Trump won, but MAGA coin lost
Author: CMed, BlockBeats
The narrative that can be called the most exciting in Web3 for 2024, "Trump becomes the first Bitcoin president," concluded on the evening of November 5th, U.S. time. Bitcoin has currently broken through the wide fluctuation range that lasted for half a year, surpassing the previous high point near $73,700, reaching a peak of $76,000.
In the traditional market perception, the Trump meme coin, which is most closely associated with Trump, would surge with the news of his election. Interestingly, on November 6th, the day after Trump’s election and during the Web3 celebration, the Trump series meme coins did not show outstanding performance; instead, they experienced a "halving" situation when they should have been on the mainstream exchanges' decline lists if they did not rise.
For example, the address 0x2f6…1Be78 invested nearly $250,000 to buy 70,000 TRUMP coins at an average price of $3.55 during the FOMO sentiment when the votes for the "understanding king" were significantly in favor. Currently, it has an unrealized loss of $88,000 (about 35.5%).
Why the decline?
From the performance of the Trump series meme coins since their issuance, taking Trump as an example, the price was already at a relatively low level on the eve of his campaign. Interestingly, when we observe the accounts that Trump has publicly disclosed, since May, Trump's crypto address has accumulated over three million dollars, with the main losses coming from the meme coin named after Trump. The quantity has not decreased, but as the price has shrunk, the assets in Trump's address have also significantly diminished.
After Trump's successful campaign, there was certainly an expectation of "good news being fully priced in." However, taking the token named after Trump as an example, it did not show a significant increase before experiencing a "halving," which is clearly illogical.
Do political series memes have no future?
Looking back at some recently emerged political memes, such as Pnut and D.O.G.E, they did not experience a significant decline like Trump and MAGA; instead, they saw an increase.
Pnut and memes like Trump and MAGA are not entirely the same. Trump and MAGA are more like "straightforward" political meme narratives. Delving into their backstories, we can only reflect support for Trump, while Pnut's story can be explored more deeply.
Pnut is named after a pet squirrel that mechanical engineer Mark Longo took home after witnessing its mother die in a car accident over seven years ago. On October 30th, officials from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation arrested Peanut without a search warrant and euthanized it.
Peanut was considered an "illegally kept wild animal," which the public did not accept. The satirical news site Babylon Bee stated, "Radical squirrels wearing MAGA hats have begun to revolt." Elon Musk has also repeatedly voiced support for Peanut on social media. This incident regarding Peanut has been portrayed as an unusual attack on the Democratic Party and even a political weapon in the public discourse.
From this perspective, we can see that political series memes have not come to an end; rather, the narrative of simply supporting Trump is not "exciting" enough.
Interestingly, the "betting prediction platform" PolyMarket and the Trump series memes have, to some extent, become premium. Investing in the Trump series memes is not as good as betting on Trump's victory on PolyMarket, as the underlying logic is the same. PolyMarket has seen a significant increase in trading volume and the number of predicted events in 2024, which may also explain the prolonged low prices of Trump series meme coins.
Meme or DeFi? The crypto fork after Trump's presidency
In the eyes of many degens in the market, the great narrative of Trump becoming the first "Bitcoin president" in U.S. history will certainly lead to many "golden dogs" emerging. On that day, degens were keen to find various "angles" on Twitter.
For example, JD Vance's dog Atlas participated in voting, and the newly appointed Sec Chair, referred to as the "crypto mother," Hester, ultimately could not escape the "PVP" logic, quickly falling back to zero after reaching a market cap of several million dollars. Many "diamond-handed degens" faced PVP failures that day.
Shifting focus from DEX to CEX, the market sentiment was completely different. The sentiment in CEX was very enthusiastic, and the "zero-value altcoins" that had been criticized by the market for half a year showed significant increases. On the day Trump took office, the "on-chain wild farm" seemed to disappear, with many believing, "With regulations easing, making money on the table no longer requires doing on-chain wild farming."
DeFi tokens with protocol revenue have largely shed concerns about being classified as "securities." Rune Christensen, the founder of Sky (formerly MakerDAO), stated on social media, "Trump's victory will drive a true and sustained revival of DeFi, with the possibility of a tenfold increase in users, as DeFi benefits the most from reduced regulatory uncertainty in the U.S. compared to other aspects of the crypto space."
These DeFi tokens saw good gains after Trump's election, with Uniswap gaining a maximum of 46%, Ethena a maximum of 72%, Jito a maximum of 63%, and Lido DAO a maximum of 56%, with slight pullbacks as of the time of writing.
Perhaps in the near future, we will see a "return of the bull," with liquidity in CEX becoming abundant again and on-chain hot money becoming less active. Memes may no longer be the moment to easily reach a market cap of twenty million dollars with just a slight angle; instead, they will require more exciting and profound narratives to drive the growth of consensus.