Exploring the Meme Culture in the Crypto World

In the movie "Gambling Everything," which focuses on the theme of telecom fraud, elements from the crypto world appear, such as "coin Coin" and KTK Coin. With the release of the film, KTK Coin was quickly issued in the crypto market. Trading pairs of KTK Coin can be found on multiple blockchains, primarily concentrated on Ethereum, BSC, and the recently popular Base chain. Among them, the liquidity on Uniswap v2 on the Ethereum chain is the largest. After the film's preview on August 5, the price of KTK Coin skyrocketed, increasing more than 3000 times within two days. However, the good times didn't last long; on August 8, the price started to decline, and by the 19th, it had almost dropped back to the level of its issuance day.

KOTAI coin belongs to a category known as "Meme coins" in the crypto assets.

The concept of Meme can be traced back to Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene" in 1976, where he defined a Meme as a cultural factor similar to genes that can be continuously inherited and spread at the level of human thought. The Oxford English Dictionary explains it as "a basic unit of culture that is transmitted by non-genetic means, especially imitation." For most people, the common form of Meme is those interesting images online that satirize or mock current events, such as various meme templates.

These memes contain interesting information, are easy to copy and spread, and ultimately form a cultural consensus among a wide audience. A certain well-known entrepreneur is a staunch supporter of Meme culture, and some of his exaggerated statements on social media can be seen as expressions of Memes.

The most famous case of combining Meme with Crypto Assets is Dogecoin. In 2013, a developer satirized the crypto asset hype at the time by combining the Doge Meme with Crypto Assets, releasing a mock tweet saying, "Invest in Dogecoin, I’m sure it’s the next big thing." He then collaborated with another engineer to fork Bitcoin's code and created one billion Dogecoins. Surprisingly, this Meme-driven Dogecoin quickly gained popularity through social platforms, with a tipping bot on Reddit providing its initial use case.

In 2015, the two founders of Dogecoin chose to withdraw from the project because they believed it had deviated from its original intent. In December 2020, a well-known entrepreneur began posting information about Dogecoin on social media, and thereafter, every time he published content related to Crypto Assets, the price of Dogecoin would rise. In early May 2021, Dogecoin peaked at $0.74, and this entrepreneur had clearly become the most influential figure in the Dogecoin community.

The success of Dogecoin has garnered significant attention in the crypto world. Between 2013 and 2017, many Meme coins based on Dogecoin emerged in the market. These coins are often derivative narrative products based on specific cultural or media materials. At that time, Meme coins would create secondary creations based on online cultural materials, applying stories to crypto assets and promoting them through social media.

With development, Meme coins are no longer limited to secondary creations of popular internet culture, but have begun to choose grander narratives as their foundation. Between 2017 and 2020, some Meme coins obtained financing through ICOs, exploring more use cases and attempting to build active ecosystems.

In May 2021, with the DeFi boom driving the bull market, various sectors of the crypto ecosystem surged one after another. Under the endorsement of a well-known entrepreneur on social media, Dogecoin experienced a skyrocketing increase. At the same time, Shib quickly gained popularity after being listed on exchanges, becoming a hot topic. In the early stages of the project, its founder even staged a performance art piece, transferring half of the initial total issuance to the address of Ethereum's founder. As Dogecoin and Shib continued to soar, the Meme coin market was dominated by "animal-themed" coins, with animal imagery becoming the largest Meme element.

In the current bear market, the Meme coin market has experienced a small wave of popularity. ArbDoge AI, driven by the Arbitrum airdrop, combines the concepts of AI and Doge and uses "mining" to incentivize user participation, sparking heated discussions within the community. Pepe has even become a dark horse in this wave, with over 1.5 million transactions and more than 200,000 holders as of August 20, 2023.

As of now, the development of Meme coins has made it difficult for the underlying Memes to represent their original meaning. A Meme can be simplified into a story, and this story can be fantastical, as the crypto world is not short of stories. Some Meme coins even have no background story at all. Unlike traditional Web3 projects, the price growth of Meme coins mainly comes from investors' chasing mentality.

As the liquidity in the crypto market shrinks, the new generation of popular Memes hardly spends more time truly building active communities or constructing future blueprints. Most are backed by centralized teams colluding with various interest groups to create market focus. For speculators, they are no longer concerned with whether there are interesting stories and trendy cultures behind Meme coins; the wealth myth of early participants seems to be more attractive than anything else.

Due to the fact that Meme project teams often operate anonymously, it's easy to cut ties with the project and leave with the funds without any burden, which diminishes the motivation for the team to maintain the project.

The development of Meme coins is increasingly tending towards "short, flat, and quick". This is because the market is not lacking in stories, and Meme coins also have a fertile ground for development. If we delve deeper, Bitcoin itself also carries Meme attributes. Meme coins are destined to be closely linked with the crypto market. However, in the current market environment where stablecoins are flowing out in large quantities, it may be wise to cautiously hold funds and avoid emotionally driven risky investments.