The meme coin hype really has picked up again this wave. To be honest, two years ago I looked down on Dogecoin and all kinds of altcoins, convinced I had grasped the logic of how the financial market works. Later, as I watched these coins surge one after another, I was stunned. After thinking it through carefully, I finally understood: the consensus of fools is still consensus. Once that clicks, I actually became clear-headed. Instead of researching A-shares, it’s better to play memes in the crypto world—after all, it’s all speculation, but the space for imagination here is much bigger.

If you want to talk about the core elements of meme coins, you need narrative, sentiment, market cap, liquidity, marketing, sustainability, and super nodes—none of these can be missing. They can form positive feedback. This year is an American election year, and that alone is naturally rich story material—dark-horse projects keep popping up, and the room for imagination is huge. In the next six months, whoever is still paying attention to and trading election-concept ideas will definitely have more chances to make money than just waiting passively.

Of course, most meme hype carries extremely high risk. In essence, it has no real value—it can only be bought like a lottery ticket. The rise of meme coins is already full of uncertainty; it’s precisely this uncertainty that makes them most appealing. When someone leads the way, friends around them start to complain—how did something useless suddenly become everyone’s belief? Some people even say Bitcoin isn’t that big a deal, and meme coins are the true kings. But don’t forget: blockchain itself is a product of decentralization, and it was born to mess with the existing order. So there’s nothing wrong with meme coins’ strong momentum. Everyone who comes into this space is here to make money—whoever has the strongest effect, the money flows there. I’ve said it before: meme coins have already become mainstream.

Pepe recently broke to new highs, and there are several key factors. First, more and more internet celebrities are promoting PEPE on social media, and the discussion heat has stayed high. Second, users’ investment preferences do indeed lean toward “double highs” (high risk, high reward), which fits PEPE’s meme attributes perfectly. Add to that the FOMO caused by continuous upward moves, and it keeps drawing people to chase the price. Whale holdings are also increasing—what’s key is that the famous retail trader has recently become active again, directly igniting the market and breaking through the previous high in one go.

Why can meme coins be so strong? The key is complete circulation. In the entire altcoin ecosystem, complete circulation is the strongest attribute, because there’s no large post-launch unlock pressure. The mainstream projects we’re paying attention to now basically all face the risk of significant unlocks later. But meme coins are different: either they are fully unlocked from the start, or they are unlocked to more than 90% early on. Speaking of this, you have to mention WLD. As a leading project in the AI track, WLD has currently unlocked only 2%, with 98% still not released. Tell me—would such a coin have more upside potential or more downside risk? In contrast, meme coins: early on they’re at least unlocked more than 90%, and some even have 100% fully released. Under these conditions, everyone can compete on a fair playing field. The more you buy early, the more you earn—that logic is very strong.

When pepe fell, many people panicked, but that’s precisely the norm in the meme market. Still, the meme ecosystem is also doing some building now. In the past, the approach was to warm things up first, then release the white paper. Now it’s the other way around: launch first to gain attention. If the project later shows strong performance and the hype heats up, then consider ecosystem building and the white paper. This is completely the opposite of the paths of projects like ARB and OP—they start with a white paper and long-term goals first, and then launch. Meme takes the reverse approach, which makes people feel it’s more transparent and there aren’t as many shady dealings. That’s also the fundamental reason why people are willing to play meme now.