than elsewhere. Meme emphasizes the social attribute because at the beginning of its popularity, the popularity itself is very weak and can easily be strangled in the cradle. Therefore, initial spread specifically requires a small environment suitable for survival. Similar to a petri dish.
KOL matrix
Science shows that different individuals have different abilities to spread epidemics. Some people are particularly good at exporting their opinions to others, and they are particularly easy to convince those around them. This kind of person is a super individual, KOL. The more KOLs we have, the more we can form a KOL matrix and influence more groups of people. KOL is closely connected with the community, and KOCs that are influential to the community are truly valuable nodes. If the target group cannot be reached, the value of KOL will be greatly reduced.
wealth effect
Characteristics of the cryptosphere, wealth effect leads attention. The so-called convincing people with gains is to use financial facts to assist the dissemination of information. Therefore, Meme has self-reinforcement in currency price and cultural communication. The higher the price of Meme currency rises, the wider the spread of Meme culture and the firmer the believers. The lower the price of Meme currency is, the less favorable the spread of culture will be, and the more dissociated the believers will be. Therefore, Meme coins tend to show the characteristics of skyrocketing and plummeting.
Meme operational analysis
In this section, we will combine two cases and review projects to explain the above theory.
BTC
Many people don’t admit that BTC is a meme coin. But not important. The definition of meme comes from Darwins theory of evolution, which means that like living things, the diffusion of information also includes replication, mutation, and selection. From a macro perspective, the consensus diffusion path of BTC is no different from that of other meme coins. It’s nothing more than some differences in the content spread.
The content of BTC is the fear of the collapse of centralized finance. In its genesis block, a news summary of UK Chancellor bails out financial system again. was added. The news served as an anchor and became an anecdote. Every time it is spread, the fear of centralized collapse is reinforced through this anecdote. Every financial crisis will strengthen the consensus of BTC. The consensus stickiness of BTC is very strong. People who believe in BTC often find it difficult to give up their belief in BTC. The stickiness of this belief is obvious to all in the industry.
The adoption of fair mining in the consensus is a reciprocal design. In the early stages of the project, as long as you invest computing power, you can obtain BTC. Satoshi Nakamoto himself also conducted airdrops to some users in the early days, which can also be regarded as reciprocity. The act of investing computing power itself can be seen as an endorsement of the BTC project. Through behavior, people who bind to obtain BTC are psychologically recognized. In terms of supply, BTC has achieved a limit of 21 million through procedures, showing scarcity on its face. Satoshi Nakamotos document also describes that when BTC is accepted by the world, BTC will reach 1,000 US dollars. Although it is too conservative today. But in an era when BTC has no price, what a tempting promise it is.
The early stages of a meme are just like the early stages of a new virus spreading, they are very fragile. In the early stage of Meme spread, because the nodes that can be spread are very limited, it is necessary to increase the possibility of successful spread. The BTC white paper was released in 2008. Although it was not a bull market, it was a precarious era of centralized finance. Everyone is doubting the sustainability of centralized finance. Its time points and content narrative are highly consistent. This was very necessary in the early days of Meme’s popularity.
The communities chosen by BTC in its early stages were also carefully selected. Satoshi Nakamoto first chose the encryption community. The concept of the crypto community is highly consistent with the design concept of BTC, and both have a sense of urgency and mission for decentralization. Develop them as seed users with the least resistance.
For BTC’s initial KOL matrix, Satoshi Nakamoto chose the big names in the crypto community: Dai Wei, Fal Finney, Jon Matonis, Laszo Hanec and others. Here is just one example. In the email sent by Satoshi Nakamoto to Dai Wei, it shows that the idea and design of BTC not only realize the idea of Dai Wei in his paper, but also Fal Finney has approved such a product. In this way, the credit endorsement of the product is obtained. These are people who, perhaps not many people know outside of the crypto community, have a strong influence within the crypto community. Their addition will help BTC quickly take root in the crypto community.
