The Historical Evolution and Value Logic of Memes

Overview

This article systematically sorts out the development history of memes, revealing its unique value logic through typical case analysis: unlike traditional financial assets, the core value of memes is expressed as “cultural dissemination power × community consensus,” rather than relying solely on technology or practical value. Based on evolutionary characteristics, it can be divided into three key development stages:

Phase One: Breaking Ground/Foundation Laying (2013-2016) - Barbaric Growth, Filtering the Sands

• Ephemeral type: short-term popularity, lack of cultural accumulation, quick demise (such as Mooncoin, TIPS, Nyancoin)
• Ever-winning general type: cultural symbol + community-driven, long-term survival (e.g., DOGE)

Phase Two: Dormancy/Outburst (2017-2021) - The Era of Smart Contracts, memes Experience a Qualitative Change

• Meteor Shining Type: Speculation-driven, bubble bursts quickly (e.g., UET, HOGE)
• Stellar Everbright Type: Ecological Expansion, Breaking Limits (such as SHIB’s ShibaSwap)
• Transformational breakthrough: Attempting innovation, but progress is slow due to limiting factors (such as FLOKI’s metaverse blueprint, SAMO’s public chain binding)

Phase Three: Deposition/Reconstruction (2022-2025) - The Rise of New Narratives, Market Begins to Restructure

• Short-term speculation type: relies on hot topics, extremely high risk (e.g., political narrative craze)
• Ecosystem-driven: Relying on public chains, short-term explosion (such as WIF, BONK)
• Narrative innovation type: AI + Meme, concept hype, trust crisis (e.g., GOAT)
• Cultural symbol type: internet celebrity IP, short-term popularity (e.g., MOODENG)

Memes will continue to face the challenge of balancing “speculation and substance,” while technological innovations (such as AI and DeFAI) and community building will become key factors. Although the market is undergoing adjustments, as a typical product of the attention economy, memes will still maintain their unique position and influence in the cryptocurrency field.

Review history and trace the context

As one of the most unique existences in the cryptocurrency field, memes have both cultural attributes and financial characteristics. Reviewing the history of memes is also a review of the collision between internet culture and financial speculation.

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

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

Breaking Ground / Foundation Laying (2013-2016) - In the time of rapid growth, the pioneers bravely stand at the forefront; in the place where the waves wash away the sand, the disheartened quietly leave the stage.

This period witnessed the original innovation journey of memes from zero to one, showcasing a unique ecology where barbaric growth coexists with natural selection. Marked by the birth of DOGE in December 2013, and ending with the maturity of Ethereum smart contract technology in 2016, it constitutes the purest and most authentic “Genesis Era” in the history of memes.

From a technical perspective, with few exceptions, this stage of memes is almost entirely based on code forks of Bitcoin or Litecoin.

In terms of market performance, historical data shows that the average active period of memes born during this time is only 11.7 months, but survivors like DOGE demonstrate astonishing vitality.

In terms of historical significance, the foundational meaning of this stage cannot be underestimated. True innovation often arises when rules are not yet established, and the experimental field from 2013 to 2016 preserved the most precious rebellious genes and innovative spirit in the world of cryptocurrency.

Dormancy/Outburst (2017-2021) - Amid the ebb and flow of tides, the wise rise with the momentum; where the winds and clouds change, the powerful stumble and sink.

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 proliferation 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 jokes” to “phenomenal investment targets.”

From a technological perspective, the maturity of smart contracts has completely restructured the issuance logic of memes. According to data on the Ethereum chain, most of the memes born between 2017 and 2021 opted to adopt the ERC-20 standard or relied on other protocols, reducing the issuance cost to less than one-thousandth (compared to several tens of thousands of dollars for independent chain development). This technology democratization, akin to a double-edged sword, has spawned a frenzy of “everything can be a meme,” but has also laid the groundwork for homogenization competition.

At the same time, on the market narrative level, in December 2017, DOGE’s market capitalization first surpassed $1 billion, and during its peak in 2021, the overall daily trading volume of the meme coin sector exceeded $30 billion, accounting for 12.3% of the entire cryptocurrency market. It is worth noting that the meme coins born during this phase have seen a significant improvement in their life cycle compared to the previous period.

