Author: Arain, ChainCatcher

Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher

In 2024, the Memecoin sector emerged unexpectedly, growing into a super cycle amidst mixed reviews, leaving many Old Money investors astonished.

In the trading battlefield of Memecoins, there are genius scammers who set "wealth traps" with cunning tactics, major players who engage in market maneuvers with precise judgment and operations, influencers who drive traffic to tokens using their own clout, and signal callers who sway market trends with their recommendations… These annual figures took the stage together, creating a grand feast for Memecoins.

Alon

Without the Meme launch platform Pump.fun, this Meme feast might have been half as vibrant. Therefore, in this sense, Alon is a key figure in igniting the Memecoin craze of 2024.

Alon created and launched the Pump.fun platform in January 2024, providing a space for users on the Solana blockchain to create and trade cryptocurrencies, allowing users to create Solana tokens for free in just one minute.

As of December 26, 2024, the platform has created over 5 million Memecoins, including larger ones like Billy, Michi, and Shark Cat. The platform also laid the groundwork for the mass production of celebrity Memecoins, such as Lggy Azalea's MOTHER token, Andrew Tate's DADDY, and Jason Derulo's JASON.

While the mass production of Memecoins may lead to market saturation, it is undeniable that Pump.fun has provided a platform and opportunities for the development and innovation of Memecoins, having a profound impact on the entire Memecoin ecosystem.

Murad

One of the top Memecoin KOLs in 2024, known as the "Meme Theologian."

Murad has two main achievements: one is the successful investment in $SPX, and the other is gaining fame for proposing the Memecoin Supercycle theory.

According to Murad, the Memecoin Supercycle theory posits that Memecoins are acquiring attributes and speculative premiums from value coins, entering a "Meme Supercycle," where Memecoins will not only surpass traditional cryptocurrencies but also change investor behavior and market trends, evolving from mere internet jokes into legitimate investment assets with passionate followers.

When Murad first held $SPX, its market cap was only $10 million, and it has since skyrocketed to over $700 million, yielding a profit of $8.3 million. While holding this coin, he actively spread investment ideas on Twitter. His holdings and recommendations have had a certain impact on the price trends of these coins, attracting the attention and following of many investors. In addition to $SPX, Murad also holds coins like giga, pepe, sigma, apu, and popcat, favoring "cult-like" Memecoins with medium to high market caps.

According to Murad's own summary, he mainly adopts the "Price and Faith Index" investment strategy, which suggests that investors should look for projects with high faith but low prices, meaning those that are undervalued but meet most screening criteria for Memecoins. These projects typically have only one or two indicators that fall short, are easy to improve, and have extremely passionate community support.

After appearing and speaking at Token2049, Murad's status in the Memecoin circle reached a new level, as more investors began to study Memecoins—some even including VCs—due to his systematic approach to Memecoin investment and strategy.

Ansem

Another top Memecoin KOL in 2024, comparable to Murad.

However, compared to Murad, Ansem places a heavier emphasis on trading and believes that technical analysis is more important than fundamental analysis. Ansem gained market attention primarily for investing in BONK and WIF. On October 30, 2023, Ansem posted on social media, "bonk great coin," initially recommending BONK when its price was only $0.0000005618. Subsequently, BONK surged, and by March 2024, its price had once exceeded $0.000045, an increase of over 80 times.

As for WIF, it can be said that Ansem gradually called it to a market cap of $3 billion. On December 12, 2023, Ansem stated on social media that only WIF had the potential of SHIB, and on December 16, he tweeted, "WIF = SHIB." In the following four months, WIF's price skyrocketed from $0.09 to a historical high of $4.85, an increase of over 520 times.

Due to frequently recommending some small-cap Memecoins that led to losses for followers, Ansem currently faces some backlash, with other KOLs accusing him of openly "cutting the leeks." In response to the accusations, Ansem claims he is merely selecting the best trades in the market and cannot ensure every trade is successful, but he has helped more people than harmed them. Some analysts have backtested investment returns based on Ansem's past recommendations, finding that most coins would result in negative returns if bought after Ansem's recommendations.

Sahil Arora

Due to being "attacked" by multiple celebrities, this Indian scammer caused a stir in the market when the news broke, resulting in significant losses for many investors.

Sahil Arora is a serial entrepreneur who launched several crypto projects from 2020 to 2023, which, although ended in failure, still earned him considerable profits.

In 2024, Sahil Arora found an opportunity in Memecoins, leveraging his influence and verified status on Instagram to contact numerous celebrities and collaborate on token launches. He typically holds 25%-40% of the token supply when helping these celebrities issue Memecoins, quickly selling off the tokens after the celebrities' tweets, treating the investments of their fans as his "exit liquidity."

