Due to the continuous rise of Bitcoin and the lack of signs of a bull market in altcoins, as well as the potential for meme coins to generate wealth, this bull market has been jokingly referred to as the “non-overlapping bull market” by the community.
Community’s Reverse Education on VC
Meme coins taking on the responsibility of mass adoption
Will there still be an altcoin season after the meme coin boom?
It took Doge 4 years to surpass a market value of 1 billion USD, while BOME achieved it in just 3 days. It seems that individual investors would rather invest in meme coins than VC-backed projects. However, as meme coins gain popularity among individual investors, VCs seem to be somewhat unwilling.
Prominent VC a16z has been openly criticizing meme coins. First, they blamed the SEC for allowing meme coins to thrive while neglecting true blockchain innovation. a16z Crypto CTO Lazarrin further criticized meme coins on the X platform:
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Compound VC Managing Partner Michael Dempsey also accused meme coins of causing a loss of true builders. However, blaming meme coins for disrupting cryptocurrency innovation quickly drew dissatisfaction from the crypto community.
Solana co-founder raj stepped up to defend meme coins and sarcastically questioned the claim that “meme coins cause a loss of true builders.” If these so-called true builders are afraid of even meme coins, then they are doomed to fail.
Individual investors, on the other hand, question the value coins promoted by VCs. What began as a heated debate about the value of meme coins turned into a roast of VC coins/value coins.
Community’s Reverse Education on VC
VCs, who are known for educating users, have found themselves being educated by users. Firstly, the blame for disrupting cryptocurrency innovation should not be solely placed on meme coins. @MarinadeFinance sarcastically remarked that people often look for excuses, but no one or nothing can stop you from building something truly innovative.
@XBEBEeth added that no one dislikes true builders, but rather dislikes the “builders” who deceive users with fancy narratives.
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Instead of attacking meme coins, it would be better to reflect on whether the innovation promoted by VCs is truly innovative. @mfer7166 believes that pseudo-innovation should be criticized. Furthermore, the issue lies not in meme coins but rather in the lack of epic narratives in the current cycle.
Individual investors can only dare to speculate on meme coins, reflecting their helplessness. AI+Crypto, DEPIN, RWA, modularization, Bitcoin Layer2… VCs are becoming more adept at concocting narratives that are not easily understandable. They prefer projects to incorporate these concepts and sell them to second-tier individual investors, hoping that they will buy into these long-term visions.
Individual investors used to fall for this strategy, hoping for the widespread application of new narratives and following projects endorsed by VCs to at least get a taste of success. But times have changed. Individual investors have begun to realize that the technological innovation promoted by VCs seems to be mere speculation, with little actual progress in implementation. And in terms of speculation, following VCs not only leaves them empty-handed but also at risk of losing everything.
The “non-overlapping” bull market theory mentioned earlier has resonated with many people. However, @connectfarm1 pointed out that there is no such thing as a non-overlapping market; not participating in the market means not being able to catch up. Currently, so-called value coins have increased in market capitalization, but their prices have generally not risen. Individual investors are tired of dealing with value coins with high market capitalization, high valuation, low circulation, and continuous unlocking.
Newly listed value coins have generally lost the effect of creating wealth. WLD was valued at $3 billion before its launch, reaching a FDV of $28 billion on the first day, equivalent to the valuation of OpenAI at that time. How much room for growth can be left for the secondary market with such a high market capitalization? New coins like Merl, a leader in Bitcoin Layer2, also experienced a continuous decline after their listing.
Moreover, there are too many new concepts, and the sector rotation is rapid, making it difficult to understand. @Eason_Jiang_ realized that after holding a value coin and experiencing a roller coaster ride back to the “starting point of dreams,” profits retreated significantly or even resulted in losses because attention had shifted to other tracks.
Bargain hunting and chasing highs no longer seem to work for individual investors. ARB, the leader of Ethereum Layer2 and representative of value coins, dropped from $2 to $1. Individual investors wanted to buy the dip, but VCs unlocked a large amount of tokens, doubling the value of the tokens they held, potentially leaving individual investors trapped.
In the current cryptocurrency market, which has yet to achieve widespread application, 90% of the market is driven by speculation. Although meme coins have no intrinsic value, they offer individual investors a closer opportunity to achieve hundredfold or thousandfold returns compared to value coins.
@BTCdayu expressed the sentiments of many individual investors, saying, “Meme coins are simple. It’s better to release them. Essentially, their biggest value is to buy them and potentially see a 100x increase.” Although the fairness of meme coins needs to be questioned, individual investors are more tolerant of meme coins compared to VC coins/value coins, which are accompanied by transparent intentions to deceive users.