However, it should be noted that not all memes have a higher survival rate and a longer lifespan. Research shows that in 2020, meme projects experienced an average of deaths every month.

Throughout the entire history of cryptocurrency, the most profound change during this period has been the reconstruction of value perception. When DOGE was included in mainstream exchanges in 2021, and when the SHIB founder acted anonymously yet managed to leverage a market value of hundreds of billions, traditional finance had to re-examine the essence of memes — as revealed in research reports: “The value capture mechanism of assets like Dogecoin essentially converts network attention into liquidity premiums.” This shift in perception laid a crucial foundation for the subsequent social finance experiments of the Web3 era.

###沉淀/重构（2022-2025）- When the great waves crash, the true gold begins to show its color; in the era of great contention, the pattern becomes clear.

Since 2022, the meme market has begun a deep adjustment from frenzy to rationality. Marked by the collapse of Terra in May 2022 and the rise of the BRC-20 standard in 2023, the meme ecosystem is undergoing a brutal yet necessary value reassessment.

According to statistics, the overall market value of memes shrank by 82% in 2022, but the leading projects DOGE and SHIB still maintained their rankings in the top 20 by market value. Another report pointed out that “97% of meme coins have died,” and further stated: “Different blockchain platforms show different death rates for meme coins. Base leads with a death rate of 66.91%, followed by Solana at 54.03% and Ethereum at 36.59%.”

Even so, we cannot underestimate the future of memes. The cryptocurrency market has always been full of variables, and memes, as a particularly distinctive type within it, are even harder to measure with conventional perspectives.

As a digital asset leader stated: “After 2023, meme projects that can still secure financing must prove their ability to capture long-term value beyond simple speculation.” Meme coins that can transcend cycles will ultimately become key bridges connecting the crypto world with popular culture.

Chunking and digging deep into key details

Breaking Ground/Foundation (2013-2016)

The coins in this stage can be roughly divided into several categories based on their lifecycle, community activity, market capitalization changes, and other aspects:

Ephemeral

In the rapidly evolving ecosystem of cryptocurrency, driven by innovation, projects that lack sustained vitality are destined to be mere fleeting visitors. They may attract market attention during specific periods, but ultimately find it difficult to escape the fate of being a “flash in the pan.” Although they may shine brightly when they bloom, it is challenging to maintain that level of enthusiasm for long.

Mooncoin - An Unfinished “Moon Landing” Dream

As a meme coin with the slogan “To the Moon”, its somewhat short life could not carry the ambition of this grand narrative. As an analysis stated in 2015: “Mooncoin has no practical use related to space or moon landing, aside from its name.”

Looking back at its trajectory from 2014 to 2018 (its last GitHub commit was v1.8.0 in 2018, which almost marked the eventual demise of the project), mooncoin’s initial performance was quite impressive: in its first year of launch, it set a record of more than 300% growth in a single day; The number of discussions in the Reddit community exceeded 5,000 posts in a single month; Partnering with gaming platforms; It has even been called “the most serious joke coin”.

However, the highlights were followed by a long silence: in 2015, the removal of mainstream trading platforms caused the market value to fall by more than 90%; The following year, members of the anonymous development team announced “indefinite hibernation”; It wasn’t until 2018 that the project ushered in a brief comeback - but this was not due to its own breakthrough, but due to two external factors: first, the overall recovery of the cryptocurrency market; Second, the space exploration craze has rekindled the “To the Moon” online meme, and spoof videos made by community members have unexpectedly brought traffic.

Unfortunately, Mooncoin failed to seize this final opportunity. The development team claimed to be creating a “Lunar Base” metaverse game, but in the end, the white paper never materialized, and the so-called “metaverse game” was merely a demonstration video. After that, with the market crash in April 2018, Mooncoin completely faded from the stage. As a report summarized: “This brief resurgence confirmed the harsh law of memes - projects lacking cultural accumulation find that any technological updates are merely life support.”

Fedoracoin (TIPS) - A niche “gentleman” recognition

FedoraCoin (TIPS) was born on December 22, 2013, and its core is not for the mass market, but precisely targeting the “Fedora-wearing neckbeard” subculture on Reddit. This highly vertical positioning made it quickly popular in a specific community in the early days, but it also buried the hidden danger of limited subsequent development.

