In just one day, it surged a thousand times! Some people are earning 6 million dollars a day, and the explosive Wukong is driving related MEME coins crazy
Author: Arain, ChainCatcher
Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher
The Chinese domestic 3A game "Black Myth: Wukong" officially launched at 10 AM Beijing time on August 20, surpassing 1 million concurrent users within the first hour, causing the Steam servers to crash temporarily.
Data from one hour after the game's release showed that it had already surpassed popular titles like "Cyberpunk 2077," "Elden Ring," and "Baldur's Gate." As of the time of writing, the peak concurrent user count exceeded 2 million, taking the top spot on Steam's online user leaderboard and becoming the third game in history for peak online users on Steam, with "CS 2" and "Dota 2" holding the first and second spots, respectively.
The gaming industry is buzzing, and the capital market is also reacting, starting to hype related concepts. In the A-share market, related concept stocks performed in succession. According to Wind data, as of the market close on August 20, Qitian Technology (300061.SZ) hit the daily limit, with a price increase of 20%; CITIC Publishing (300788.SZ) also hit the daily limit, closing at 29.86 yuan/share, up 20%; Huayi Brothers (300027.SZ) saw a significant rise of 19%, closing at 2.94 yuan/share.
Cryptocurrencies riding the wave of this game saw even more astonishing increases. According to gmgn.ai data, the meme coin $WuKong, issued on Solana, surged over 99,999% within 24 hours, with one user reportedly earning $350,000 in just 5 hours. Meanwhile, multiple trading pools for $WuKong meme coins appeared on Solana, with varying price movements. Additionally, $WuKong meme coins also emerged on ETH and BNB, each showing different levels of increase.
The Star of the Night in the X Crypto Circle
The evening of August 20 in the X crypto Chinese-speaking community belonged to "Black Myth: Wukong." This was largely because major Chinese crypto KOLs, exchanges, and media were all leveraging "Black Myth: Wukong": as long as you retweet, follow, or comment, you could have a chance to win a game qualification for "Black Myth: Wukong."
This was exactly what many users in the Chinese crypto community needed, as many participants in the lottery expressed their long-standing desire to play the game. "Black Myth: Wukong" successfully became the traffic password of the night.
According to incomplete statistics, the version of "Black Myth: Wukong" primarily used for traffic generation that night was the 328 yuan deluxe edition—there are a total of four versions of the game: the 268 yuan digital standard edition, the 328 yuan digital deluxe edition, the 820 yuan physical deluxe edition, and the 1998 yuan physical collector's edition, with the physical collector's edition already being resold for over 6000 yuan on some second-hand transfer platforms.
However, the most aggressive marketer in this wave was undoubtedly Sun Yuchen, the founder of Tron, who directly posted his own poster along with a series of activation codes, allowing users to claim them freely without any conditions—generous and straightforward, which made the atmosphere among crypto gamers explode.
Market Soars, Major Chains Busy Issuing Wukong-related MEME Coins
"Stocks are all hitting the daily limit."
"Concept stocks related to it are all rising."
"Is there a Black Wukong meme? Feels like there's a wave of market activity."
"It's already 'Lafite' (industry slang meaning it has risen very high)."
In a chain game community, members excitedly discussed "Black Myth: Wukong" and its surrounding topics.
Currently, multiple $WuKong meme coins have appeared on the four public chains: ETH, BSC, Solana, and Base. According to Geckotermina data, the main battlefield for $WuKong is still on Solana's Raydium, which has the highest 24-hour trading volume. The best performer is Uniswap V2 on the Base chain, where, as of the time of writing, $WuKong's 24-hour increase reached 31,077%. This may be due to the fact that the $WuKong on Uniswap V2 is newer than that on Solana's Raydium, and its liquidity is somewhat weaker—over 1,100 people have already participated in this "game."
According to gmgn.ai data, the largest $Wukong pool on Solana's Raydium currently has over 900 participants. This $Wukong was created by C6rFbLz2sQPCqcqjtib1hE69o1xgAuTu6aMqD9MWtBAD, who invested approximately $260,000. As of the time of writing, this account has made a profit of about $350,000, with an unrealized gain of $5.8 million.
Of course, there is more than one $Wukong on Solana, but only this pool has the largest volume and the highest increase. Other pools have varying price movements and poorer liquidity.
NFT Market Caught Off Guard
The popularity of "Black Myth: Wukong" has also prompted some NFTs to try to ride the wave. However, compared to the speed and convenience of meme coins, which can be issued with a single click, NFTs seem a bit caught off guard.
Among the existing NFT concepts, those related to "monkeys" or "apes" have not shown any significant movement, while new NFT projects are still preparing to mint.
One NFT called "SUn WuKong" claims to be a collaboration between Cai Zhizhong and Caturapramana Universe to launch "Journey to the West" NFTs, trying to leverage the popularity of "Black Myth: Wukong," but they have not yet opened minting—it's uncertain whether the hype around "Black Myth: Wukong" will still be hot by the time they start minting.
Additionally, there is an initiative to issue the 328 yuan deluxe edition of "Black Myth: Wukong" as an NFT for Twitter users to mint for free, but fundamentally, it is still a traffic generation activity that requires users to like and retweet to qualify for free minting. Although the issuer claims to provide 1,000 copies, after 10 hours, there were still fewer than 100 participants in the retweet and like activity, indicating a lack of enthusiasm for the free mint.
The crypto community has once again validated that to ride the wave, memes are the best way, while NFTs have become yesterday's news.