Reveling in the wild casino that buries the Meme

Author: Cookie, BlockBeats

Crypto is a rapidly changing market. It can be said that if you are away from the market for a month, or even just a week, your understanding of it will become exaggeratedly outdated.

Meme Tokens are fun and wild, but I think this feeling is becoming, or has already become, a form of obsolescence. What remains unchanged is that we can still witness "seeing him build a high-rise, seeing him host guests, seeing his building collapse" time and time again within 24 hours or even shorter. What has changed is that the sense of fun and relaxation is gradually fading, while the tension and naked struggle are becoming increasingly evident.

My View on "Meme"

Two months ago, I met a friend offline whom I had known for a long time and who exclusively played with meme tokens. Meme tokens were his entry point into crypto and are almost the only area he is interested in and degen in the crypto market.

"I just think this stuff is fun; it's something our generation of young people plays with. Meme tokens, or even without the word 'token,' are imaginative and not well understood in reality, but in the crypto market, everyone recognizes this thing, this culture. When I realized that my intuition or aesthetic for these contents could make money, I thought meme tokens were just too cool and fun."

After he finished speaking, we clinked our glasses hard. As the alcohol spread through my body, flashes of those meme tokens that once excited me raced through my mind, such as the $PEOPLE that raised funds to buy the U.S. Constitution, the abstract "Harry Potter" highlighted on the official website, $MFER's $MFER, and the glasses of $MOG…

These are all topics that could warrant a serious discussion in a dedicated article. The quality of content, community activity, and methods of viral growth—these once constituted the "logic" of meme tokens—are all fading.

As an NFT player, the current meme tokens give me a sense of déjà vu. The earliest meme tokens, like $DOGE, correspond to the initial stage of NFTs, where just one image could get everyone excited. Then came the emergence of cat and dog-themed tokens, corresponding to the stage where different styles of PFP projects could all become blue chips. Next, various styles were basically developed, and people began comparing image quality in a homogenized environment.

Finally, it all boils down to one word.

"Follow"

Solana, currently the most bustling "crypto casino," has seen over 640,000 meme tokens deployed since April 1, and this is just data from early July. This means that in three months, an average of over 7,000 new meme tokens appeared daily on Solana.

The "gamblers" are sending strings of English and numbers mixed together as "addresses" on various chat platforms every day. Besides "CA," which is the familiar token contract address, there are also "smart money" and "dev."

"Cabal," a term popular among English-speaking crypto players, translates to "conspiracy group," encompassing both those who manipulate behind the scenes and influencers who secretly band together to promote. On-chain players, who are struggling in the hellish difficulty of PvP mode, fear not just losing to other players but also the lack of opponents to compete against.

Although retail investors despise the "Cabal," they can only passively enter the game and passively "follow." The "dev," or the prepared "whales," initiate the game, KOLs organize it, and retail investors join in.

"Following" quickly allows for faster runs and greater profit margins. The more you "follow," the higher the probability of hitting the jackpot or buying a "golden dog" each day.

Many people miss the content creation atmosphere in the Chinese and even the entire crypto community from a few years ago, stating that there used to be a lot of "valuable content" with unique insights on different tracks and tokens that could genuinely be converted into profits. What we actually miss is the bull market because, at least until now, the "logics" have all become ineffective, and this is true for the meme token track as well as others.

Although I do not believe we have entered a bear market, it is certainly not the time to embrace the future. Moreover, in a sea of fog, what is there to embrace?

Conclusion

I am not vehemently criticizing the naked model of initiating - organizing - entering; I am simply nostalgic for the time when such a model was the only active gameplay in the market and when retail investors had no choice but to seek survival, reminiscing about the days when discovering and degening interesting things could also make money.

The naked PvP is merely a result of insufficient growth among on-chain players, and I am looking forward to the dawn of memes.