Bome
Before Bome was launched, whether the artist Dark Farm knew it or not, he was fully prepared for the popularity of a Meme. In terms of content, Bome is a Meme book that records the history of Meme. This is of historical value in the current environment. As I said before, through cultural currency issuance, this year, No. 1 got rid of the role of an alternative after having no projects to issue. It is to lead the entire industry at the forefront. Whether it is Solana, Avalanche or Ethereum, Meme is an important means of attracting new users. Investors are also gradually paying attention to Meme token as an asset. The Book of Meme is a collection of meme culture, so it is naturally taken seriously. This concept also has a natural affinity for people who like Meme.
In terms of time, the launch time was in the bull market of the industry, and funds were abundant. In terms of community, Dark Farm has previously been deeply involved in Meme culture in the ETH ecosystem. The project of Book of Meme is not a random idea. He has a certain influence in the currency meme community. Before the popularity of Book of Meme, the floor price of his previous masterpiece was still higher than the issue price, which shows that his achievements are recognized by the community and he has a certain degree of popularity within the community. This community is highly overlapping with that of the Chongtu Dog.
Then we look at the reposting and diffusion behavior of Bome’s posts. Many of them are supported by KOLs who are also artists. Although these artists are not big, they are more authentic and cohesive to the users. When Meme develops to a certain stage, it can gain interaction with other traffic, such as the promotion of Beeple. As a Meme artist on Twitter, DarkFarm also has a great sense of traffic and is good at using super nodes to enhance the influence of his projects.
The avatars of early evangelists show that the original evangelists came from the SMOWL community. Having a community takes Bome’s meme right past its most vulnerable stage. This was also part of DarkFarm’s plan. In his Bome post, SMOWL appeared to corroborate with these initial KOLs. After Bomes success, SMOWLs NFT price also jumped to the floor price of 0.7, giving these community members generous returns. The entire trading behavior forms a perfect closed loop.
I once said that there are three pillars of projects in the Internet era: traffic, technology, and capital. In the world of Meme, technology and products do not exist. The success of the Meme project is the mutual matching of traffic and capital. Capital can push up currency prices, but simply pushing up currency prices cannot effectively induce retail investors to chase.
This also shows that for Meme, there can only be one era of Bome. From the perspective of traffic economics, all other Meme are competitors to Bome. If Bome is diverted, Bome will collapse, and the other dragons, two, and three will have a harder time improving. If Bome is not diverted, Dragon Two and Dragon Three will be nothing more than a small fight.
Summarize
Meme tokens are the most distinctive phenomenon of the attention economy in the Web3 era. Attention is directly assigned a financial value. The matching of capital and attention creates Meme tokens.
Creating attention is about dealing with people. In addition to the unique wealth effect, it emphasizes the fit of the KOL matrix, communication environment and information content. Bringing together all the factors is not a simple matter. Therefore, creating an out-of-circle Meme is not an easy task. When examining the birth and emergence of a Meme, in addition to looking at transaction volume, liquidity, and the background of the founder, you can also consider these four factors.
Meme plays with attention. When investing, you can consider the phenomenon of attention feedback. For example, the Bome community drives the value of the SMOWL community.
references:
The Tipping Point: How to Create Popularity
The Attention Economy: How to Turn Public Attention into Business
Communication Theory: Origins, Methods, and Applications
Influence
Satoshi Nakamoto Documents:
https://www.bitcoin.com/satoshi-archive/
Satoshi Nakamoto’s early emails revealed: Where does Bitcoin come from and what is he worried about:
https://finance.sina.cn/blockchain/2024-02-29/detail-inaksefw9773885.d.html
Review BOME: The Art of Divine Disk
https://www.theblockbeats.info/news/51939
Why did the Pepe Meme artist’s BOME suddenly explode in popularity after it surged 20 times within 3 hours of going online?
https://panewslab.com/zh/articledetails/9m6d8kl5.html
Why is BTC the biggest Alpha in this round?
https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail_16623.html
DarkFarm’s Twitter thread
https://twitter.com/Darkfarms1