For example:

• Spent $200,000 to have Jason Derulo tweet to promote a token;
• Signed a contract with Caitlyn Jenner to issue the token JENNER, agreeing to pay a $50,000 advance and 80% of the revenue share, but the collaboration turned into a farce, with Jenner accusing him of breach of contract and publicly cursing him, claiming he had scammed her and owed her "a lot of money";
• Issued tokens for celebrities like Rich the Kid and Lil Pump, who also complained about similar experiences;

Data company Bubbleworks estimated that Sahil Arora earned about $30 million this year by acting as an agent for celebrities to issue Memecoins.

Lggy Azalea

Australian rapper Lggy Azalea is considered a leading figure in the celebrity Memecoin trend of 2024. In fact, Sahil Arora also had his eye on Lggy Azalea, wanting to help her issue the Memecoin $LGG, but was not very successful.

Lggy Azalea decided to issue a Memecoin herself. The catalyst was her discovery that someone was impersonating her to issue a coin on Telegram, so she launched the token MOTHER on Pump.fun on May 28, 2024, and focused her 7.6 million followers on X to promote the MOTHER coin. She deleted all posts prior to May 29, published 2,245 posts about MOTHER, placed a link to MOTHER's Telegram channel on Instagram, and paused her OnlyFans to direct fans to the Telegram channel. Within a week of its launch, the price of MOTHER coin surged by 1,200%.

Subsequently, Lggy Azalea appeared in various community Spaces, interacting with community members, responding via voice messages, and making an appearance on the ThreadGuy podcast to share her insights on cryptocurrency and Web3.

As Memecoins gained popularity, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin expressed dissatisfaction with the celebrity Memecoin craze, arguing that these coins were merely for enriching celebrities and early users without any real utility. Lggy Azalea quickly clapped back at Vitalik, posting a meme of herself holding a baby version of him, stating "he's both angry and hungry," which caused the price of $MOTHER to surge by 150%, also spurring the rise of "family tokens" like $DADDY and $SON.

Lggy Azalea is not just about clapping back; after her exchange with Vitalik, she opened an online store where items like T-shirts could only be purchased with MOTHER, and announced that phones and monthly phone plans could also be bought using MOTHER or SOL, avoiding the devaluation of $MOTHER.

Caitlyn Jenner

Caitlyn Jenner, a celebrity from the American reality TV show and former athlete, like Lggy Azalea, attracted more attention to Memecoins due to her media influence and public image. However, unlike Lggy Azalea, Caitlyn Jenner's Memecoin issuance was unsuccessful, ultimately leading to a lawsuit from investors.

In May 2024, Caitlyn Jenner launched a token called $Jenner on Pump.fun, posting a photo of herself shaking hands with Trump on Twitter along with a link to the $Jenner token, tagging several famous crypto KOLs and referring to them as "crypto kings." She then posted a Story about the $Jenner token, which her agent Sophia also shared.

Due to Caitlyn Jenner's previous lack of involvement in the crypto space, her fans suspected that her account had been hacked. However, Caitlyn Jenner stated that her account was not hacked and released a video of herself to dispel the rumors, confirming that the $Jenner token was indeed launched by her team.

During a period of significant price fluctuations due to various doubts, Caitlyn Jenner's Twitter account held a Space where her agent Sophia intended to personally clarify the situation. However, Sophia mentioned in the Space that the team might launch a new token, leading the market to start selling off $Jenner. Despite Caitlyn Jenner later claiming that the team would only focus on $Jenner and would not launch any other tokens, it was too late to remedy the situation.

According to Lookonchain's monitoring, Caitlyn Jenner earned 2,381 SOL (approximately $405,000) in the past four days of May 2024 by launching 12 MEMEcoins on Solana.

On November 13, 2024, Naeem Azad and Mihai Caluseru filed a class-action lawsuit in the California federal court as British and Romanian citizens, respectively, accusing Caitlyn Jenner and her manager Sophia Hutchins of fraudulently soliciting investors to purchase unregistered securities, resulting in significant losses for them.

Spending $400,000 to exploit her fans' value has led to legal troubles, raising the question of whether Caitlyn Jenner feels it was worth it.

James Wynn

The new king of recommendations for the year, who once made $25 million by heavily investing in PEPE, but also faced backlash for his poor tactics.

James Wynn quickly bought into PEPE just one day after its launch and made numerous recommendations on Twitter. On April 16, 2023, he posted at least 24 promotional messages about PEPE, helping to increase its popularity on social media and attracting more investors and attention from the Meme community.

On May 1, the price of PEPE increased 100 times compared to James Wynn's cost. He was discovered transferring his holdings of PEPE to multiple new addresses and gradually consolidating his assets into his main wallet jwynn.eth, eventually transferring funds to an exchange address. Media reports estimated that James Wynn earned about $25 million during the surge of the PEPE token, with an initial investment of only $7,644.

