Original author: Westie
Original translation: TechFlow
Let’s talk about the Memecoin cycle, without practicality, long-term vision, or even storytelling. The core of this cycle is actually just one thing: how to get ahead.
Breaking point: ETF craze and the rise of Solana
This time the explosion point is not ordinary market sentiment, but a more specific event. At the end of 2023, the application for Bitcoin ETF released a signal that institutional funds are about to pour into the crypto market. Solana rebounded strongly after the collapse of FTX, telling a story about recovery and reshaping legitimacy.
In comparison, traditional altcoins seem too old-fashioned. Many currencies are burdened by the heavy burden of the bear market. Although the projects supported by venture capital have roadmaps and white papers, their valuations often appear to be artificially designed, more like strategies prepared for exit rather than exciting innovations.
Memecoin brings a completely different experience: simple, direct, and fun. They are anti-VC tokens, with no white paper or even a website. There is only one Meme, one code name, and one release. Its appeal lies in simplicity and high risk. Because traditional altcoins are too predictable, Memecoin has become the purest high risk, high reward bet in the market.
If Bitcoin can double due to the ETF craze, and SOL can rise from the bottom, then a dogecoin with no practical use may rise 100 times. This is the starting point of this cycle: ETF optimism, SOL recovery, plus the weariness of venture capital altcoins.
BONK: The first step in the game
Then, BONK came along.
BONK is not complicated, nor does it have any particularly prominent meme attributes. But it is the first token to catch this wave of energy. People saw its dramatic fluctuations and the benefits it brought, and gradually formed an intuition: something is happening. This is different. This is fast.
Initially, “jumping the gun” wasn’t a conscious goal. It was more of a “this is volatile, maybe a little gamble” mentality. But BONK’s performance — first explosive growth, then predictable volatility — gradually and subtly defined the rules of the game.
Narrative Shift: The Rise of the Absurd from a Limited Meme Pool
The narrative changed. People in the crypto community began to realize: Memecoin is a game, and the key to the game is to find the next BONK, but in a more interesting way.
More interesting is not a technical advancement, nor is it the strength of the team. More interesting means easier to spread. So how to do it? At this stage, the gameplay of Memecoin is still very rudimentary, and the differentiated options are actually pitifully few. There are no complex strategies, and no carefully woven narratives to refer to. In fact, those ready-made, Internet-native Meme resources are themselves very limited. You dont choose from thousands of options, but from a few materials that can make people smile.
Of these limited choices, what is most appealing? The answer is: outrageous.
In this context, funnier is almost equivalent to more outrageous. Because in an immature Memecoin world, outrageousness itself is a powerful signal. It can catch the eye and spread quickly. More importantly, in a market where people still dont know what a good Memecoin should be, humor and the feeling of instantly hitting the funny point have become the most powerful screening criteria.
Then, Dogwifhat (WIF) was born.
Wif hat. A misspelled, meaningless Shiba Inu wearing a hat. This is simply the peak of Internet outrage. For many people, the first reaction is to laugh out loud. This is its charm. This humor, this outrageousness, sends a signal:
This is new. This is unique. This is... early?
The rules of the game became clear, intuitively clear even. It wasn’t just about finding a memecoin, it was about finding the coin that had viral potential before it went viral. Capturing the memes, internet jokes, and fleeting sense of outrageousness of the moment. And in those early stages, in that limited pool of memes, the coin that made people laugh the loudest and the most outrageous was often the natural winner.
To find such coins, you have to get ahead of the curve.
Memecoin’s Hunting Ground: A Game of Speed and Control
The gameplay is updated very quickly. Early no longer refers only to the time node after the project is launched, which is too late. The real early is before the launch - before the public knows, before the popularity explodes, and before the price rises.
Thus, tools like Photon and “memescope” were born. The game became more tactical. Traders spent their days on memescope, Photon’s new Memecoin listing page. The game became: keep an eye on memescope, constantly refresh, and buy in at the first opportunity. Pure “early” optimization - a competition of speed, reaction ability, and endurance of staring at the screen for a long time.
The “Memescope game” seems fair—in theory, anyone with the tools and time can participate. But beneath the surface, a darker force is emerging: some “insiders” are behind the scenes, creating Memecoin and precisely manipulating the core indicators that memescope traders rely on to make decisions.
These projects are not always organic grassroots movements. In fact, more and more Memecoins are carefully designed as profit-making tools. These insider tactics include:
Memecoin was created out of thin air: there was no real community or organic interest in the first place.
Manipulating data indicators: Artificially inflating on-chain transaction data, creating false social media popularity, and even manipulating the ranking system of trending tokens to make them appear more popular than they actually are.
