The carnivalesque and sober reflection of Meme coin: is 2025 a story or a bubble?

Author: Nomos Laboratories

Few people thought that the birth of Meme Coin could be a “cultural experiment” in the crypto world: how much is a joke worth? To what extent can a humorous joke cause waves and repercussions in the financial world? From $DOGE to $SHIB to $Neiro, which has a huge yield this year, these seemingly “nonsensical” currencies have repeatedly refreshed people’s views on the narrative power of Meme Coins.

In 2024, the Meme coin market is still very lively amid uncertainty. It is not only a symbol of entertainment in the cryptocurrency circle, but also a haven for speculators and a barometer of market sentiment. But if we dig deeper into the story behind the price surge, we’ll discover that behind this carnival, there’s a familiar but unfamiliar logic driving it: Meme culture, market sentiment, and tech narratives are redefining the limits of value for Meme parts.

1. How does Meme Coin tell a “good story” about emotions?

On the surface, Meme coin is a continuation of Internet meme culture, but its real charm lies in its ability to quickly gather emotions through storytelling and create a short-term “group frenzy.” However, when it comes to the long-term value of the Meme coin, no one has yet been able to clear the fog and find the certainty and connotation of the countless stories contained within this “bubble”.

It’s a joke, but also a cultural resonance

The first $DOGE Dogecoin can be considered a complete “parody”. It has neither complex technical support nor ambitious application plans, but relying on a Shiba Inu emoticon, it has become the spokesperson for Internet meme culture. In 2024, this meme narrative has further developed and new players have not only attracted attention with “jokes” and “humor”, but also started to play the cultural and emotional card.

For example, $Pepe’s sad frog, the frog image behind it has long been a classic of Internet culture. Its popularity is not based on technical assets, but on social communication and cultural identity. In a short time, the size of $Pepe’s community exploded and it became the biggest dark horse in coin this year. It is not difficult to see that As long as the “emotional point” in Internet meme culture can be captured, Meme pieces can quickly tell good stories and gain consensus.

Community oriented: more of an emotional game

Behind the popularity of a Meme piece, there must be a crazy community. Elon Musk’s support for Dogecoin, $Pepe’s “Frog Army” these community members are not only investors, but also “content creators” who actively spread the word . They love to “make memes” and attract people on social platforms, and have even turned Meme pieces from a “joke” into a “trend”.

The example of $SHIB is typical. In 2024, it not only relied on meme culture to maintain its popularity, but also attempted to attract long-term users through technical stories. For example, its Shibaverse metaverse project, although still in its early stages, is enough to offer the community a new “demo point”.

From this we can see that for Meme Coin, meme culture is the underlying color, but its real charm lies in its social storytelling ability: telling a story that resonates with people’s emotions and makes everyone “want to to buy and dare to buy.”

2. A magnifying glass for market sentiment and a refuge for speculators

Regardless, the underlying logic of a “good story” that can influence market changes must be “profit-driven.” The reason Meme Coin continues to be popular is not just because it is “fun,” but also because it has become a high-volatility safe haven for speculators when the crypto market is in crisis. drop.

Soaring prices are speculators’ favorite “get rich myth”

Looking to 2024, the most eye-catching market is undoubtedly the $Pepe surge. From the beginning of the year to the middle of the year, the price of this sad and funny frog increased more than a hundred times. The market is attracted to this type of currency not because of its powerful technology or applications, but because it is easy to “hype”.

Meme coins have a low issuance threshold, a very low unit price and seemingly unlimited room for growth. This feature is especially great for retail investors: even if they only have a few hundred dollars, they can still make a “10x, 100x” profit. For investors who “enter the market late”, this high-risk, high-return speculative product has become the best choice to catch up with the wealth effect.

Market volatility, an “emotional outlet” in a bear market

Interestingly, when the overall crypto market entered a period of volatility, the popularity of Meme Coins rose against the trend. This is not due to the strong fundamentals of Meme coins themselves, but because hedge funds need a new “emotional outlet.”

