The on-chain meme market is resurging. Do the "Plebs" still have a chance to become "Chad Hodlers"?
Another Dose of "On-Chain Sentiment Booster"
On the evening of January 18th, US time, as Trump launched his eponymous token $TRUMP, Solana saw a nearly 50% surge, breaking through its previous high to almost $300. As of now, it has retraced from those levels but once again ignited on-chain sentiment on the Solana network.
From an on-chain data perspective, various metrics such as active addresses and transaction volumes on the Solana network saw a significant uptick following the release of $TRUMP, almost reaching all-time highs. The network experienced an influx of Web3 native capital along with some Web2 legacy capital inflows driven by Moonshot. Moonshot's official statement indicated that after being listed as the preferred buying method on the TRUMP website, the platform saw a 12-hour trading volume of $4 billion, attracting over 400,000 new users to the Solana ecosystem through its app. The influx of new users highlighted a surge in on-chain sentiment on the Solana network.
Following the launch of the TRUMP token, Solana's gas fees experienced significant fluctuations. Due to the high transaction demand, severe transaction congestion occurred, leading to a rapid surge in transaction fees, causing exchanges like Binance to halt withdrawals and temporarily pause Solana network transactions.
The Endless Loop of PVP
Compared to the coin releases by prominent Web figures in November and December, the only high market cap projects that emerged were TRUMP and TRUMP's spouse. However, from a similar angle, the official meme coin released at the highly anticipated cryptocurrency conference Wagmi MIAMI on January 21st-24th went through a rapid "zeroing" in a fierce player versus player (PVP) battle. Similarly, the official token ZACHXBT acknowledged by on-chain detective ZACHXBT reset due to its lack of a strategic exit strategy. The lifecycle of the meme coin "AIB," named after the slogan "America Is Back" frequently mentioned by Trump in his inauguration speech and reshared on social media, was only 6 hours. The on-chain PVP atmosphere intensified, turning transaction throughput "on-chain" into a logic of "speed racing."
However, when we look back at the similarly active on-chain sentiment from September to November, the "Big Golden Dog" kept appearing, with projects like Griffain, ARC, and Swarms constantly iterating and updating in the AI Agent space; there were also new concepts and perspectives related to DeSci, with tokens such as Drugs, RIF, URO, and MIRA; in the short term, the only one possibly creating a "wealth-building myth" was $Trump.
After Trump took office as the President of the United States, the only real benefit for Web3 might have been the issuance of a meme token in his name, as he remained completely silent about the cryptocurrency market in his inauguration speech. Following Trump's presidency, the incremental funding for Web3 might have only come from Moonshot buying its namesake token, which undoubtedly siphoned a significant amount of funds from Web3; when the Trump token's market capitalization reached nearly $8 billion, the total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market shrank by $20 billion. Smart money on-chain, with significant funds, was cannibalized, undeniably dealing a heavy blow to memes. After all, "price pumping is the real perspective," without money, there is no perspective to pump.
Returning to the AI Agent concept, it seems that the AI Agent concept is close to moving out of the "audition" stage and entering the "elimination round" stage. Many AI Agent-related tokens that could be issued have already been issued, resembling the previous "hackathon scraper market": the phase where projects awarded at hackathons intensively issued tokens has ended, now transitioning from "0 to 1" to "1 to 100," with the AI Agent market betting on which AI Agent not listed on exchanges will be the next to be listed, while listed AI Agents continue to compete on ecosystem technology.
CEX "Pressure" DEX, Does the meme Narrative Still Have a Future?
Currently, the AI Agent seems to be fundamentally locked in as the most important narrative of this cycle, with AI Memes continuing to evolve. At present, the first-stage meme: GOAT ACT has been mostly eliminated, belonging to the category that mainly declines with the market rather than rises with it; while the second-stage AI Agent has become the most ferocious species during each market rebound. The "anti-VC" wave in this cycle is still ongoing, with recently launched so-called "value coins" and "VC coins" such as SOLV and ME mostly experiencing a drop immediately after listing, with no one in the market willing to "catch" these "value coins," to the extent that no one is even discussing "value coins."
For retail investors, the miracle of Web3 may perhaps only appear on-chain. Coins that are already listed on exchanges to some extent have exhausted their positive news, and in the increasingly challenging "up and down needle threading" market hell, surviving through contracts is not easy, let alone creating trading miracles. The most active networks currently, Solana and Base Network, with extremely low transaction fees, have also significantly reduced the entry costs for the majority of retail investors.
CEX exchanges are gradually distancing themselves from retail investors. By bypassing VCs and exchanges on-chain, retail investors can buy good assets at a low price. Starting from scratch on-chain, numerous behemoths with market values in the tens of billions of dollars and thousands of times price increases have been born. The future lies on-chain, with DEX trading volume gradually increasing. Perhaps one day in the not-so-distant future, DEX trading volume will surpass CEX.
From a more macro perspective, the on-chain narrative is far from over. Even Trump has not yet announced other bullish policies on crypto. If regulations on crypto are relaxed, more Web2 funds will flow into Web3 as incremental funds. This influx will not only appear on exchanges but will also manifest on-chain, sparking further "moonshots" or more direct forms of on-chain presence. Continued emergence of "big whales" and "major events" will drive the growth of imagination, transforming PvP into PvE. Sustaining wealth creation effects to attract Web2 is the narrative of true sustainability.
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