The price of the coin fluctuates frequently. Can ME rise above 10 dollars again?

Author: Golem, Odaily Planet Daily

The ME token, which has attracted the attention of many users for a long time, finally opened for airdrop claims and TGE last night.

The total supply of ME tokens is 1 billion, with an initial circulating supply of 125 million airdrop tokens, and the remaining tokens will be gradually released over 4 years. Due to the recent good price performance of airdrop projects like Hyperliquid and Movement after TGE, combined with Magic Eden currently being the leading multi-chain NFT trading market, the community has high expectations before the token launch:

• "The opening price of ME is expected to be $10, with a long-term potential to reach $30."
• "The ME airdrop distribution is relatively reasonable, taking into account most real users, platform whales, and opportunistic users."
• "The ME price is benchmarked against HYPE, but it shouldn't be worse than MOVE's opening."

Of course, some community members remain rational, believing that the price of ME before the opening is already too high:

• "I have already shorted ME in pre-market trading on OKX; the current FDV is already higher than its intrinsic value."
• "Sell ME as soon as it opens; starting with a $10 billion FDV is just setting up for a VC dump."

So, what kind of script did the ME token follow before and after the airdrop claim and TEG yesterday? Is there still hope for ME price (currently $5.6) to hit $10? Odaily Planet Daily will briefly introduce this in the article.

Listing on Binance and Upbit, Pre-market Price Exceeds Expectations

In the current market situation, if a token can be listed on Binance and Upbit, it is a significant positive—Binance, as the "largest exchange in the universe," will bring the most traffic and liquidity to the token; due to the closed and crazy nature of the Korean market, a "kimchi premium" phenomenon will form during bull markets, so Upbit, as the largest exchange in Korea, is expected to bring strong purchasing power to the listed token and create a price difference with external markets in the short term.

Previously, MOVE announced listings on three major exchanges (Binance, Upbit, and Coinbase), which also validated this positive phenomenon, so many players hoped or even believed that ME would be listed on these three exchanges before its launch.

The script indeed developed in this direction. On December 9, according to @ai_9684 xtpa monitoring, a Binance address seemed to appear among ME holders; the address AG8Xp…xW4PM had recharged 1 ME to Binance three days prior, and tracing back three layers of funds leads to the token deployment address. On December 10, the community's speculation was confirmed when Binance announced it would launch ME spot trading, and subsequently, according to OKX pre-market trading data, ME surged past 6 USDT in pre-market trading, with a 24-hour increase of 33.82%.

While the community was still excited, another good news arrived on the afternoon of December 10, when Upbit announced it would list ME/KRW, USDT, and BTC trading pairs. Subsequently, according to OKX pre-market trading data, ME reached 7.45 USDT in OKX pre-market trading, with a 24-hour increase of 55.75%. At this price, ME's initial circulating market cap exceeded 930 million USD, with an FDV exceeding 7.4 billion USD.

Before the opening, ME's price had already greatly exceeded the market's expectations when the token economics were just announced (3 to 4 USD). Optimistic players believe that ME will start with a valuation of 10 billion and continue to rise, while more pessimistic players or those who have reached their psychological price point are calculating how to quickly claim the airdrop and sell.

OKX Reaches Peak, Significant Price Discrepancy Between Exchanges and On-chain

OKX announced that it would open ME spot trading at 22:00 (UTC+8) on December 10, being the first mainstream exchange to open ME trading, so many users chose to recharge ME to OKX for trading. ME's performance on OKX can be described as stunning; according to OKX market data, ME broke through 22 USDT after opening, reaching a peak of 22.632 USDT, but then it began to decline.

However, according to community discussions, due to the massive traffic from claiming airdrops, retail investors could not claim ME at all when OKX opened at 22:00, and only after 22:30 did ME token claims gradually return to normal. By this time, ME's price on OKX had dropped to between 5.6 and 4.8 USDT, lower than OKX's pre-market price. The community humorously referred to this phenomenon as the unique "leadership exit" of VC tokens.

Although ME's price on OKX fell, many players still held expectations for ME since Binance and Upbit had not yet launched, and some even attempted to bottom-fish and go long. However, when Binance officially opened ME spot trading at 23:00 on December 10, ME's opening price peaked at 6.24 USDT, far from many players' expectations. Affected by sentiment, ME's price on Binance subsequently fell, reaching a low of 4.137 USDT.

Additionally, there were price discrepancies between exchanges and on-chain. After Binance opened, ME consistently had a price difference of 0.3 to 0.6 USDT between OKX and Binance. At 9:30 AM today, Upbit announced the opening of ME spot trading, with ME's price peaking at 11.3 USDT, a premium of over 60% compared to other major CEXs. Influenced by Upbit, at 10:00 AM, ME's price on Binance peaked at 8 USDT, while ME's price on OKX was only 7.09 USDT at the same time.

Price difference of ME between Binance and OKX (left is Binance, right is OKX)

At the same time, there was also a price difference between CEX and DEX. According to Raydium data, at 10:00 AM, ME's price in the ME/USDC pool was between 9 and 10 USDT, higher than the prices on Binance and OKX.

ME's price on Raydium

Coinbase also announced this morning that ME is now available on coinbase.com and the Coinbase iOS and Android apps, allowing Coinbase customers to log in to buy, sell, convert, send, receive, or store these assets. However, this did not provide much upward stimulus for ME's price.

Can ME Reach 10 USDT Again?

The price of ME rising to 10 USDT is already a psychological price point for many community members, but since Binance listed ME, its price has only peaked at 8 USDT. Although OKX broke through 22 USDT at opening, most retail investors could not sell at that price. Whether ME can reach 10 USDT again fundamentally depends on whether Magic Eden is worth a 10 billion valuation. Previously, Twitter KOL Shapewolf compared ME's market cap with other projects, as shown in the image below.

Before ME's launch, if calculated based on pre-market prices, Magic Eden's circulating market cap had already surpassed the FDV of NFT trading markets like Tensor and Blur. From the data, Magic Eden's market share in Solana NFTs is indeed not as high as the top-ranked Tensor, but in supporting and developing multi-chain NFTs, Magic Eden has performed quite well, especially having an absolute leading advantage in the Bitcoin NFT and rune trading markets.

At the same time, many viewpoints also compare ME with the TEG performance of HYPE and MOVE, arguing that ME's initial circulation is even smaller than HYPE, and it is also a highly profitable project; regarding exchange support, ME is similar to MOVE, having also been listed on major exchanges like Binance and Upbit. Therefore, many users believe that ME's price should at least maintain above 10 USDT for a considerable period.

However, the current situation for Magic Eden is not as optimistic as described above. In terms of products, the rise and fall of a trading market always depends on the development of its ecosystem. Currently, the Bitcoin ecosystem is in a bear market, and none of the top 10 NFT projects by market cap are Bitcoin NFTs (Bitcoin Puppets ranks 12th), and in the currently hot Solana market, its share is still less than Tensor, making it difficult to support a 10 billion valuation.

Based on the price performance of previous airdrop projects this year, the opening price is generally the peak, and after market sentiment fades, it is challenging to have a second wave of momentum. MOVE has now fallen back to around 0.68 USDT, with FDV dropping to about 6.7 billion USD, so for ME to reach 10 USDT again, the difficulty remains.