Author: Nancy, PANews

With its round body, cute and ugly appearance, unique name, and exaggerated expressions, the little pygmy hippopotamus Moo Deng (Bouncing Pig) from Thailand quickly became a global sensation overnight, rapidly becoming a meme generator. Under the unstoppable charm offensive of "Bouncing Pig," this newly crowned international internet celebrity has led to the comprehensive blossoming of the "hippopotamus economy," with cryptocurrency investors embarking on various ways to make money, even witnessing a resurgence of the zoo market and driving a significant rebound in the MEME economy.

Recently, at the Khao Kheow Zoo in Chonburi Province, Thailand, a two-month-old pygmy hippopotamus has garnered worldwide attention due to its playful interaction with the keepers. This little Cancer zodiac hippo is quite "rebellious," often pretending to "eat" the keepers, getting scared and losing control from the water jets, and struggling and almost falling while taking a bath… These meme-worthy expressions have made Moo Deng a popular subject for everyone to create memes, even appearing in Time magazine and being shared on platforms like Twitter and Walmart.

The explosively popular Bouncing Pig has also been a huge money magnet. According to the Bangkok Post, the Bouncing Pig has attracted a large number of visitors, bringing in 12 million Thai baht (about 360,000 USD) in revenue for the Thai zoo in the first three weeks of September, attracting over 80,000 visitors. Due to the overwhelming number of visitors, the zoo has implemented limited-time viewing measures and has also opened 24-hour live streaming online. Furthermore, the zoo is also applying for the copyright and trademark of "Moo Deng Hippopotamus" and is selling Bouncing Pig-related products to raise funds to improve the living conditions of the animals.

This hippo fever has also swept through the cryptocurrency community, with various MEME coins of the same name flying around. Among them, MOODENG on Solana is undoubtedly the most popular, and the token has become the largest MEME coin in the Pump.fun ecosystem.

According to DEX Screener data, MOODENG has skyrocketed by over 28,000 times in just over half a month since its creation, with a current market value exceeding 200 million USD, making it the seventh largest MEME in the Solana market.

With the strong market performance, there are high-income earners, as well as investors who missed out and sold off. According to Lookonchain monitoring, an address starting with 5FGcB spent 9.8 SOL (about 1,331 USD) on September 10 to purchase 38.7 million MOODENG tokens and has sold over 30 million tokens, still holding MOODENG worth 1.33 million USD; according to Arkham monitoring, a trader invested 800 USD to purchase MOODENG four hours after its launch and currently holds tokens worth over 5.4 million USD, with no sales made yet. However, Lookonchain also observed that an address spent 1.5 SOL (about 203.5 USD) to purchase 19.4 million MOODENG tokens and sold them for 7.64 SOL (about 1,039 USD), making a profit of 835 USD (a 4x return). If the address had held onto the tokens until now, the profit would have reached 2.65 million USD—a return of over 13,000 times.

With the stimulation from MOODENG, investors have started to closely watch the narrative hype of internet-famous animals on platforms such as TikTok and Youtube, including penguins (PESTO), frogs (omochi), capybaras (CAPY), pandas (HUAHUA), and otters (DEGEN), which are currently attracting market attention. Under the stimulation of this type of animal market, on-chain trading volume has significantly increased, especially on Solana.

Taking the data from DEX Screener as an example, in the past 24 hours, the trading volume on Solana has exceeded 960 million USD. Among them, the top 10 in trading volume contributed about 170 million USD, accounting for 17.8% of the overall market. Half of these projects are animal MEME-related, with a combined trading volume of over 130 million USD. This also means that animal MEME coins are the main driving force behind the trading volume on Solana.

In the end, the prosperity of the internet-famous animal economy is not only due to the viral traffic effect of popular internet memes but also because these animals are becoming a kind of cultural and spiritual symbol, serving as a vehicle for young people to express their emotions. Especially those animals with strong individuality and emotional resonance are more likely to gain "followers," which is why animals like Moo Deng and others are important reasons why consumers are willing to pay. However, this kind of popular culture is always changing, and the underlying rise logic is more worthy of investors' attention.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。