Subsequently, James Wynn began promoting the ELON token. On April 24, 2024, he tweeted, "I think I have a 1000x for you, who wants it?" Just one hour before posting, he had completed his positions in the ELON token across two accounts, and then he announced information about the ELON token, causing its price to surge nearly 100 times in a short period.

On April 27, the price of ELON suddenly dropped by 70%. James Wynn then announced on Twitter that he had liquidated his positions and stated that the ELON token had issues. In reality, he had already liquidated using another rarely used address at 3 AM on the 25th, and his liquidation actions led to the collapse of the ELON token. Reports indicated that during this operation, both of his accounts were among the top ten in profits, earning approximately $350,000.

Due to James Wynn's liquidation actions directly causing the collapse of ELON's price, his image in the community was severely damaged, with accusations of him "cutting the leeks."

Justin Sun

Such a grand event must include Justin Sun.

In August 2024, TRON launched the beta version of SunPump, claiming to be the first Memecoin platform in the TRON ecosystem based on the principle of fair distribution. SunPump can be understood as a counterpart to Pump.fun, although TRON claims that SunPump is not a project of Justin Sun, the public still associates him with SunPump.

After the launch of SunPump, Justin Sun spared no effort in promoting it, predicting that a Memecoin with a market cap exceeding $1 billion would soon emerge on the TRON chain, emphasizing the deep integration of TRON with Meme culture.

Additionally, Justin Sun has made moves in other areas of Memecoins. For example, he invested $10 million in the forked token SHIB Ultra, making him the largest investor in that project.

In 2024, Justin Sun's most notable incident in the Memecoin space was the "expensive banana" event. He purchased the conceptual artwork "Comedian" (a banana taped to a wall) by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan for $6.24 million and ate it during a live stream as a tribute to Meme culture, sparking public discussion about Meme culture. Through this event, he successfully combined art with Meme culture and expanded the reach of Memes.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is already a heavyweight figure in the cryptocurrency space. Although he does not deliberately promote the historical progress of Memecoins, he certainly has a significant role in the history of Memecoin development. Elon Musk believes that memes are a form of modern art that can efficiently convey information and emotions. He once stated, "Whoever controls the meme controls the world," reflecting his understanding of Meme culture.

Elon Musk's most widely recognized Memecoin investment is Doge (Dogecoin). In 2020, Musk began frequently posting about Dogecoin on Twitter, such as tweets like "dogetothemoon," bringing Dogecoin from a relatively niche cryptocurrency into the view of global investors. In early 2021, a tweet from the Tesla CEO featuring "doge" and a rocket emoji caused Dogecoin's price to skyrocket, breaking the historic $1 barrier. Additionally, Musk had planned for Tesla to accept Dogecoin as payment, but that plan was later put on hold. In April 2023, Musk changed the icon of X to a Shiba Inu, resulting in a 30% increase in Dogecoin's price that day. In 2024, Musk paid tribute to Kabosu, the original dog behind the Dogecoin meme, in a post on X, triggering a bullish trend for Dogecoin.

Besides Dogecoin, Musk has inadvertently promoted some Memecoins (note that this is different from making recommendations):

In December 2023, Musk announced the launch of the first AI model GROK, and a Memecoin of the same name was subsequently created, which surged fivefold in two days (though it was later revealed that GROK was created by a scam artist, and the coin subsequently plummeted);

On January 9, 2024, Musk changed his Twitter bio to (CTO) Chief Troll Officer, causing the price of TROLL to soar;

On January 16, 2024, Musk posted a meme that included elements of memes and smiley faces, leading to a surge in the price of the previously deployed token SMILEY on Ethereum, which saw a daily increase of 895%;

Musk's words and actions are closely watched in the cryptocurrency space, often leading to a surge of Memecoins inspired by him or themed around him. For example, the "ClosedAI" token surged over 2800% within three hours after Musk criticized OpenAI.

Recently, Musk changed his Twitter avatar to a meme image resembling Pepe the Frog and directly changed his name to Kekius Maximus. PEPE responded with a price increase, and several Memecoins related to the Kekius Maximus concept also began to surge temporarily.

Donald John Trump

The soon-to-be president of the United States and former president, Donald John Trump, is often compared to Musk and has brought some trading opportunities for Memecoins. At least for now, Donald John Trump is the one being caught in the crossfire.

In May 2024, at an NFT gala for Trump cards held at Mar-a-Lago, an attendee introduced him to a meme coin called "boden" with a market cap of $240 million, to which Trump replied, "I don't like that investment." However, shortly after, the meme coin surged 25% on Wednesday, reaching a high of $0.42.

On August 12, 2024, a $TRUMP Memecoin related to Trump reportedly saw a trader spend 0.052 ETH (approximately $96 at the time) to purchase 608,650 "TRUMP" tokens, and by June 2024, the coin's market cap had soared to $788 million.

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