Author: Xiyou, ChainCatcher
Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher
On January 24, Binance announced the launch of a new MEME token VINE, and the VINE token price surged over 100% in 24 hours. This is another celebrity MEME token that was quickly listed on an exchange after the Trump family MEME.
Since the launch of the MEME token TRUMP named after him on January 18, the token's market value has quickly soared to nearly $80 billion in just two days. At the same time, the MEME token MEANIA named after his wife also briefly exceeded $5 billion in market value, and even the MEME token "BARRON" named after his son once saw a sharp increase to about $400 million in total market value.
This series of MEME token's amazing price surges not only made the Trump family earn a lot, but also created a group of millionaires and even multi-millionaires overnight due to the purchase of these MEME tokens. Every day, there are constant posts on X showing the huge profits from buying MEME tokens. This has left investors who missed the TRUMP token feeling regretful, hoping to quickly catch the next 100x celebrity MEME token to make up for their previous losses.
Faced with such huge economic interests, the issuance of MEME tokens by celebrities is becoming a new speculative hot spot in the market, with dozens of celebrity MEME tokens flying around on major social media platforms every day, real or fake, leaving users overwhelmed.
Chaos in the celebrity MEME token market: new celebrity MEME tokens emerge every day, imposters issue fake tokens, and rug pull stories continue
The frenzy of celebrity MEME token speculation also seems to provide opportunities for unscrupulous people, who take advantage of investors' urgent psychology to frequently launch celebrity MEME tokens for fundraising fraud, causing chaos in the celebrity MEME token market. Currently, there are multiple new celebrity MEME token projects emerging in the market every day, but most of them are doomed to the fate of rug pull, and there are often people impersonating celebrity X accounts to issue fake MEME tokens, driving up the price and then deleting their posts.
So far, the only celebrity MEME token that has been listed on Binance after TRUMP is VINE.
On the morning of January 23, Rus Yusupov, one of the early founders of the short video platform Vine, announced on the X platform that he had issued the MEME token VINE (VINECOIN), and attached a video to prove that he is the token's issuer. Previously, on January 19, Musk had mentioned that the X platform was considering restarting the Vine service, which was interpreted as Musk's counterattack against Titok. The VINE token's market value exceeded $100 million within an hour of its launch, and reached the $500 million mark by that evening, with a peak price of about $0.5.
On January 24, Binance announced the launch of perpetual contracts for the VINE token. Affected by this news, the VINE token price surged 20% in a short period of time, with a 24-hour increase of nearly 90%, currently trading at $0.38 with a market value of about $380 million.
Aside from the VINE token, most other celebrity MEME tokens are either issued by impostors or involve malicious market manipulation to drive up the price and then dump, ultimately leading to rug pull.
On the day VINE token was listed on Binance, a MEME token called ALON, which claimed to be created by the founder of Pump.fun, quickly surged from a $300 market value to over $250 million.
After investigating the reasons, it turned out that Meme token issuance platform Pumpfun CTO alon posted on his X account that he had obtained ownership of the token's Telegram group and paid the Dexscreener fee half a year ago. His statement was interpreted by some crypto KOLs as the ALON token being the MEME token issued by the Pumpfun CTO, which was widely spread in the crypto community and stimulated the token's short-term price surge.
However, some sharp-eyed users found that the ALON token was created 11 months ago and its market value has been stable at around $3-4 million, and the token was created by a user named @_a1lon9, while the CTO's Twitter username @a1lon9 is not consistent, and he also created a new MEME token DARKALON worth less than $50,000 just two days ago.
Some community users believe that the revelation of the ALON token's connection to the Pumpfun CTO at this time is very likely a ploy by the big players to drive up the price and dump under the hype of celebrity MEME tokens, and the Pumpfun CTO has stated that he did not create this token. The ALON token quickly fell from $250 million to around $25 million.
Although Binance Alpha announced the addition of ALON that afternoon, this positive news did not drive up the ALON token price. On January 25, the ALON token was priced at $0.025 with a market value of $25 million.
In fact, even before the ALON token, there have been more and more "hackers stealing celebrity X accounts to issue MEME tokens, drive up the price, and then delete their posts and run away" scams.
First, on January 21, hackers impersonated the official X account @CubaMINREX of the Cuban government and issued three MEME tokens CUBA1.0, CUBA2.0, and CUBA3.0 within 24 hours. One of the tokens, CUBE1.0, even briefly soared to a market value of $30 million, but the token has now been taken over by the community and is priced at $0.014 with a market value of only $14 million.