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

However, the good times did not last long, and TIPS soon 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 gradually delisted TIPS, its liquidity experienced a steep decline. The product’s initial positioning to serve a specific subcultural group is evident; while this approach accurately matched the target users, its niche attribute 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 experienced a brief surge. Unfortunately, like mooncoin, TIPS was unable to take this opportunity to turn around.

During the period from 2014 to 2016, FedoraCoin gradually lost market attention. By the end of 2018, the TIPS GitHub repository stopped at version v1.8.0, with the last on-chain transaction record remaining in November. In 2019, this once-prominent project was officially listed on the “dead list.”

What it leaves to the crypto world is not only a vivid case of subcultural experimentation but also a mirror reflecting the essence of memes.

Nyancoin - A brief “rainbow” light and shadow

As the second meme coin following DOGE, Nyancoin, which was released on January 6, 2014, acquired the unique identity of “the first officially licensed cryptocurrency in history” within a month of its launch, but it lagged 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 “Nyan Cat” meme that Nyancoin is based on lacks the widespread reach and cultural penetration of the DOGE “Shiba Inu” Doge meme—most people may have never seen the Nyan Cat before encountering these two cryptocurrencies, but almost everyone has had their screen flooded by that charmingly expressive 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 multidimensional application ecosystem covering payment, tipping, charity, and more, while the application scenarios for Nyancoin are relatively singular, primarily used for trading.

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 weakens community enthusiasm—ultimately leads to Nyancoin’s gradual decline.

The Nyancoin community has only 1.5k subscribers, and the last active post dates back two years ago. This community fracture 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 the lack of liquidity gradually resulted in its delisting from exchanges. The case of Nyancoin is enough to demonstrate a brutal market law: in the era of attention economy, the endorsement of top IPs often plays a more decisive role than the project’s own technical characteristics.

Ever-winning General type

Dogecoin (DOGE) - An unexpected “grassroots celebration”

Dogecoin, born on December 6, 2013, was originally a parody of the Bitcoin craze created by programmers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, but it unexpectedly evolved into one of the most enduring phenomenon memes in the history of cryptocurrency. Its iconic Shiba Inu image comes from the “Doge” meme that became popular on the internet in 2013, and this inherently high-profile internet IP allowed it to quickly go viral 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 mocking way.

Looking back at the several peaks in DOGE’s market value, it soared to $10 billion in early 2021 due to a retail investment frenzy and strong community support; in May of the same year, bolstered by its number one fan Elon Musk’s continuous promotion on social media and the effect of the “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) program, DOGE’s market value reached $80 billion.

In the following years, although the popularity and price of DOGE have both declined and even entered a downward trend, the overall market trend has remained relatively stable, and it has still maintained a certain influence and popularity in the cryptocurrency field. Until November 12, 2024, when Trump announced that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would jointly lead the newly established “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), aimed at reducing government spending. However, the official abbreviation of this new department, “DOGE,” is identical to the code for Dogecoin, which sparked heated discussions in the crypto community. Although Musk later clarified that there is no connection between the two, given his consistent style and long-standing admiration for DOGE, the outside world generally believes that this abbreviation choice is by no means a coincidence.

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 could be a prelude to reviving the DOGE market heat; of course, it could also be, as he himself stated, just an interesting coincidence. What true intentions are hidden behind this dramatic naming event may only be revealed with time. However, it is undeniable that this incident once again highlights DOGE’s unique position in cryptocurrency culture, as well as the complicated and intricate 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 revealed the risk of such coins becoming speculative tools.

But what is admirable is that even in times of market downturn, DOGE still maintains a trading volume of over $1 billion daily, and its market cap remains firmly in the top ten. Moreover, its community’s activity still possesses astonishing vitality, and I believe this advantage can always be transformed into market momentum at critical moments, which in turn feeds back to create a virtuous cycle.

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

Although the meme coins of this period exhibited two distinct lifecycles and survival states, it is undeniable that they each had their own glorious moments. Despite the former’s market performance perhaps not being grand and its recognition far less than that of the latter, in retrospect, these projects have still left a vivid mark in the timeline of meme coin development, becoming important milestones in witnessing the evolution of meme coin culture. Their rise and fall not only reflect the market’s ongoing exploration of the meme coin model but also provide valuable lessons for future generations, leaving their unique imprint on the development landscape of cryptocurrencies.

