The era of 2025's "撸毛" differentiation: stable income becomes the new baseline, and premium accounts are the new shortcut

2025 is coming to an end. Looking back at this year’s crypto market, the meme coin sector has experienced a clear shift from “全民淘金” (全民淘金) to “分化冷却” (differentiation and cooling). Big meme coins disappeared, small ones shrank, and “being reverse-shilled” appeared frequently. The era when participating casually could yield profits has long gone.

This is not the decline of the sector, but rather the market entering a new reshuffling cycle.

The cliff-like decline of meme coin profits: behind the collective retreat of studios

From the past “even basic team salaries can be guaranteed” to now “even claiming airdrops’ Gas fees are more expensive than coins,” this contrast most directly reflects the changes this year.

Once, over 10% unvested airdrop incentives, now shrunk to 2-3%, still requiring phased unlocking. Single accounts’ earnings, which used to be dozens or even hundreds of dollars, have fallen to just a few dollars, directly hitting the survival line of studios.

Many larger meme coin studios face a three-way dilemma: either shut down directly, switch to more stable businesses like cross-border e-commerce, or barely maintain basic operations through “certain airdrops.” However, as the value of airdrop tokens continued to weaken in November, a second round of mass exit has become almost inevitable.

More ironically, some studios’ biggest profit sources are not tokens from airdrops but shifting to other asset allocations. This phenomenon itself indicates a problem: when meme coin main business cannot be sustained, studios have to find other outlets.

The absence of copycat market trends: the fundamental reason for meme coin profits

The value of airdrop tokens has never been determined by the tokens themselves but by the liquidity distribution of the entire crypto market.

In 2025, the crypto market has fallen into a prolonged BTC dominance pattern. According to on-chain data, BTC’s market cap share once hit a record high of 63%. What does this mean? It means liquidity no longer overflows, altcoins cannot rotate, and new projects find it harder to gain momentum.

When liquidity is concentrated in BTC, newly launched projects generally open with low market caps. The glory days of ARB, STARK airdrops opening with $10-20 billion FDV are history; now many projects can only start with a few hundred million or tens of millions of FDV. Lack of imagination in price means that the airdrop at opening is already worthless.

Worse, even if the opening valuation isn’t high, it’s hard to expect a “price rebound.” After launch, a large amount of “market manipulation” ruthlessly dumps, with daily halving, crashes over 80%, and prices falling steadily after an initial spike… These scenes are repeatedly played out. Many veteran meme coin traders have summarized an iron law: “Sell when you get it” is the way to go, because 90% of altcoins are doomed to zero.

The initial investment in Gas fees, time, and resources may ultimately result in a worthless paper—this is the biggest pain point of meme coin trading today.

Meme coin evolution: from single-mode to diversified strategies

Although overall profits have declined, meme coin strategies are quietly diversifying. No longer just participating in testnet interactions or刷主网交易量 (刷主网交易量), but forming multiple niche directions.

Content points era: “嘴撸” (mouth-shilling) rises

The biggest innovation is the emergence of “content financialization.” Kaito’s “Yap-to-Earn” mechanism allows posting to earn airdrops, followed by platforms like Cookie, Galxe, which also launched similar mechanisms—analyzing projects, writing reviews, and accumulating influence to earn tokens.

What has this changed? The past tedious work of “multi-account scripting and desperately engaging in interactions,” often cut short by the witch system, was a waste of effort. The “mouth-shilling” era lowers the participation threshold— a high-quality social media post with viewpoints and analysis can generate value even higher than a week of on-chain interactions.

Essentially, this is an upgrade of the meme coin model—from physical effort to mental effort.

New coin launch mechanisms: arbitrage at opening window

Although most new coins this year are “high open, low go,” projects with high social media discussion and large funding rounds can still achieve impressive gains through new coin launches.

The logic is simple: such high-funding projects will be heavily promoted before and after TGE, with many KOLs pushing collectively, rapidly boosting market enthusiasm in a short period. The higher the sentiment, the easier it is to form liquidity surges at opening, and initial pricing is significantly elevated.

As long as you seize the opening window, meme traders don’t need to bet on the sector or gamble on long-term holding—they can enjoy this wave of “short-term premiums.” For example, five projects launched this year on a certain new coin platform generally yielded 2-5x immediate returns after TGE, with some even exceeding 10x.

The emergence of such opportunities is essentially market sentiment arbitrage— fully leveraging the peak of hype before opening, then exiting at the highest emotional point.

Stablecoin yield farming: the foundation of meme coin trading

This is the most easily overlooked part but also the most capable of ensuring “survival.”

The core of meme coin trading has never been risk-taking but securing deterministic chips at low wear and tear. Holding stablecoins, mining, claiming airdrops—these are also meme coin strategies because they are simple, low-risk, and nearly zero wear.

In August this year, a certain exchange launched USDC savings activity with a limit of $100,000 per account and an annualized rate of up to 12%—a typical example of “high yield, low risk.” Similar products with stable annualized yields around 10% are worth allocating some funds to.

They are not side branches but the foundation of long-term meme coin trading—only by steadily growing funds and maintaining the basic position can one avoid being drained in a cold market and have “ammunition” in a hot market.

It is also worth mentioning the so-called “head mining” window. After mainnet launches of mainstream projects like Plasma and Monad, token airdrops are available. These head mining windows are short-lived but often offer annualized yields of 30-40%, making them lucrative dividends not to be missed.

Meme coin strategies for 2026

2025 has taught us one thing: meme coin trading is resilient but requires refinement.

While honing quality accounts, content points are still worth participating in—this is the future direction; for new coin launches, continue to select projects with “high funding, high oversubscription, high discussion.” For stablecoin yield farming, keep seeking quality targets to maintain steady profits across different markets.

Compared to the past “any meme coin makes money,” current meme coin trading demands better judgment, patience, and execution. Luck always exists, but those who truly survive and continue to accumulate wealth are those who understand persistence, learning, and rhythm.

Markets will eventually warm up, and altcoins will rotate again. Until then, stable cash flow and well-crafted quality accounts are the most solid weapons for every meme coin trader.