Original Author: Arain, ChainCatcher
In 2024, the Memecoin sector emerged as a surprising force, growing through 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 through their 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 Memecoin feast might have been half as grand. 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.
Although mass-producing 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 is known for two main achievements: successfully investing in $SPX and 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 Belief Index" investment strategy, which suggests that investors should look for projects with high belief but low prices, meaning undervalued Memecoins that meet most screening criteria, typically having only one or two indicators that fall short, making them easy to improve, and possessing 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 venture capitalists.
Ansem
Another top Memecoin KOL in 2024, on par with Murad.
However, compared to Murad, Ansem has a heavier trading label 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 just $0.0000005618. Subsequently, BONK surged, and by March 2024, its price had briefly surpassed $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 leeks." In response to the accusations, Ansem claims he is merely selecting the best trades in the market and cannot ensure every trade will succeed, 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
This Indian scammer caused a stir in the market when he was targeted by multiple celebrities, 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:
Spending $200,000 to have Jason Derulo tweet to promote a token;
Signing 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 berating him, claiming he had scammed her and owed her "a lot of money";
Issuing tokens for celebrities like Rich the Kid and Lil Pump, who also complained about similar experiences;
Data company Bubbleworks estimated through data analysis 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 can be considered a leading figure in the celebrity Memecoin trend of 2024. In fact, Sahil Arora also had his eye on Lggy Azalea, attempting to help her launch the Memecoin $LGG, but was not very successful.
Lggy Azalea decided to launch a Memecoin herself. The reason was that she discovered someone 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, deleting all posts prior to May 29, and posting 2,245 posts about MOTHER. She also 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 skyrocketed by 1200%.
Subsequently, Lggy Azalea appeared in various community Spaces, interacting with community members, responding with 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, believing 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 Vitalik, stating "he's both angry and hungry," which caused the price of the $MOTHER token 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 with MOTHER or SOL, avoiding the devaluation of $MOTHER.
Caitlyn Jenner
Caitlyn Jenner is a celebrity from the American flag television program and a former athlete. Like Lggy Azalea, Caitlyn Jenner's media influence and public image attracted more attention to memecoins. However, unlike Lggy Azalea, the Memecoin issued by Caitlyn Jenner 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 well-known crypto KOLs and referring to them as "crypto kings." She then released a Story about the $Jenner token, which her agent Sophia also shared.
Since Caitlyn Jenner had not previously ventured into the crypto space, her fans suspected her account had been hacked. However, Caitlyn Jenner stated that her account had not been hacked and released a video of herself to dispel the rumors, confirming that $Jenner 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, prompting 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 four days leading up to May 2024 by launching 12 MEMEcoins on Solana.
On November 13, 2024, Naeem Azad and Mihai Caluseru filed a class-action lawsuit in California federal court as citizens of the UK and Romania, 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 of her fans' value has led to legal troubles; one wonders if 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, also faced a downfall due to his poor handling of the situation.
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 rose 100 times compared to James Wynn's cost. He was found to have transferred his holdings of PEPE to multiple new addresses and gradually consolidated his assets into his main wallet jwynn.eth, eventually transferring funds to an exchange address. Media reports indicated that James Wynn earned approximately $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 led to the collapse of the ELON token. Statistics show that during this operation, both of James Wynn's accounts were among the top ten in profits, earning approximately $350,000.
Due to James Wynn's liquidation directly causing the collapse of ELON's price, his image in the community suffered, and he was accused of "cutting leeks."
Justin Sun
Such a character event must include Sun Ge.
In August 2024, TRON launched the beta version of SunPump, claiming to be the first Memecoin platform in the TRON ecosystem based on the concept 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 the TRON chain would soon give birth to a Memecoin with a market cap exceeding $1 billion, claiming a 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 push the historical progress of Memecoins, he certainly has a mark 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 Tesla's CEO with "doge" and a rocket emoji caused Dogecoin's price to skyrocket, breaking the historical barrier of $1. 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 X icon 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 image with text that included meme and smiley elements, 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-inaugurated 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 so far, Donald John Trump has been the one caught in the crossfire.
In May 2024, at an NFT gala for Trump cards held at Mar-a-Lago, a participant introduced him to the "boden" meme coin, which had a market cap of $240 million. Trump responded, "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, the $TRUMP Memecoin associated with Trump reportedly saw a trader spend 0.052 ETH (approximately $96 at the time) to purchase 608,650 "TRUMP" tokens, which had previously surged to a market cap of $788 million by June 2024.
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