Unlike traditional currencies, the Meme coin does not have a complex valuation logic and is not based on strong ecological support. It depends on market sentiment. When other assets struggle to tap into retail investor sentiment, Meme coin becomes a “beachhead” for emotional trading. .

Therefore, the market clearly indicates that Meme coin price fluctuations are the amplification and reflection of market sentiment: for speculators, it is the first choice in low cost and high volatility; for the market, it is a real “emotional mirror”. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why everyone loves listening to their stories and loves them even more for creating close and fantasy-filled “wealth creation stories”.

3. Can Meme Coin use technology to increase its score?

We understand changes in market sentiment, but we must also clearly recognize that cultural narratives and speculative sentiment may be popular for a period of time. but if Meme Coin wants to go further and find the underlying logic that can support long-term value creation, it must rely on technological innovation to create new narratives and application scenarios.

The ‘new meme’ of AI creates technological narrative empowerment

This year, AI technology has become a hot topic in the crypto community. Some Meme coin projects have seized the opportunity and launched AI-enabled gameplay, such as AI-generated content. In this way, Meme Coin projects can quickly and cost-effectively provide ongoing interactive and entertainment experiences to investors and community members. Another example is AI trading strategies. Thanks to the advantages of AI algorithms, project parties can more accurately predict market trends, analyze business data, optimize investment decisions, etc. Although the initial performance may not have yielded the expected results, it is undeniable that the introduction of AI technology has injected new vitality. and new narrative clues about Meme pieces.

NFT link, the continuation of the cultural narrative

At the same time, NFT remains an important “partner” of Memecoin and continues to show its unique charm and potential in 2024. Especially in projects like $Pepe, investors can not only make profits by buying and holding coins Pepe, but also show their identity and status by obtaining unique NFTs.

The combination of NFT and Meme coin is not only a simple exchange of digital assets, but also a reflection of deep identity and community culture. Through NFT binding gameplay, these projects offer investors a more personalized and emotional means of participation, making holding these Meme coins not only an investment behavior, but also an expression of community belonging. It is not difficult to imagine that as similar innovative gameplays continue to emerge, NFT will continue to be an important “accelerator” for the development of Meme coin projects.

Attempt to combine payment scenarios with DeFi increases token value

Of course, in the imaginative cryptocurrency market, some meme coins are also trying to expand their payment functions. At the end of the year, DogWifCoin officially announced its cooperation with Oobit to launch a new payment function “Wif Pay”, allowing users to use $WIF to consume and enjoy 3% cashback reward. .

Projects like $SHIB, by combining DeFi protocols, allow coin holders to obtain more real benefits. For example, $BONE, the governance token of the $SHIB ecosystem, is widely used in liquidity mining in ShibaSwap. Investors can earn income by staking (BURYing) and providing liquidity (DIGging).

Such technological narratives continue and technological empowerment will be an important highlight of Meme Coin in the next stage. Although it seems to be a short-term “narrative”, in the long term, only when the technological narrative is implemented could Meme Coin finally be able to escape the fate of “short-term speculation”. term “.

In conclusion: will the next step for Meme coin be the rise of the meme economy and culture or the bursting of the bubble cycle?

When we look at the market in 2024, we can see that there are three key driving forces behind the rise of Memecoin:

Culture: Meme culture and community consensus are the foundation of Meme Coin, which can continue to tell an engaging story;

Sentiment: The fluctuation of market sentiment and the promotion of speculators make it the most “explosive” asset;

Technology: New concepts and new application scenarios are the key to making Meme coin more valuable in the future.

However, these three elements also carry obvious risks: how long can the story be told? How long can emotions last? Can the technology really be implemented? The answers to these questions will determine the future direction of Meme Coin.

But when we start to envision the imagined future of 2025, it is certain that Meme Coin has evolved from a “joke” to a unique phenomenon in the crypto market. In the increasingly turbulent and continually explosive “golden cycle” of cryptocurrencies ushered in after the US elections, their vitality is far from over, but the question is whether they can break out of the carnival and enter in the true “Age of Value”:

2025, please let Meme Coin answer.