Hibernation/Outbreak (2017-2021)

After entering 2017, memes began to shift from being purely joke coins to more complex ecological developments. Some projects attempted to integrate new concepts such as DeFi and NFTs, but they still primarily focused on speculation and community-driven initiatives. Based on the classification criteria mentioned earlier, the coins in this phase can be categorized into the following types:

Meteor Shining Type

Similar to the previous “ephemeral type”, they share almost the same development trajectory and historical direction – a brief explosion followed by a rapid decline, disappearing like a shooting star. These types of coins usually rely on speculative emotions and short-term peaks of popularity, rather than actual applications or community consensus.

Useless Ethereum Token (UET, 2017)

As the most honest scam in the history of cryptocurrency, UET was launched by the developer “UselessEthereumToken” (anonymous) on June 17, 2017, during the height of the ICO (Initial Coin Offering) bubble, and directly stated on its official website: “This is a worthless token, buying it is a waste of money.”

Is this really a reverse marketing strategy or an art-style financing? The UET project team openly admits that the token has no functions, no team, no roadmap, and even the official website FAQ states: “Why should I buy this token? — You don’t need to.”

Its logo also deepens the irony, challenging the norm and breaking the existence of established theorems, truly bringing an interesting crossroads to the field of cryptocurrency.

So unabashedly showcasing its “uselessness,” UET still raised 310 ETH (approximately $93,000 at the time) within 48 hours, becoming one of the most absurd ICO cases in history.

When it comes to its token mechanism, it is an overt “self-destructive” design. It can be said to fully implement 100% honest economics, with a total supply of UET fixed at 1 billion, no inflation, and no destruction. All the raised ETH is transferred to the developer’s address, with no promised usage. At the same time, its zero-technical packaging and the Easter eggs on the official website constantly reinforce the absurdity of this dramatic effect: technically based on the most basic ERC-20 standard, with no smart contract functionality, and even no transfer restrictions opened.

Although UET’s blatant attitude is shocking, the market reaction has not been entirely negative. UET found its “soulmate” in the market and gained a group of followers. In the early days of its launch, some exchanges listed UET out of curiosity, causing the price to surge by 800% for a short time. Some netizens even initiated the “UET Challenge” - to see who can convince others to take over with the most ridiculous reason.

But soon, after a short period of speculation, UET also ushered in its own crises and problems. First, in early 2018, some security researchers discovered a fatal vulnerability in the UET smart contract, and since then the vulnerability has been exploited, and the price of UET has plummeted and the market value has evaporated. After the bear market in 2018, UET liquidity dried up and was eventually marked as a “lapsed item” in 2020.

This absurd success seems to confirm the irrational characteristics of the crypto market—despite UET’s clear self-denial, the market is still willing to pay for a vacuous narrative. When “worthless” can become a selling point, the frenzy in this field has only just begun.

Hoge Finance (HOGE, 2021) - A community-driven deflationary experiment

Born on the Ethereum blockchain in 2021, HOGE’s core positioning is not to achieve disruptive new technology, but to build a unique token economy through a deflationary model and community governance. Each transaction automatically destroys 1% of the tokens while distributing 1% to the holders, attempting to drive value growth through scarcity. This design has indeed attracted a large number of retail investors, making it one of the most active community tokens in the short term.

Unlike other cryptocurrencies, HOGE emphasizes and implements the concept and methods of “decentralization,” allowing community members to vote on the direction of project development. This unique community-driven approach propels rapid community growth and has garnered sufficient attention for HOGE in the cryptocurrency market. At the same time, similar to what DOGE has done, HOGE is also passionate about charitable causes and is committed to funding animal welfare projects, which has once again gained it considerable popularity and support. This popularity and support are directly reflected in the data, as the discussion of HOGE remains active on major cryptocurrency forums and social media platforms.

However, similar to other projects of its kind, HOGE’s bottlenecks quickly became apparent: despite a strong start, the lack of actual application scenarios led to its long-term reliance on speculative sentiment, ultimately failing to break through as a memes.