From Memecoin to Lambo: The Alpha So Far

16.09.2024

Vlad Svitanko

16 min

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The world of crypto in 2024 has been anything but predictable, with new trends emerging that blend culture, speculation, and technology in unexpected ways.

Amid this rapid evolution, a particular market segment has consistently captured the attention of opportunity-seekers and whales (high-net-worth investors and traders), driven by community movements and shifting dynamics.

So, let’s plunge into the state of memecoins, shall we?

That is if you follow the golden rule of this space: play it smart by doing your own thorough research, avoiding shady influencers, diversifying, and getting in early—really early.

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The memecoin sector of the crypto market in 2024 has been a rollercoaster ride—typical for one of the most notorious generational-wealth-opportunity-yielding trading/do-it-for-the-culture niches.

While major titles like $DOGE and $SHIB would eventually move up in tandem with massive memecoin hype spikes of this year, their positions have continued to diminish, with the spotlight predominantly locked on an increasingly greater number of newly-launched memecoins—we’re talking millions and millions of them facilitated by user-friendly launchpads like Pump.fun on Solana and its alternatives—ranging from quick rugs (manifesting rug-proof vibes for all our DOers out there) to the arguably best-performing 2024 crypto assets.

$NEIRO on Ethereum became top-25 meme in September | Source: $NEIRO X Account.

Iggy Azalea’s X account sported a PFP NFT from the top Solana collection, Mad Lads, for a while, boosting the collection’s price and earning her recognition from the crypto community.

Political-themed memecoins, or ‘PolitiFi tokens,’ have skyrocketed in popularity, outperforming traditional memes with an impressive 782.4% average gain.

ConstitutionDAO ($PEOPLE), MAGA-related, and newly Harris campaign-themed tokens are notable examples, each experiencing significant growth due to their connections with U.S. political events full of speculation and predictions/betting.

Iggy Azalea is hosting her $MOTHER-dominated TOKEN2049 MotherLand Rodeo Party side event, with the rapper-turned-crypto-KOL’s token slowly but steadily creeping back up.

What follows? We’ll see on and beyond September 20.

$TREMP PolitiFi token on Solana, surged off bullish Trump news.

Source: CoinGecko Research

While most celebrity coins launched this year have, unfortunately, turned out to be cash-grab schemes by scammers—like the notorious Sahil Arora, who exploited unsuspecting celebrities, their fanbases, and crypto degens alike—one standout is $MOTHER, a coin by Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, which has set itself apart as an exemplary success.

It gained significant attention due to the rapper’s active promotion. Despite starting with minimal utility, $MOTHER soared in value, jumping from $0.01 to over $0.24 shortly after its release.

Despite this, the broader category of memeable tokens has seen more modest year-to-date growth, averaging 90.2%, as it faces increased saturation and liquidity challenges.

Major players like $PEPE and $BONK have struggled, with some memes experiencing significant declines amidst market fatigue and rug-pull scandals.

That said, $PEPE briefly hit a new all-time high on May 14, 2024, jumping 23% and even surpassing the entire Solana blockchain’s 24-hour trading volume for a moment.

Solana, Ethereum, and the fresh-to-the-game TON blockchain continue to be the main platforms where prominent memecoin projects are born.

Meanwhile, the TRON blockchain has unexpectedly emerged as another hub for meme trading, spurred in part by the launch of SunPump, inspired by Solana’s Pump.fun.

On July 24, the Save team announced the upcoming launch of Dumpy.fun to the surprise of many, somewhat shaking up the Solana memecoin market’s moonshot mindset with a unique platform that let users profit from shorting memes.

Starting on August 20 with dumpy.fun’s open beta, users can short coins without holding them, borrowing assets through Save and selling them on the market. If the coin's value drops, they can buy it back at a lower price and pocket the difference. This process is automated, combining lending and trading features across platforms like Jupiter.

The platform also includes a Squeeze Explorer that shows current short positions, encouraging market makers to push up prices and create short squeezes. The battle between longs and shorts intensifies into a PvP experience.

The meme market is still highly speculative and susceptible to price manipulation, with PolitiFi tokens like Restore the Republic ($RTR) illustrating how misinformation and social media hype can create dramatic, short-lived price surges.

As a result, the memecoin space remains both a high-risk and high-reward sector of the crypto ecosystem, with both unpredictable and now more real-world-event-driven swings driven by community sentiment, celebrity endorsements, and political developments.

While Solana and TON dominated the memecoin market in early 2024, TRON has rapidly emerged as a new favorite. Key events that, in our opinion, most likely contributed to this shift: the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov spawned fears about the TON ecosystem hype dying, and Solana’s meme market faced scandals, overall memecoin fatigue, and dispersed liquidity.

This created an opening that TRON quickly filled.

Well-known since its 2017 launch and recently labeled as primarily a $USDT blockchain, TRON has reasserted its name on the crypto stage by sparking its own memeable rush.

With the introduction of the launchpad platform SunPump and the premier TRON meme projects like $SUNDOG and $SUNCAT it helped kickstart, TRON has seen a surge of activity and a full-blown migration of memecoin enthusiasts to the chain.

