Huobi Strategy Weekly Report: MEME Coin Boom is Back

HTX Research
HTX Research
Published in
8 min readApr 25, 2022
Authored by Linhan Dong, Bridge Qiao, Researcher at Huobi Research Institute

Abstract

In the past two weeks, several meme coins (MEME) have successively seen relatively large increases. Although the time points and magnitude of increase are different, the market performance has shown that the craze of MEME that appeared in 2021 seems to be coming back. This weekly strategic report analyzes the recent overall performance of the Meme market, the characteristics of MEME, and the 4 MEME projects that have recently gained popularity.

In the past three weeks, the top 7 coins in the MIME market capitalization have all experienced varying degrees of increase, with some nearly doubled in a single day. . MEME has five characteristics, for example, wide publicity in the community, large circulation, high price volatility, etc. Recently popular coins are Shiba, Shiba Predator, Dogelon Mars, Squawk & Chirp.

  1. The popularity of MEME revived

(1). MEME Market Overview

Since April, most of the MEMEs have ushered in a round of sharp increases. Although there has been a rebound, it is still very rare to have a large-scale collective rise. The following table shows the outbreak time and rate of increase of the top 7 MEMEs in the current market. The rise of MEME coin this round may be related to Musk’s recent investment in Twitter. The price of Dogecoin is deeply bound to Musk himself. Every big action of Musk will cause a change in the price of Dogecoin. On April 12, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal posted that Musk refused to join the Twitter board, and hemay later invest more money to acquire Twitter.

(2). MEME Features

Internet meme Culture

In the Internet world, the original meaning of meme refers to the widely spread internet culture. The most common forms are emoticons and jokes, and most of them contain strong sarcasm. Such as [doge], [fake smiling boy], and so on. It can be said that the MEME is a series of cryptocurrencies based on the trending meme culture which is playing a rather extensive role in social media and millennial digital netizens.

KOL effect

At first, the DOGE coin (the original MEME which was launched in 2013 with intention of mocking bitcoin) did not attract much attention, until an important KOL discovered it and started to support it . This KOL’s significance in the entire crypto world as the opinion leader happens to be the current richest man on earth — Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Since 2019, he has made many comments in support of DOGE on Twitter. He even changed his Twitter profile to “Former CEO of Dogecoin” at one time. His tweets attracted the attention of many fans to DOGE, whose Twitter followers have reached 3 million,more than that @Ethereum, which is at2.3 million

Large supply

Another characteristic of MEME is that they tend to have a large or unlimited supply. For example, Shiba Inu (SHIB) has a total supply of 1000 trillion tokens, while DOGE has no maximum supply (there are already over 100 billion DOGE tokens in circulation). Since MEME generally do not have a coin-burning mechanism either, the huge supply leads to their relatively low prices. Using just US$1, you can buy millions of MEME tokens, which also explains why MEMEs are nicknamed “the coin for the people”.

Easy-come, Easy-go

While Dogecoins ranked fourth in the “2021 Hot Search List — Hot Search News” section released by Google Trends, many catchphrases and emojis appear every year. This means previous ones will naturally become cultural relics. The shadow aspect of most MEMEs is that they have extremely low applicability and sustainability, and neither do they have innovation in economic models and operating mechanisms. The entire environment is more like a Ponzi scheme under the myth of making wealth. The popularity can come along very quickly, and so can the liquidity. But just as every year people have a new “hot search list”, MEMEs based on memes can fade away rapidly. When the emotions of netizens pass and the tide recedes, the value built on the meme culture will also be greatly reduced. Consequently, investors should bear more potential risk of volatility transmission from market and internet sentiments. Regardless, the second wave of MEMEs have returned and will probably come back once in a while in the future. Here are some of the popular and/or fresh listed MEMEs we chose for your reference and interest.

2. Popular MEMEs

(1). Shiba (SHIB)

A. Project Introduction

Shiba Inu launched ShibaSwap, a decentralized exchange in July 2021, with the top 30 trading volumes among all DEXs. Released Shiba Inu theme NFT and supported NFT art incubator. Additionally, the development of the Shibarium blockchain and Shiboshi games is underway. Shiba Inu’s investment in NFTs and the Metaverse is the reason why SHIB can rise steadily. Similar to DOGE, SHIB also puts in efforts towards community building and social activity engagement.

B. Market Performance

(2). Shiba Predator

A. Project Introduction

Just like its name, flip Shiba is the whole meaning behind QOM’s existence, and its goal is to surpass SHIB to become the next-generation MEME . Judging from the contents of its official website and Twitter, QOM does not have any plans for the future. It is committed to packaging itself as the role of Shiba predator and shows strong impertinence to SHIB everywhere.

The project was launched on March 18, 2022. Currently, consumers can buy QOM from the official website, exchange QOM on Uniswap, or join their community.

B.Market Performance

From April 18 to 19, the price of QOM rose sharply by 94.84%, and trading volume has remained high since , but the price of a single currencystill hovers around 7 decimal places, and the single-day trading volume is around US$10 million.

(3) . Dogelon Mars

A. Project Introduction

The full English name of ELON coin is Dogelon Mars, which is a spinoff track for Dogecoin. The release date of ELON is 2021–04–23, with a release price of US$0.0001, and according to community governance decisions, the current maximum supply is 1 quadrillion. The distribution is interesting and worth mentioning as well: 50% of the token supply was donated to Vitalik Buterin., who in turn donated his tokens to charity; the other 50% has been permanently locked in the Uniswap liquidity pool.

The Two Value Basis of ELON

· Mars Project: A story was created about a hero named Dogelon Mars, taking reference from Mars, who is someone who wanted to promote prosperity in the galaxy. They also made comics to illustrate how Dogelon Mars travels through stars to increase community cohesion.

· The attitude of Elon Musk: Tt is clear enough that the name was inspired by the world’s richest man. So it inevitable connotes the idea of spillover and risk through both good and bad times.

B. Market Performance

(4). Squawk & Chirp

A. Project Introduction

Squawk & Chirp are two tokens launched in a pair at the same time (April 14). It is so new that the team has yet tofinalize its website. Nevertheless, all the information regarding this pair of squawk MEMEs can be found on Twitter, Discord and Telegram groups. Though Squawk Finance’s website appears a little shabby, it does notstop thee major influence of their mascots, SQUAWK & CHIRP. Asthe value of a MEME depends on itspopularity, we shall see how high this pair of birds can fly.

B. Market Performance

About Huobi Research Institute

Huobi Blockchain Application Research Institute (referred to as “Huobi Research Institute”) was established in April 2016. Since March 2018, it has been committed to comprehensively expanding the research and exploration of various fields of blockchain. As the research object, the research goal is to accelerate the research and development of blockchain technology, promote the application of blockchain industry, and promote the ecological optimization of the blockchain industry. The main research content includes industry trends, technology paths, application innovations in the blockchain field, Model exploration, etc. Based on the principles of public welfare, rigor and innovation, Huobi Research Institute will carry out extensive and in-depth cooperation with governments, enterprises, universities and other institutions through various forms to build a research platform covering the complete industrial chain of the blockchain. Industry professionals provide a solid theoretical basis and trend judgments to promote the healthy and sustainable development of the entire blockchain industry.

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HTX Research
HTX Research

Blockchain industry top think tank, affiliated to Huobi Group.