On the same day, the official Nasdaq X account was hacked and a fake MEME token STONKS was posted, whose market value once reached $80 million before crashing to $1 million; the X account of the Brazilian president was also hacked to post a MEME token representing Brazil, BRAIZIL, whose market value surged to tens of millions of dollars before plummeting rapidly.
On January 23, the X account of the late antivirus software pioneer John McAfee posted an AI MEME token AIntivirus (Ainti) contract. Subsequently, his wife Janice Elizabeth McAfee forwarded and promoted it on her X account, claiming it was to carry on McAfee's pursuit of freedom and privacy.
After the Ainti token was launched, its market value quickly surpassed $100 million. However, the good times did not last long, as the Ainti token was exposed to have a large amount of internal trading activity, with 60% of the Ainti tokens distributed before the launch, and some addresses had already dumped. Affected by the negative news, the Ainti token price plummeted from a high of $1 to the current $0.16, with a market value of $16 million.
Currently, the scam of "impersonating celebrity X accounts to issue MEME tokens" is still ongoing, especially the theft of famous deceased people's X accounts to issue tokens and defraud.
On January 24, someone impersonated a fake X account of basketball superstar Jordan and promoted a token, but Jordan himself does not have any X account.
That afternoon, ChainCatcher reported that someone on the X platform impersonated former BIGBANG member T.O.P and issued a MEME token BIGBANG.
Consensus on celebrity MEME token speculation: fast on-chain entry, run fast, and never go to CEX to hold the bag
Although the celebrity MEME token market is plagued by frequent fraud, there are still users who hope to catch a coin with wealth opportunities.
The recent community comments - "missed out on Trump, got stuck in the first lady's token MEANIA, played around with Cuba's multiple rounds, VINE surged and then crashed, bought ALON at the top, encountered the Brazilian president's rug pull..." can be said to fully express the users' helplessness and predicament in chasing celebrity-backed MEME tokens.
There are even users who have summarized a new valuation system for celebrity MEME tokens: presidential tokens worth $10 billion, first lady tokens worth $5 billion, tech founders' tokens worth $1 billion, and celebrities' tokens worth $500 million.
Faced with the endless MEME tokens, the experienced old-timers in the market have already grasped the rules of the speculation: fast on-chain entry, run fast, and never go to CEX to hold the bag.
The data on the kanyefnf.sol address transactions vividly demonstrates the idea of "as long as you run fast enough, the rug pull can't catch up with you". According to Ai Aunt's data, this user quickly bought in at the beginning of the STONKS token launch, purchasing 80.01 million tokens for 49.95 SOL at an extremely low cost ($0.0001607), and then cashed out after the price surge, ultimately making a profit of $867,000 before the token crashed. However, most investors were not so lucky, and were eventually buried in the rug pull.
In this regard, MO (alias), a small player on the chain, has a deep feeling. The essence of on-chain Meme is a fast-paced game, who can enter the market earlier, who can cash out quickly after the rise, and speed is everything. Especially the current celebrity Meme coins, have evolved into a PVP game at the second or minute level, and a new Meme coin may not even have a heat of more than 3 days.
K also once said in Space that because every time there is a "god-level project", the second and third days are basically extreme PVP. At this time, everyone is releasing a kind of anxiety about not getting on the bus, and this state is actually not suitable for re-entering the market.
As for why not go to CEX to buy? This is because the cost of acquiring assets or trading on the chain and CEX is different. Once Meme coins are listed on the exchange, their market value often has risen to hundreds of millions or tens of billions of dollars, with very limited upside, and most of them are difficult to escape the fate of being the bag holder. Users can more easily obtain low-priced chips on the chain in the early stage, with a market value generally around tens of millions of dollars, and if the market value reaches hundreds of millions, there is still several times the upside.
Regarding this wave of Meme coin speculation craze, an old OG user who has experienced the previous cycle of celebrity NFTs said that this wave of celebrity Meme coin speculation craze is more dramatic than the previous NFTs. At least NFTs still have a picture to use as an avatar, celebrity Meme coins are really just a string of numbers.
Currently, the stories of getting rich quick from Meme coins on the market are difficult to distinguish between true and false, and there are many cases of collusion between dealers and KOLs to lure investors to become the bag holder, and the heat of celebrity Meme coins is also declining, because it is difficult to find a player with greater influence than the TRUMP family.
He reminded again that investing in Meme coins must be cautious, and comprehensive judgment needs to be made from multiple angles such as identifying fake X accounts and preventing Rug pull.
