Review and Analysis of the Development of Memes

As one of the most unique existences in the cryptocurrency field, memes combine cultural attributes and financial characteristics. Looking back at the history of memes is also to reflect on the collision history of internet culture and financial speculation.

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

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

Breaking Ground/Foundation (2013-2016)

This period witnessed the original innovation journey of meme coins from zero to one, presenting a unique ecology of wild growth and natural selection coexisting. Marked by the birth of DOGE in December 2013 and ending with the maturity of Ethereum smart contract technology in 2016, it constitutes the "Genesis Era" in the history of meme coin development.

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

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

In terms of historical status, the foundational significance of this stage cannot be underestimated. True innovation often emerges when rules have yet to be established, and the experimental stage from 2013 to 2016, which had not yet formed a system, preserved the most precious rebellious genes and innovative spirit of the cryptocurrency world.

ephemeral

Mooncoin - An Unfinished "Moon Landing" Dream

As an entertainment meme coin with the slogan "登月(To the Moon)", its somewhat short life has failed to carry the ambition of this grand narrative. Mooncoin, apart from its name, has no actual use cases related to space or moon landing.

Looking back at its development trajectory from 2014 to 2018, Mooncoin's early performance was quite remarkable: it set a record for a single-day increase of over 300% in its first year; the Reddit community r/Mooncoin had over 5000 posts in a month; it collaborated with the gaming platform Moonrocket; and it was even called "the most serious joke coin" by Coindesk.

However, after the spotlight comes a long silence: in 2015, the delisting from mainstream exchanges caused the market value to drop by more than 90%; the following year, members of the anonymous development team announced an "indefinite hibernation"; it wasn't until 2018 that the project saw a brief resurgence - but this was not due to its own breakthroughs, but rather thanks to 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 Launch Countdown" unexpectedly brought in traffic.

Unfortunately, Mooncoin failed to seize this final opportunity. The development team claimed to create a "lunar base" metaverse game, but in the end, the white paper never materialized, 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 is not aimed at the mass market, but rather precisely targets the "Fedora-wearing neckbeard"( and the "keyboard warrior") subculture on Reddit. This highly vertical positioning allowed it to quickly gain popularity in specific communities early on, but also laid the groundwork for limitations in subsequent development.

On a technical level, TIPS adopted the relatively common Scrypt algorithm at the time, and the design supporting GPU mining made it quite user-friendly for ordinary users. This simple and practical architecture helped it quickly amass a group of loyal followers in its 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 discussions in a single day, making it one of the most active memes communities for a time.

However, the good times were short-lived, and TIPS quickly encountered a predicament similar to that of Mooncoin. Due to a lack of practical application scenarios, this project, built on subcultural memes, has always been unable to break through the limitations of cultural symbols. Starting in 2015, as mainstream exchanges such as Cryptsy and Bittrex successively delisted TIPS, its liquidity plummeted dramatically. The product's initial positioning to serve a specific subcultural group reveals a glimpse of the issue; although this approach accurately matched the target users, its niche nature also made it difficult to expand to a broader market and subsequent marketing.

Although the cryptocurrency market as a whole rebounded in 2018, the price of TIPS briefly surged. Unfortunately, like Mooncoin, TIPS did not manage to take this opportunity to turn around.

From 2014 to 2016, FedoraCoin gradually lost market attention. By the end of 2018, the TIPS GitHub repository ceased at version v1.8.0, with the last on-chain transaction recorded in November. In 2019, this once-prominent project was officially listed on the "dead list" by Deadcoins.

Nyancoin - A brief "rainbow" light and shadow

As the second meme coin after DOGE, Nyancoin gained the unique identity of "the first officially licensed cryptocurrency in history" shortly after its release on January 6, 2014, but it lags far behind the former in market influence.

In terms of the essence of the project, this gap is first reflected in the differences in cultural genes: the "rainbow cat" meme that Nyancoin is based on, ( Nyan Cat ), has far less spread and cultural penetration compared to the DOGE "Shiba Inu" Doge meme - before coming into contact with these two cryptocurrencies, most people may have never seen the rainbow cat, but almost everyone has been overwhelmed by that mesmerizing Shiba Inu.

In addition, in the fields of application scenarios and development directions, the direct manifestation of this cultural awareness gap is that Nyancoin lacks some breadth and depth compared to DOGE. DOGE has built a multi-dimensional application ecosystem covering payments, tipping, charity, and more, while the application scenario of Nyancoin is relatively singular, primarily used for transactions.