Precision attack on trader tools: Knowing that memescope and similar tools have become the core of Memecoin transactions, methods are specially designed to exploit these platform vulnerabilities.
Hiring market makers: Create a false impression when the token is launched, create active trading data, and make the new currency look immediately popular on the chart.
Collaborate with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders): Pay influencers to “call out orders” to create the illusion that “everyone is buying” and stimulate initial FOMO (fear of missing out).
Deploy Twitter trolls: Form a team of robots or paid accounts to frantically comment on tweets from large crypto accounts, flooding social platforms with token-related information and creating false popularity.
Traders who stare at the memescope genuinely feel like they’re winning the “early” game, but in reality, they’re always one step behind those who actually control the rules of the game.
The two key points of the Memecoin game - absurdity as the core driver of virality, and insiders creating exit liquidity by manipulating early games - are entering their final boss phase.
Fartcoin: The ultimate game of absurdity and attention
For those trying to build the “next WIF” — the next memecoin that goes viral — a key truth is becoming apparent: To get the masses to pay for your memecoin, you have to grab their fleeting attention. And in the world of memecoin, attention is never won by complex stories or technical promises, but by sheer, unignorable visual impact.
Today, the definition of early has completely changed: it is not just about speed, nor is it just about sheer absurdity, but about carefully planning to create the ultimate eye-catching means of extreme absurdity.
This is where Fartcoin comes into play.
Fartcoin. From the perspective of a Memecoin creator who wanted to appeal to the masses, what better way to guarantee attention than to launch a token called Fartcoin? Its not just ridiculous, its ridiculous to the point where everyone instantly understands it. The name itself is a conversation starter, a natural clickbait. It seems precisely designed to create the kind of sensation that cuts through the noise of the Internet: Look at the money people are throwing at this outrageous thing!
Fartcoin became the ultimate experiment in the attention economy in the Memecoin universe. This was not just any token launch, but a deliberate, even cynical attempt to turn absurdity into a head-turner and a magnet for mass attention. It became a stark and hilarious proof of concept: in the Memecoin game, especially when the goal is to achieve true virality and mainstream distribution, extreme absurdity is not just a desirable trait - it is a core marketing strategy, distilled to its purest and most provocative form.
Is there any meme more outrageous than Fartcoin?
Internal games and new ways to play in the market
Based on the manipulation methods of the memescope era, a deeper trend is emerging: purely absurd animal meme coins, although once explosively popular, have begun to reach a bottleneck, and the market is becoming more rational and smarter.
Narratives need a new direction, a way of playing with a veneer of legitimacy. At this time, content-rich memes began to emerge - these tokens, although still memes in essence, are given a certain legitimacy through a layer of plausible deniability. As a result, AI tokens became the new mainstream gameplay. Suddenly, buying a meme is no longer just for a dog in a hat, but for investing in the future of artificial intelligence! This provides a seemingly reasonable reason for purchase, although this reason may be very fragile, but it goes beyond the mere absurdity.
However, behind this shift in thematic packaging, the core mechanics of the game and the roles of insiders have not changed. The real advantage still lies in the asymmetry of information. These inside groups simply quickly adapted to the new way of playing, using their early grasp of information to continue to gain an advantage in this new narrative. They knew about the release of AI Coin earlier than others and continued to use this advantage to profit.
Celebrity Memecoins: The pinnacle of absurdity and manipulation
Memecoin has evolved to a new stage: the first year of celebrity coins. Insiders have found that the most effective way to create a peak of virality and ensure that someone will take over the exit is to cooperate with celebrities with great influence. These celebrities often have a large number of fans, but have little knowledge of cryptocurrency, so they become the spokespersons of insider operations.
What’s even more interesting is that these behind-the-scenes operators usually disguise themselves as “high-level traders”, implying (or directly claiming) that their huge profits come from their own skills rather than information advantages. This statement makes ordinary players even more frustrated because they find it increasingly difficult to enter the “early” game, as if they are always one step behind others.
The “internal game” is now exposed to everyone, and its gameplay includes:
Become an issuer: Create tokens, control the narrative, and create virality through extremely absurd or serious stories. This is the ultimate early operation, completely controlling the rhythm of communication.
Become an insider: Look for token issuers with high viral potential or seemingly real value, and get in on the action before the tokens are widely discussed on crypto Twitter. The information asymmetry about viral potential is their biggest advantage.
Become an influencer: Build your own fan base, use your influence to get in on those absurd or serious tokens first, then amplify the narrative, create headlines, and ensure that someone buys in.
After this trend of viral absurdity and issuing narrative control intensified, Fartcoin had already demonstrated the extreme power of absurdity. But then, TRUMP came out of nowhere.
TRUMP. The worlds most popular meme? Suddenly, even the most carefully planned absurdity doesnt seem good enough. Who can surpass Trump in terms of topic popularity? Almost impossible.
