The Rise and Fall of Meme Coins: Starting with KOTAI Coin from "A Bet All In"

The recently released movie "All In" features a fictional cryptocurrency called "Ketaicoin." With the movie's release, the eponymous Ketaicoin was quickly issued and began trading on multiple blockchains. According to data platforms, on a certain DEX on the Ethereum chain, the price of Ketaicoin skyrocketed over 3000 times within two days after the movie's premiere, but just a few days later, it almost fell back to its issuance price. This phenomenon of extreme volatility in a short period is not uncommon in the cryptocurrency market, especially for so-called "Meme coins."

The term "meme" originates from Richard Dawkins' 1976 work "The Selfish Gene," referring to cultural elements that can be continuously spread at the level of human thought. In the internet age, memes often appear in the form of satirical images or short videos, making them easy to disseminate and forming a cultural consensus among a wide audience.

The most famous case of the combination of memes and cryptocurrency is Dogecoin ( Doge Coin ). In 2013, Jackson Palmer combined the Doge meme with the concept of cryptocurrency to satirize the hype around cryptocurrencies at the time, creating Dogecoin. This project, which was originally just a joke, unexpectedly became popular, especially after Tesla CEO Elon Musk began frequently mentioning Dogecoin on social media, causing its price to surge dramatically, reaching an all-time high of $0.74 in May 2021.

The success of Dogecoin has spawned a large number of imitators. Early Meme coins were mostly secondary creations of internet cultural materials, but later attempts began to construct grander narratives and ecosystems. In 2021, with the arrival of the cryptocurrency bull market, "animal-themed" Meme coins represented by Shiba Inu(SHIB) became very popular.

Even in a bear market, Meme coins occasionally spark a frenzy. For example, Pepe coin became the focus of the market in 2023, with the number of its holders exceeding 200,000. However, these frenzies often come quickly and go just as fast, as Pepe coin lost over 60% of its value within a week.

Today, Meme coins have strayed far from the original essence of Meme culture. They may have no story at all, purely relying on investors' FOMO mentality to drive up prices. Many projects are the result of centralized teams colluding with various interest groups to create market focal points, rather than genuinely exploring the establishment of active communities or building future blueprints.

Taking the BALD coin on the Base chain as an example, it surged 450% in a short period, leading to much speculation and rumors. However, the project team quickly withdrew liquidity on a large scale, causing the coin price to collapse. Since the teams behind Meme coin projects are often anonymous, they can easily cut ties with the project and take the profits without bearing any responsibility.

Nevertheless, Meme coins will still be closely linked to the cryptocurrency market. In the current situation of insufficient market liquidity, investors should be more cautious with such high-risk assets and avoid blindly following short-term trends.