jakiro
Meme coins are undoubtedly the most eye-catching and confusing phenomenon among cryptocurrencies.From the SHIB, a 100 billion empire produced by a Japanese Shiba Inu emoticon package, to Dogecoins that were popular with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, these tokens that originated from jokes and flourished in the community, with their violent rise and fall and huge wealth effects, are constantly impacting the values of the traditional financial world.
Are they worthless digital bubbles, or do they represent a completely new asset class?We might as well place it in front of the mirror image of traditional finance and conduct an in-depth role deconstruction.We will find that Meme coins are not a single role, but a mixture and amplification of multiple marginalized or suppressed roles in the traditional financial world. It is not only the ultimate release of speculative desires, but also the financialized totem of social culture, and may also be a “ghost mirror” that examines the essence of modern finance.
1. Market level: “High-risk lottery” and “sincere stocks or junk bonds”
From the perspective of traditional finance, Meme coins are far from the “value investment” tools (such as blue-chip stocks and treasury bonds) that ordinary investors are exposed to in traditional finance. Its most accurate counterparts are lottery and casino chips.
High-risk lottery or “casino chips”.The essence of traditional lottery is that the buyer pays a certain, small loss (the amount of lottery purchase) and wins a possibility that the probability of being extremely low but the return is extremely high.Meme coins follow this logic completely.The vast majority of buyers are not based on analysis of their underlying technologies, application scenarios, or discounted cash flows – because these do not exist in most Meme coins at all.Their investment decisions stem from a simple belief that there will be the next “silly” person who will take over from themselves at a higher price.This is the perfect interpretation of the famous “Boshi’s theory” in financial history in the digital age.
Unlike traditional lottery,The “drawing” of Meme coins is not a certain time point, but a continuous process.The process is triggered by a hot topic on social media, a call from an influencer, or a sudden community carnival.Its price chart is no longer a reflection of corporate fundamentals, but a real-time electrocardiogram of group emotions.The instant surge of 500% and the instantaneous “ankle slash” story alternately staged, forming the daily life of this large-scale online gambling.
Highly speculative “phenomenon stocks” and “junk debts”.Some people may compare it with the “phenomenon stocks” or “junk debt” in the traditional financial market.Indeed, they share the characteristics of “high risk, high potential reward”.However, the risk dimensions of Meme coins are more complex and extreme.“Personal Stocks”At least there is a legal entity behind it, owning assets, businesses (no matter how weak), and being bound by securities regulators.Although its price manipulation exists, it is still within a certain legal framework.“Junk Debt”Although there is a high risk of default, its pricing is still based on the issuer’s credit rating, asset mortgage and future cash flow expectations, and there is a relatively mature analysis system.
Most of Meme coins are created on decentralized networks, with no actual controllers and no business revenue. Their smart contracts may hide loopholes, and the founder team can be anonymous.What’s even more terrifying is that the “pull the carpet” runs away, that is, the developer suddenly withdraws funds from the liquidity pool, causing the token value to be instantly zeroed.This superposition of systemic risks makesMeme coins have a risk rating far exceeding any approximate in its traditional finance, and it pushes speculativeness to unprecedented heights.
2. Cultural level: “Ceo Stocks” and “Social Currency”
If Meme coins were just a gamble, they might not have such tenacious vitality.Its deeper magic is that it successfully transforms financial instruments into cultural symbols and social admission tickets.In this regard, its best analogy is the GME stock in the 2021 “Game Station Event” and promotes its cultural attributes.
Communityization and identity of financial behavior.The core of the GameStop incident that year was that retail investors on the Reddit forum WallStreetBets, who successfully “sniped” Wall Street hedge funds by collectively buying GME stocks that were shorted by institutions.In this process, GME stocks are no longer simple equity investment certificates, they have become a “flag” and a “faith”, and are the “weapon” of grassroots retail investors to fight against the financial elite system.Holding GME became an identity declaration: “I am a member of the WSB community, and I stand opposite to Wall Street.”
Meme coins have pushed this social financial behavior to a new peak.Holding Dogecoin means you agree with its bantering slogan of “the people’s currency”, understand its origins in the 2013 altcoin “meme” that mocked Bitcoin, and join a global, humorous community movement.Shiba Inu Coin has built a huge “SHIB Army” to strengthen the holder’s sense of belonging and mission through complex ecosystem narratives and burning and deflation mechanisms.Here, investment is no longer cold data analysis, but warm identity and community co-building.
Accumulation and monetization of “social capital”.In the age of social media, attention is the scariest resource.The essence of Meme coins is to financially encapsulate collective attention.A successful Meme coin is a cultural gene that can reproduce and spread virally.The early behavior of discovering and spreading a certain Meme currency may not only bring financial returns, but also accumulate considerable “social capital” in the community – you are regarded as a visionary “prophet” or an interesting “meme king”.