Grinning Justin Sun, the TRON founder | Source: CoinDesk

TRON's rise in the meme market can be attributed to several key factors:

• SunPump's Role Launched on August 13, SunPump enabled easy token minting, leading to the creation of over 50,000 tokens in just 11 days.

• Justin Sun’s Influence Founder Justin Sun has been pivotal in TRON’s ascent, launching initiatives like the $10 million Meme Ecosystem Boost Incentive Program, attracting liquidity and interest to the network, and strengthening TRON's position in the memecoin market.

• Solana’s PumpFun Scandals and MEV Issues Solana's memecoin market has faced some upsetting issues, including serial rug pulls by malicious actors such as the self-proclaimed rugger 0x__Phantom. He made over $200k by using Pump.fun and DogWifTools to mass dump on buyers, severely dampening enthusiasm for seeking 100x opportunities on Solana.

Combined with ongoing MEV issues, this led to a decline in Solana's memecoin activity, allowing TRON to attract degens looking for greener pastures.

• TRON's Native MEV Prevention

According to Justin Sun, TRON's technology nips MEV (Miner Extractable Value) bot attacks in the bud, boosting retail trading confidence.

This built-in protection allows retail investors to trade freely on SunPump without the risk of MEV attacks, making TRON an attractive option for memecoin traders seeking security and fairness.

The SunPump meme craze initially pushed $TRX over 30% and briefly into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, reaching a high of $0.1594 per coin on August 21—the highest since April 2021—with a 121% spike in daily trading volume.

Currently, activity has somewhat slowed, and the token's price shows signs of caution, with indicators suggesting potential overbought conditions. Whether $TRX remains strong may largely depend on TRON’s memecoin activity in the days to come.

Seeing over 7,500 tokens launched in a single day and generating over $1.1 million in revenue in its first two weeks, SunPump saw a drop in activity later on.

Total number of tokens created on the SunPump launchpad | Source: Dune Analytics

By early September, daily token launches dropped significantly, and $TRX momentum, TRON’s native coin, kind of halted for now.

Despite the dip in SunPump activity, the biggest memecoins on TRON continue to thrive. Tokens like $SUNDOG and $SUNCAT have gained significant traction, with $SUNDOG reaching a market cap of $200 million in just four days.

Source: CoinMarketCap

A whale recently withdrew $2 million in $TRX from Binance and made a substantial purchase of 3.52 million $SUNDOG tokens.

This move coincides with a surge in $SUNDOG’s open interest, which has jumped 50% in the 24 hours after then further 15.6%.

These tokens provide hope for TRON’s memecoin market, suggesting that while the initial wave may have subsided, there is still room for growth and innovation in the space.

If you’d like to bet on the now ‘blue-chip’ TRON memecoins like $SUNDOG or $SUNCAT, the process is pretty straightforward and similar to that on Solana and the others:

1. Set Up Your Wallet
Download the TronLink extension or app, create a wallet (or enter your seed phrase for an existing one).

2. Fund Your Address
Transfer some $TRX to your TRON address (you can get some on Binance) or trade your existing crypto for $TRX, then transfer it to your address.

3. Go to Key TRON DEX
Enter SunPump to discover new token launches and buy existing ones.

SunPump Interface

4. Monitor Your Bets
Remember to utilize tools like DEX Screener to track the performances of your memecoins and do some TA (technical analysis).

DEX Screener Interface

5. Use Bots and Tools
There are handy tools launched in the TRON ecosystem already, similar to those on top memecoin chains like Solana, Ethereum, and TON.

For example, the BullX TRON helps you make quick purchases from a funded wallet and provides trading insights as well as whale tracking.

BullX.io Interface

BullX TRON is still in its closed phase, but access codes are readily available with a Google search.

1. Community Takeovers

In 2024, the memecoin frenzy was often marked by community takeovers.

Projects like $BILLY and $GIGA saw massive success, each valued in the tens and even hundreds of $ millions at one point, after early investors stepped in when the original developers disappeared.

These takeovers resulted in significant price surges, but legal experts are raising concerns about the risks involved as communities assume control of these abandoned projects.


2. Liquidity Concerns

Some crypto thinkers are worried that memecoins are draining liquidity from the broader market, potentially stalling the current bull run.

Memecoins, with their attention-grabbing nature, seem to be absorbing a lot of the market’s energy—and where attention goes, money flows.

Despite the overall decline of major players like $DOGE, $SHIB, and even $PEPE, new memecoins have flooded the market, driven by political themes, celebrity involvement, and user-friendly community token launchpads like Pump.fun and all its disciples.

While major meme-hosting blockchains such as Solana, Ethereum, TON, and now TRON have played significant roles in shaping the space, the volatility, fueled by speculation and price manipulation, remains a defining characteristic. The memecoin market reflects the intersection of culture, technology, and finance, where community sentiment and real-world events continue to dictate fortunes.

In conclusion, the memecoin ecosystem exemplifies the fast-paced and speculative nature of crypto, underscoring the importance of navigating with caution while recognizing the opportunities it presents for innovation and cultural impact.

As the market matures, the line between entertainment, politics, and finance blurs, suggesting that memecoins may increasingly influence broader societal and financial trends.

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