In terms of external empowerment, the community activity and external traffic of Nyancoin are not ideal. This vicious cycle - weak community support leads to sluggish project development, and stagnation further dampens community enthusiasm - ultimately led to the gradual decline of Nyancoin.

The Nyancoin community r/nyancoins has only 1.5k subscribers, and the last active post dates back two years. This community gap directly led to mainstream data platforms stopping the update of Nyancoin's real-time data after 2019 - at that time, its 24-hour trading volume had long been below $10,000, and liquidity exhaustion gradually led to its delisting from exchanges. The case of Nyancoin is enough to illustrate a brutal market rule: in the era of attention economy, the endorsement of top IPs often plays a more decisive role than the technical characteristics of the project itself.

General of Constant Victory Type

Dogecoin(DOGE) - An unexpected "grassroots carnival"

Dogecoin, born on December 6, 2013, was initially just a parody of the Bitcoin craze culture by programmers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, but it unexpectedly evolved into one of the most enduring phenomenon meme coins in cryptocurrency history. Its iconic Shiba Inu image comes from the "Doge" meme that went viral on the internet in 2013, and this inherently high-profile internet IP helped it quickly gain popularity on platforms like Reddit.

In terms of design philosophy and founding intention, it does not emphasize complex technology like other cryptocurrencies, nor does it boast revolutionary blockchain technology or promise grand visions. Instead, it uses a cute Shiba Inu meme as its logo, entering this increasingly fervent field in the most sarcastic way.

Looking back at the several market capitalization peaks of DOGE, they were $10 billion at the beginning of 2021 due to the retail investment craze and strong community support; in May of the same year, under the continuous promotion by its number one fan Elon Musk on social media platforms and the effect of the "Saturday Night Live" ( SNL ) program, DOGE's market capitalization reached $80 billion.

In the following years, although the popularity and price of DOGE have both declined, even entering a downtrend, the overall market trend remains relatively stable, maintaining a certain influence and popularity in the cryptocurrency field. Until November 12, 2024, when Trump announced that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would co-lead the newly established "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE), aimed at cutting government spending. However, the official abbreviation of this new department, "DOGE," is exactly the same as the code for Dogecoin, which sparked heated discussions in the crypto community. Although Musk later clarified on the X platform that there is no connection between the two, the public generally believes that this abbreviation choice is by no means a coincidence, given his consistent style of action and long-standing admiration for DOGE.

Regarding this intriguing naming coincidence, there are various interpretations in the market: some speculate that this is Musk's clever arrangement to bridge the gap between the cryptocurrency market and the political stage; others believe this may be a prelude to reviving the heat of the DOGE market; of course, it could also be, as he himself said, just an interesting coincidence. What true intentions lie behind this dramatic naming event may only be revealed by time. But it is undeniable that this event once again highlights DOGE's unique position in cryptocurrency culture, as well as the intricate and inseparable relationship between Musk and DOGE.

The development history of DOGE perfectly showcases the duality of memes: on one hand, it created a financial miracle driven by ordinary internet users; on the other hand, it exposed the risk of such coins easily becoming speculative tools.

But what is admirable is that even when the entire meme market is sluggish in 2025, DOGE still maintains a trading volume of over 1 billion dollars every day, and its market cap remains firmly in the top ten. Moreover, its community activity still possesses astonishing vitality. I believe this advantage can always be transformed into market momentum at critical moments, which in turn nourishes itself, ultimately forming a virtuous cycle.

It must be admitted that this digital currency, originally created as a joke, has now become a unique and enduring presence in the world of cryptocurrencies.

Hibernation/Outburst(2017-2021)

In the past five years, the market has witnessed the transformation of memes from a fringe subculture to a mainstream financial asset. Marked by the popularization of the ERC-20 standard in 2017 as a technological turning point, and culminating in 2021 when SHIB set a historical market value, memes have undergone a qualitative change from "internet joke" to "phenomenal investment standard."

From a technical perspective, the maturity of smart contracts has completely restructured the issuance logic of memes. According to data on the Ethereum chain, most memes born between 2017 and 2021 chose to adopt the ERC-20 standard or rely on other protocols, reducing issuance costs to less than one-thousandth ( compared to the tens of thousands of dollars ) for independent chain development. This kind of technological democratization, akin to a double-edged sword, has spawned "ten thousand