Meme coins are simply a game between players, where life and death are determined within a few days. Most users invest a small amount of money with the hope of a large return. Even if they suffer heavy losses, at least it is a clear and clean experience, without enduring years of waiting.
Of course, not all VCs are rejecting meme coins. Some VCs recognize the current situation and are joining in.
Mechanism Capital has already started building positions in meme coins. Co-founder Andrew Kang announced on their social platform that Mechanism Capital has completed its first round of positions for 2024, focusing on meme tokens and NFTs with a Trump theme.
DWF Ventures publicly stated that they are interested in investing in projects with large-scale community participation in the future.
DWF Ventures believes that meme coins will become a new GTM (Go-to-Market) strategy for many ecosystems and projects. They believe that meme coins will play an effective marketing role in the following verticals: infrastructure ecosystems, consumer and gaming, and new projects with a meme coin background.
Variant co-founder Li jin has started hosting a meme marathon and wrote, “Born too late to explore the Earth; born too early to explore the universe; born at the right time to host a meme hackathon.”
Meme Coins Taking on the Responsibility of Mass Adoption
Meme coins, seemingly without value, may be taking on the responsibility of mass adoption.
@mdudas refuted a16z CTO’s claim, stating that meme coins have become a significant factor in enabling the adoption of public chain ecosystems.
After Solana founder Anatoly personally promoted Silly Dragon, Solana continued to benefit from the meme coin frenzy. The popularity of BOME made Solana the top network in terms of active addresses. Within 3 days of BOME’s launch, Solana’s active wallet addresses increased from 1.24 million to 2.42 million, a surge of 95%.
Furthermore, Solana’s on-chain network fees and revenue experienced significant growth as a result.
A public chain that was once questioned for its lack of user activity, Solana has now gained attention and imitation from other public chains thanks to its tremendous success with meme coins.
Base founder claims that meme coins will be the key to attracting millions of users to the Base network. Arbitrum’s community has proposed the establishment of a Memecoin fund.
Some public chains have even launched their own meme coins.
On March 17th, Aptos introduced its official Meme coin, $LME.
On March 18th, Bitcoin Layer 2 public chain Ligo announced the launch of the Meme coin SOLIGO on Solana.
Public chains are also hosting meme innovation competitions to stimulate meme innovation on-chain.
BNB Chain recently announced the launch of the “Meme Innovation Battle” competition, competing for a prize pool of up to $1 million. TON announced the launch of Memelandia, a meme and community token cultural center, rewarding top meme and community tokens on the TON network.
The TON Foundation also airdropped over $2 million worth of TON to active meme coin traders in the ecosystem.
Fantom has begun working on establishing meme framework standards. Recently, Fantom Foundation co-founder Andre Cronje tweeted about conducting due diligence on memecoins to establish a framework that can launch, support, and cultivate meme coins securely on Fantom.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin previously mentioned that meme coins not only play a significant role in driving traffic to various public chains but some meme coins are also starting to make progress.
Shiba, known as the “Dogecoin Killer,” announced the release of the Shibarium Beta version last year, aiming to reduce the burden on blockchain networks and improve the user experience of metaverses and gaming applications.
Meme Coins Racing Ahead, Will There Still Be an Altcoin Season?
Meme coins and value coins are not completely opposed to each other. For most individual investors, they are both tracks to participate in.
In a typical bull market, Bitcoin rises first, followed by Ethereum, which drives the surge in popular altcoins. Eventually, the cryptocurrency market enters a phase of overall growth, and meme coins start to rise.
However, in this cycle, the order of sector rotation seems to have been rearranged, with meme coins racing ahead and becoming the main focus of this cycle.
After the meme coin frenzy, will the altcoin season dominated by value coins still arrive? This is the question that individual investors are most concerned about.
In a recent interview, crypto influencer “Shen Yu” stated that the altcoin season may not arrive. Shen Yu mentioned that the characteristic of this cycle is that funds primarily flow into Bitcoin through ETFs and other channels. As for when these funds will flow into other cryptocurrencies, it remains to be seen.
Crypto trader Thiccy also expressed pessimism about the arrival of the altcoin season. Thiccy mentioned that due to the increasing number of projects launching their own coins, the growth rate of FDV has surpassed the circulation supply, increasing by approximately 70% since the beginning of the year.
However, some investors still believe that the altcoin season will not be absent. In a market where value coins are generally viewed unfavorably, crypto researcher @0xNing0x believes that it is the best time to build positions.
@0xNing0x’s logic is based on the golden rule of investment: “Buy when others sell, sell when others buy.” When meme coins make up an increasing percentage of everyone’s investment portfolio, true high-risk-to-reward ratio alpha opportunities will emerge in the value coin sector.