The Development History and Value Logic of Meme Coin

This article systematically reviews the development history of meme coins, analyzing typical cases and revealing their unique value logic: unlike traditional financial assets, the core value of meme coins is expressed as "cultural dissemination power × community consensus," rather than relying solely on technology or practical value. Based on their evolutionary characteristics, they can be divided into three key development stages:

1. Breaking Ground / Foundation Laying (2013-2016) - Wild Growth, Sifting Through the Sands

• Ephemeral type: short-term popularity, lack of cultural accumulation, and rapid demise. (e.g. Mooncoin, TIPS, Nyancoin)

• Perpetual Champion Type: Cultural Symbol + Community Driven, Long-term Survival. (e.g., DOGE)

2. Dormancy / Outbreak (2017-2021) - In the era of smart contracts, meme coins usher in a qualitative change

• Meteoric type: driven by speculation, bubbles burst rapidly. (e.g. UET, HOGE)

• Stellar Everbright: Ecological expansion, breaking limitations. (e.g., ShibaSwap of SHIB)

• Transformative breakthrough: Attempting innovation, but progress is slow due to various limiting factors. (Such as FLOKI's metaverse blueprint, SAMO's public chain binding)

3. Precipitation / Reconstruction (2022-2025) - The Rise of New Narratives, the Market Begins to Restructure

• Short-term speculation type: relies on hot spots, extremely high risk. (e.g. the political narrative craze of TRUMP)

• Ecosystem-driven: Based on public chain, short-term explosion. (e.g. WIF, BONK)

• Narrative Innovation: AI + Meme, Concept Hype, Trust Crisis. (e.g. GOAT)

• Cultural symbol type: Internet celebrity IP, short-term popularity. (e.g. MOODENG)

Meme coins will continue to face the balancing test of "speculation and substance," while technological innovations (such as AI, DeFAI) and community building will become key factors. Although the market is undergoing adjustments, as a typical product of the attention economy, meme coins will still maintain their unique position and influence in the cryptocurrency space.

Review history, trace the context

As one of the most unique entities in the cryptocurrency space, meme coins possess both cultural attributes and financial characteristics. Looking back at the history of meme coins is also a reflection on the collision between internet culture and financial speculation.

From an ironic joke at the beginning to a cryptocurrency that now occupies a place in the market, meme coins are telling us through their experiences - in today's era, perhaps cultural resonance and community belief drive value creation more than technical whitepapers. While the traditional financial world is still trying to create new value, meme coins have already reshaped people's understanding of "value" itself.

In the era dominated by social media, the speed and manner of information dissemination have undergone fundamental changes. A meme that becomes popular on Reddit or Twitter can gain hundreds of millions of exposures worldwide within a few hours, and the power of this viral spread has now been directly converted into financial value. Meme coins, as the perfect vessel for this conversion, have written their own stories and legends on the time-based axis.

Breaking Ground / Foundation Laying (2013-2016) - In the time of rising prospects, the pioneers bravely stand at the forefront; where the great waves wash away the sands, the disheartened quietly leave the stage.

This period witnessed the original innovative process of meme coins from zero to one, presenting a unique ecology where barbaric growth coexists with natural selection. Marked by the birth of DOGE in December 2013 and ending with the maturity of Ethereum smart contract technology in 2016, it constitutes the purest and most authentic "Genesis Era" in the history of meme coin development.

On the technical level, almost all meme coins in this stage are based on forks of Bitcoin or Litecoin code, with a few exceptions.

In terms of market performance, the average active cycle of meme coins born during this period is only 11.7 months, but survivors like DOGE show incredible vitality.

In terms of historical status, the foundational significance of this stage cannot be underestimated. In fact, history tells us that true innovation often arises in times when rules are not yet established, and the experimental field from 2013 to 2016, which had not yet formed a system, reserved the most precious rebellious genes and innovative spirit for the world of cryptocurrency.

Lurking / Erupting (2017-2021) - Amidst the ebb and flow of tides, the wise rise to seize the moment; in the midst of changing winds and clouds, the powerful are thwarted and sunk.

In the past five years, the market has witnessed the transformation of meme coins from a fringe subculture to mainstream financial assets. The popularization of the ERC-20 standard in 2017 served as a technological turning point, and by 2021, with SHIB reaching a historic market value as a milestone, meme coins have undergone a qualitative change from "internet jokes" to "phenomenal investment targets."

From a technical perspective, the maturity of smart contracts has completely restructured the issuance logic of meme coins. According to data on the Ethereum chain, most meme coins that emerged between 2017 and 2021 chose to adopt the ERC-20 standard or rely on other protocols, reducing the issuance cost to less than one-thousandth (compared to the tens of thousands of dollars for independent chain development). This democratization of technology, akin to a double-edged sword, has given rise to the craze of "everything can be a meme," but it has also sown the seeds for the risks of homogeneous competition.

At the same time, on the market narrative level, in December 2017, the market capitalization of DOGE first exceeded 1 billion USD, while during the peak period in 2021, the overall daily trading volume of the meme coin sector surpassed 30 billion USD, accounting for 12.3% of the entire cryptocurrency market. It is worth noting that the meme coins born in this phase had a significantly longer lifecycle compared to the previous period.

However, it should be noted that not all meme coins have a higher survival rate and longer lifespan. According to a research report by Chainplay, meme coin projects experienced an average of deaths every month in 2020.