This kind of social capital can even act in reverse on its financial value.The secondary creations, emoticon packages, and topic hype of community members are injecting “cultural valuation” into this token for free.Therefore, the value cycle of Meme coins is: community culture creates attention -> Attention attracts capital inflows -> Price rise strengthens community beliefs -> Beliefs give birth to more cultural outputs.This is a bottom-up value creation model that is almost unimaginable in traditional finance.
3. Behavioral level: “emotional value” and “speculative bubble”
Throughout the history of finance, Meme coins are not unprecedented monsters. They are just the latest embodiment of the speculative bubble that has resumed in human history in the digital age.Comparing it with the Dutch tulip fanaticism, the South China Sea bubble incident and the Internet bubble, we can clearly see the amazing similarities in history.
Narrative-driven value.The core of all speculative bubbles is that “narrative” replaces “fundamentality” and becomes the core of pricing.In the 17th century Netherlands, the value of tulips was separated from its ornamentality as a flower and was driven by the narrative of “rare, unique, and symbolic status”. A “forever Augustus” bulb can be exchanged for a luxury house.In the Internet bubble in the early 21st century, the value of a company is no longer determined by its profitability and cash flow, but is based on a grand narrative of “click volume”, “user growth” and “new economic model”.
Today’s Meme coins are valued entirely based on the narrative of “community power”, “cultural symbols” and “rebellious spirit”.A tweet from Elon Musk, whose influence is far greater than any financial report.This reveals an eternal bottom of human nature in the financial market: people will always be attracted by a beautiful story and dream of getting rich quickly.
Afraid of missing out.In every bubble, “fear of missing out” is the core fuel that drives irrational price rises.When you see people around you get rich overnight by buying a certain Meme coin, rational thinking often gives way to a strong sense of anxiety.This sentiment is infinitely amplified in the cryptocurrency market where global transactions are 7×24 hours, information travels at the speed of light.
At the same time, every era will find a rational explanation for its own bubble that is “different this time”.During the tulip fanatic period, people believed that the demand for beauty was infinite; during the Internet bubble, people believed that the traditional valuation model had completely failed; while in the Meme coin frenzy, believers shouted “Community is value” and “decentralization changes everything.”However, history has repeatedly proved that when music stops and narrative goes bankrupt, the law of gravity will eventually work, and the price will return to its intrinsic value – for the vast majority of Meme coins, this value is infinitely close to zero.
4. Beyond the boundaries of traditional finance
Although we have found many analogies, Meme coins are not a simple copy of traditional characters.Through blockchain technology, it has achieved the deconstruction and transcendence of traditional financial models, showing its unique characteristics.
The low threshold and no accessibility of issuance.In the traditional world, issuing stocks or bonds requires tedious legal procedures, investment bank underwriting and regulatory approval, with extremely high thresholds.In the cryptocurrency world, anyone can create and issue their own Meme coins in a few minutes, with only a small cost and a certain amount of technical knowledge.The extremely low threshold for issuance has caused the market to explode in a nearly “wild growth” way, and it has also led to uneven quality and fraud in projects.
LiquidityGlobalizationand instantaneous.A “penny stock” traded in the US OTC market may have very poor liquidity and it is difficult for ordinary investors to buy and sell.A top Meme currency can achieve 7×24 hours of global instant transactions after it is launched on a global decentralized or centralized exchange.This deep, uninterrupted liquidity provides a breeding ground for ultra-high intensity speculation, which is incomparable to any traditional speculative tool.
The vacuum of regulation and the blur of morality.Traditional financial activities are within a strict regulatory moat, aiming to protect investors and maintain market stability.The cryptocurrency world, especially the Meme currency field, is still a “legacy land” to a large extent.On the one hand, the lack of supervision gives it great freedom and innovation space, and on the other hand, it also makes market manipulation, insider trading, fraud and other behaviors almost impunity, pushing the “buyer’s own risk” principle to the extreme.
Meme coins may force us to rethink some fundamental issues in extreme ways:What is value?In addition to resource allocation, what human emotional and social needs does the financial market carry?It is like a “demonic mirror”, reflecting the instincts of speculation, carnival and tribalism that have always existed within the financial system but are ashamed to admit.It turns the high-frequency speculation in the Wall Street trading room into a national game that every mobile phone user can participate in; it turns the social network of elite clubs into a global, interest-based digital community.
Therefore, the most fair evaluation of Meme coins may not simply denounce it as a “scam” or pursue it as a “revolution”.It’s more like a complex polyhedron:
For gamblers looking to get rich quickly, it is a digital casino.
For young people looking for a sense of belonging, it is a cultural community.
For financial scholars, it is an excellent experimental field for behavioral finance.
For regulators, it is a dangerous area that needs to be regulated urgently.
For society as a whole, it is a modern fable about technology, human nature and greed.
Meme coins may usher in a long silence after the fanaticism, and most projects will eventually return to zero.But what it reveals—about the role of community power, the role of cultural narratives in value creation, and the profound impact of technology on financial inclusion—may last forever change our understanding of “finance.”In the future where traditional finance and crypto finance are constantly colliding and integrating, the seemingly absurd carnival of Meme Co., Ltd. may be the unique melody that is harsh but unignorable.
