Meme Coin Craze: The Evolution from DOGE to KUSDT

In the recently released movie "All In", some elements from the cryptocurrency world appeared, among which "Keta Coin" drew market attention. With the release of the movie, the eponymous Keta Coin was quickly issued and traded on multiple blockchains. Data shows that the price of Keta Coin skyrocketed over 3000 times during the movie's screening period, but soon fell back to its original point. This phenomenon is actually not rare and is referred to as "Meme coin" in the cryptocurrency field.

Meme originally comes from Richard Dawkins' 1976 book "The Selfish Gene," referring to cultural factors that can spread at the level of human thought. In the internet age, Memes typically manifest as satirical images or memes that carry interesting information and are easy to spread. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is a staunch supporter of meme culture, often posting exaggerated statements on social media.

The most famous case of the combination of memes and cryptocurrency is DOGE. In 2013, Jackson Palmer combined the Doge Meme with cryptocurrency to satirize the hype around cryptocurrencies, creating DOGE. Software engineer Billy Markus then implemented it into code. DOGE quickly rose to prominence through social media, and at the end of 2020, Musk began to champion it. In May 2021, DOGE reached a peak of $0.74.

The success of DOGE has led to the emergence of a large number of Meme coins. Early Meme coins were often based on the secondary creation of internet cultural materials, such as Pepe Cash derived from Pepe the Frog. Later, Meme coins began to adopt grander narratives, such as BAT(Basic Attention Token). In 2021, with the DeFi craze and Musk's promotion, "animal-themed" Meme coins like DOGE and Shib became extremely popular.

Recently, the Meme coin market has seen a small resurgence. ArbDoge AI combines AI and DOGE elements, while Pepe has become a dark horse, with a significant increase in trading volume and the number of holders. The BRC-20 standard of the Bitcoin ecosystem has also seen a Pepe version, which sparked considerable discussion.

However, the current Meme coins have deviated from their original cultural dissemination meaning and have become more of a speculative tool. Many projects lack the motivation for long-term maintenance, and the anonymity of the teams leads to a lack of accountability. Taking BALD on the Base chain as an example, the severe price fluctuations may be due to market manipulation.

Nevertheless, Meme coins will still be closely linked to the cryptocurrency market. For investors, it may be wiser to treat such high-risk assets with caution in the current market environment. The future development of Meme coins deserves continued attention, but potential risks should also be heeded.