Throughout the entire history of cryptocurrency, the most profound transformation during this period lies in the reconstruction of value perception. When DOGE was included in mainstream exchanges like Coinbase in 2021, and when the anonymous founder of SHIB was able to leverage a market capitalization of tens of billions, traditional finance had to reevaluate the essence of meme coins - as revealed in the report "Meme Assets and Attention Economics" published by the MIT Digital Currency Initiative in 2021: "The value capture mechanism of assets like Dogecoin essentially converts network attention into liquidity premiums." This shift in perception has laid a crucial foundation for subsequent social finance experiments in the Web3 era.

Sedimentation / Reconstruction (2022-2025) - When the great wave has collapsed, true gold begins to reveal its true color; in a world of great contention, the pattern will ultimately become clear.

Starting from 2022, the meme coin market began a deep adjustment from frenzy to rationality. Marked by the collapse of Terra in May 2022 and pivoting with the rise of the BRC-20 standard in 2023, the meme coin ecosystem is undergoing a brutal yet necessary value reassessment.

According to statistics, the overall market value of meme coins shrank by 82% in 2022, but leading projects DOGE and SHIB still maintained their positions in the top 20 by market value. A new report pointed out that "97% of meme coins have died." The report further stated: "Different blockchain platforms exhibit different meme coin mortality rates. Base leads with a mortality rate of 66.91%, followed by Solana at 54.03% and Ethereum at 36.59%."

Nevertheless, one should not underestimate or speculate whether meme coins have reached the end of their story. The cryptocurrency market has always been full of uncertainties, and meme coins, as a particularly distinctive category within it, are even more difficult to evaluate with conventional perspectives.

As the head of digital assets at Goldman Sachs stated: "Meme projects that can still secure funding after 2023 must prove their ability to capture long-term value beyond simple speculation." As noted by a16z researchers: "This winter is filtering out speculative bubbles, leaving behind truly culturally enduring digital assets." The future landscape may prove that meme coins capable of crossing cycles will ultimately become a key bridge connecting the crypto world and popular culture.

Block Decomposition, Delving into Key Details

Breaking Ground / Foundation Laying (2013-2016)

The cryptocurrencies in this phase can be roughly divided into the following categories based on their lifecycle / community activity / market capitalization changes, etc:

Ephemeral

In the fast-evolving ecosystem of cryptocurrency, driven by innovation, projects lacking sustainable vitality are destined to be mere transients. They may attract market attention during specific periods, but ultimately struggle to escape the fate of being a "flash in the pan." While they may shine brightly at their peak, it is difficult to maintain that heat for long.

Mooncoin - An Unfinished "Moon Landing" Dream

As an entertainment-type meme coin with the slogan "To the Moon," its somewhat brief life has not been able to carry the ambition of this grand narrative.

Looking back at its development trajectory from 2014 to 2018, the early performance of mooncoin was quite impressive: it set a record for a single-day increase of over 300% in its first year; the discussion volume in the Reddit community exceeded 5,000 posts in a single month; it collaborated with gaming platforms; and was even referred to as "the most serious joke coin."

However, after the highlight came a long silence: in 2015, mainstream exchanges delisted it, causing the market value to drop by over 90%; the following year, the anonymous development team members announced an "indefinite hibernation"; it wasn't until 2018 that the project experienced a brief revival - but this was not due to its own breakthroughs, but rather benefited from two external factors: first, the overall recovery of the cryptocurrency market; second, the launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket reignited the "To the Moon" internet meme, and a parody video created by community members titled "Mooncoin Countdown to the Moon" unexpectedly brought traffic.

Unfortunately, Mooncoin failed to seize this last opportunity. The development team claimed to create a "Lunar Base" metaverse game, but in the end, the white paper was never realized, and the so-called "metaverse game" was merely a Unity demo video. After this, with Bitcoin plummeting 60% in April 2018, market enthusiasm waned, and Mooncoin completely faded from the stage.

Fedoracoin (TIPS) - A niche "gentleman" recognition

FedoraCoin (TIPS) was born on December 22, 2013. Its core focus is not on the mass market, but precisely targets the subculture group of "Fedora-wearing neckbeards" on Reddit. This highly vertical positioning allowed it to quickly gain popularity within a specific community in its early days, but also laid the groundwork for limited development in the future.

On a technical level, TIPS adopted the relatively common Scrypt algorithm at the time, and its design supporting GPU mining made it quite user-friendly for ordinary users. This simple and practical architecture helped it quickly accumulate a group of loyal supporters in the early stages.

At the same time, just two months after its launch, the r/Fedoracoin subreddit on Reddit set an astonishing record of over 2000 posts in a single day, making it one of the most active meme coin communities for a time.

However, the good times didn't last long, as TIPS soon encountered a predicament similar to that of Mooncoin. Due to the lack of practical application scenarios, this project built on subcultural memes has always struggled to break through the limitations of cultural symbols. Starting in 2015, as mainstream exchanges gradually delisted TIPS, its liquidity experienced a cliff-like drop. The product's initial positioning to serve specific subcultural groups is indicative; while this approach precisely matched the target users, its niche nature also made it difficult to expand into a broader market and subsequent marketing.

Although the overall cryptocurrency market rebounded in 2018, the price of TIPS briefly surged. Unfortunately, like mooncoin, TIPS did not manage to take this opportunity to turn things around.

FedoraCoin from 2014 to 2016