Author: flowie, ChainCatcher
Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher
2024 is the year of the meme explosion, with the meme craze permeating the entire year. As of the time of writing, CoinGecko data shows that memes are a market worth over a hundred billion dollars. Memes are not just the battlefield for retail investors; they have also become a battleground for major institutions, CEXs, and public chains vying for traffic.
Compared to the past, which mainly focused on zoo-type memes, 2024 can be said to be a year where everything can be a meme, with angles you might not have thought of. This article reviews the main types of meme speculation concepts in 2024 and the predictions from research institutions regarding the development trends of memes in 2025.
Seven Major Hot Meme Speculation Concepts of 2024
Political Concept Memes
The 2024 U.S. presidential election has spawned and heated many political concept meme coins. On March 5, 2024, CoinGecko added a new section for PolitiFi tokens.
Political memes can be said to have initially revolved around Trump, with a meme token named TRUMP in 2023 seeing an increase of over a thousand times, astonishing the community. As the key election year of 2024 approaches, various memes named after political figures such as Trump, Biden, Harris, Vance, and others in important positions have once again become hot topics. Representative tokens include TRUMP, BODEN, and KAMA.
In addition to political figure tokens, slogans and famous quotes from political figures' speeches have also given rise to a large number of memes. For example, the meme coin MAGA, named after Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again." The meme coin FIGHT, themed around the incident where Trump was attacked, saw a significant price increase after Trump tweeted "FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!!!"
Additionally, memes represented by PNUT have been given the meaning of expressing political demands. A viral squirrel was captured and euthanized without sufficient communication, leading to a political controversy seeking animal protection and expressing reasonable demands, causing the meme PNUT to go viral. Besides PNUT, there are also similar meme tokens expressing political demands, such as the monkey Jorgie, who was taken away by the police.
AI Concept Memes
In October, an AI Bot called "Truth Terminal" (@truth_terminal) "spoke to itself" and came up with a meme coin name GOAT, with a16z founder Marc Andreessen backing it with $50,000 worth of Bitcoin. GOAT skyrocketed from 0 to $270 million in just four days, with a price surge of 150 times, attracting community attention.
Since then, various meme coins integrating AI concepts have proliferated, giving rise to multiple sub-tracks. Representative AI Agent memes include GOAT, GNON, VIRTUA, and FUN; AI + infrastructure is represented by ACT; AI investment DAO memes are represented by ai16z; AI + art is represented by slop; and AI + animals are represented by Shoggoth and others.
Hotspot Mapping Memes
This has also been a very interesting phenomenon this year, with memes almost always appearing in response to hot topics. For example, in August 2024, the Chinese-made AAA game "Black Myth: Wukong" was released and became extremely popular, quickly leading to the birth of a large number of meme coins like $WuKong following this trend.
Memes can easily ride the wave of hot events. In November, after Sun Yuchen announced the purchase of Maurizio Cattelan's iconic work "Comedian" for $6.2 million, a meme coin named Ban, featuring Cattelan's banana, emerged, capitalizing on the Sotheby's banana auction and the SpaceX Starship launch.
Moreover, if players miss out on trading during the hot altcoin events, many will choose to wait for meme coins related to the hot concepts to trade. On December 2, after XRP's price hit a seven-year high and its market cap surpassed Solana, many who missed XRP's nearly 400% increase turned their attention to related memes. By around 1 PM that afternoon, the 24-hour trading volume on the chain exceeded $70 million, with the number of transactions reaching 330,000. The meme $RIPPLE, named after XRP, surged over 400% within 24 hours, while the meme $589, calling for XRP to rise to 589, increased over 160% in 24 hours.
DeSci Concept Memes
DeSci, or decentralized science, is not a new concept this year. However, in November, Binance Labs announced an investment in the DeSci project BIO Protocol. After CZ and Vitalik discussed DeSci insights, several DeSci memes surged, leading to widespread discussion of this concept, aiming to channel meme liquidity into fields like medicine, physics, and chemistry.
Representative projects include the DeSci concept meme coins RIF and URO, both from the meme token issuance platform Pump.science launched by the DeSci project Molecule DAO. RIF and URO represent the compounds rifampicin (RIF) and uric acid (URO), aiming to support medicine through meme coins.
When RIF and URO were first launched, they did not gain much traction, but with the momentum from Binance and CZ, they continuously broke new highs, with a market cap reaching nearly $3 million and a price increase of 20 times within two days.