Imagine what you thought as a Memecoin trader when TRUMP went live. Anyone paying attention could see that this was a classic insider operation. 80% of the token supply was transparently locked up to insiders. On-chain data clearly showed the existence of token snipers and pre-release permissions. These should have been warning signs, but in front of TRUMP, none of them mattered.
Because this is Trump, the president-elect of the United States. This is the memecoin of all memecoins, the ultimate celebrity coin of all celebrity coins. Of course you buy it. It feels like a whole new game. Even if the insider manipulation is obvious, it doesnt matter to Trump anymore.
Then MELANIA was released.
When MELANIA went online, the entire market seemed to lose its vitality in an instant. In the originally bustling club, everyone suddenly woke up. The inside game that was already very obvious in TRUMP was completely exposed in MELANIA. The operating methods of the two are exactly the same, but MELANIAs naked money-making is more transparent. The difference is that TRUMPs meme effect briefly covered up everyones cynicism, but MELANIA has nothing to cover up anymore.
In fact, this inside game has long been obvious, but before MELANIA, people chose to turn a blind eye. Now, with the emergence of MELANIA, the scam has been completely exposed and the cycle has been broken.
Trump has become the ultimate case study: it clearly shows how the inside game has reached its peak. This is not just a meme, it is a political and cultural force launched with the privilege of insiders and the aura of predetermined success.
Is there a bigger and more transparent “inside game” than that between TRUMP and MELANIA?
Echoes of 2021: The “Early” Cycle of NFTs
Does the entire Memecoin cycle feel familiar? Back in 2021, it was the peak of the NFT craze.
What was the catalyst? The price of ETH soared, driven by the DeFi summer. NFTs then became a high-risk, high-reward play for ETH - a bet that could bring higher returns.
Soon, the focus was on the PFP (avatar) project. “Community” became a buzzword, but in reality, the core of the game was to find the next Bored Ape—a project that could quickly increase its value and cultural influence.
As with Memecoin, people realized that the key to the game is early. But in the NFT world, early means scrambling for the whitelist. Brushing Discord, interacting on Twitter, completing various tasks - the battle for the whitelist has become the memescope of the NFT world, and everyone is desperately chasing pre-release opportunities.
The pursuit of early continued to escalate. People realized that the earliest way to participate was to become creators. Soon, celebrities began to flock in.
Steph Curry and Jimmy Fallon started showing off million-dollar JPEGs, while Logan Paul openly scammed fans. Who’s next? The NFT space also seems to have reached a celebrity-driven peak, and a sense of narrative fatigue is starting to set in.
Speaking of turning the cycle… NELK, the team that marked the peak of the celebrity NFT craze in 2021, just recently launched their own Memecoin, Fullsend. If that’s not a sign, what is?
The similarities are striking. Although the asset classes are different, the underlying game mechanics are exactly the same: the endless pursuit of early eventually leads to self-consumption. At a certain point, the game has reached a dead end; you need to completely reset the game.
The End of Absurdity: Resetting and Reflecting on the Cycle
As the Memecoin cycle winds down, the echoes of the NFT craze are still ringing in our ears. We’re seeing tokens like LIBRA come online, and people seem to be betting their entire portfolios on trying to recreate the glory of the Trump trade. This phenomenon is what George Soros calls the “twilight zone” in market cycles - a stage where people know the game has lost its meaning, but continue to participate.
As Soros notes, the core characteristic of this phase is that “people continue to play the game even though they no longer believe in it.” The belief in the magic of the “early days” is slowly disintegrating, but the habit of chasing the Memecoin pump is ingrained.
Soros also warned that “eventually, a crossover or tipping point will arrive when the trend begins to reverse and market sentiment reverses, triggering a catastrophic acceleration of the decline (8), which is often called a crash.”
At this point, we have to ask ourselves: Can this narrative be played in new ways? Are there more layers to this game?
Is there a more absurd meme than Fartcoin?
Could there be a bigger and more transparent “inside game” than that of TRUMP and MELANIA?
The answer is probably no. At least in this cycle, it is impossible.
The Memecoin cycle, defined by the endless pursuit of being “early,” appears to have reached its end. It was driven by hype, absurdity, and the promise of being “early,” but like all hype cycles, it was doomed to self-destruct. This pursuit of being “early” ultimately devoured itself when the underlying mechanics of the game became apparent and the illusion faded.
However, the human desire for “early days” will not disappear. This psychology has long been deeply rooted in the culture of cryptocurrency.
Maybe this memecoin cycle is over, but the desire remains. The game will likely come back, but with new rules, a more absurd narrative, and new players eager to be the first to discover the early opportunity.
My friends, please take care of yourselves.