TikTok Concept Memes
Around November 2024, a meme called ChillGuy went viral on TikTok. This meme features a personified character wearing a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, with hands in pockets, appearing very calm and becoming extremely popular among young people. Related videos garnered over 20 million views in just two months.
With the popularity of CHILL GUY, a meme coin named CHILLGUY was also born on the Solana chain. Celebrities like El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele and Elon Musk helped boost the meme coin's popularity by sharing CHILL GUY elements, leading to a 7000% increase in $CHILLGUY within just five days, with a peak market cap exceeding $500 million.
The demographics of TikTok users and those investing in cryptocurrencies and meme coins may overlap significantly, as both groups consist of Gen Z and millennials, making TikTok a potential creative generator for meme coins.
In addition to CHILLGUY, other TikTok concept meme coins like MOODENG, APPLE, WAIT, HUZZ, and GRIDDY have also received considerable attention.
Zoo Memes
Zoo memes remain one of the most easily spread and resilient narratives. Following Doge, new stars like Neiro and MOODENG have emerged this year.
Neiro is a new pet adopted by the original owner of Doge, and it became popular on the night of Trump's Bitcoin conference speech, overshadowing the Trump-themed NSYB (never sell your bitcoin) meme and sparking a case of meme capitalization disputes.
MOODENG's prototype is a viral baby pygmy hippo born in Thailand. The rise of MOODENG has also driven a phenomenon of crazy animals on the Solana chain, with various animals like penguin PESTO, baby elephant TOTO, monkey GEORGIE, beaver BOBR, and frog omochi becoming hot topics.
Under the dominance of Doge, cat culture meme themes have also emerged as a new speculation direction, giving rise to memes like MEW that resist the "dog" concept, and cat-themed memes like MIGGLES, which gained popularity from a Coinbase promotional video.
Additionally, the previously mentioned PNUT and other memes expressing political demands also belong to the animal-themed meme category.
Celebrity Memes
Celebrity memes remain an important direction in meme trading that cannot be ignored. This year, in addition to Trump and Musk, who are both meme hotbed creators, some artists and entertainment stars issuing tokens have also become a trend and received significant attention.
Earlier this year, Pepe meme artist Darkfarm's BOOK OF MEME (BOME) went viral across various social platforms, increasing 20 times within just three hours of launch and surpassing a market cap of $1 billion in three days, while Doge took four years to reach a $1 billion market cap.
Throughout the year, several celebrities launched tokens, such as JENNER from Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender father of the Kardashians, and MOTHER from female rapper Iggy Azalea, both achieving hundreds of times in price increase, causing celebrity memes to sweep the crypto community once again.
However, celebrity memes typically have a very short lifespan, and these meme coins have been criticized for being quick money grabs. Vitalik has expressed dissatisfaction with the experiments of celebrities issuing MEME coins.
2025 Meme Trend Predictions: Larger Scale, AI Memes May Lead the Way
Both Messari and DWF Labs believe that the popularity of memes will continue into 2025. Messari mentions three aspects that will drive the continued growth of memes.
In terms of infrastructure, some high-throughput chains provide ample block space, allowing meme transactions to avoid high costs.
In terms of user experience optimization, applications like Moonshot and Pump.fun continue to lower the entry barrier and simplify the trading process, likely attracting more retail participants.
Additionally, meme coins, with their speculative nature similar to gambling, may continue to attract users seeking entertainment and profit in the current macro environment.
Bitwise also predicts that a larger-scale meme coin craze will emerge in 2025 compared to 2024, stating that tokens issued by AI agents will become the leaders of this wave.
Besides the narratives given to memes by AI, the Web3 ecosystem incubator Nomos Labs has also mentioned more technologies empowering the development of memes, such as attempts to link with NFTs and integrate with payment scenarios and DeFi. Nomos Labs believes that technological empowerment will be an important focus for meme coins in the next stage. "In the long run, only when the technological narrative is realized can meme coins possibly break free from the fate of short-term speculation."
The practicality of memes may also become more prominent in 2025. Venture capital firm MV Global states that with the promotion of practical meme coins, decentralized science (DeSci) is expected to achieve significant growth in 2025.
However, Murad, the meme hype king who exploded in popularity in 2024, has a different view. He believes that in a bull market, practicality may become a constraint, and pure speculation will make meme coins perform better. However, he also mentioned that future meme coins may indeed add DeFi functions, evolve into investment DAOs, and even create fashion and lifestyle brands.
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