Have Memecoins Come Full Circle?

Memecoins, the prevailing degen trend in crypto, gained popularity as a rebellion against “real” projects that have failed to live up to expectations.

However, over the last two months, the most popular memecoins have become correlated to tangible products, and it's up for debate whether these are memecoins or just fair launches.

Since the launch of Truth Terminal’s GOAT token, memecoin traders and DeFi enthusiasts have focused their efforts on looking for similar projects, with plenty of new tokens being launched by independent artificial intelligence (AI) and decentralized science (DeSci) developers, or crypto-native builders with AI hobbies.

These AI tokens, such as ZEREBRO and BULLY, or DeSci tokens like RIF, are marketed as memes and launched on PumpFun, but trade mostly based on speculation of the success and effectiveness of the product, the same way as “traditional” altcoins.

The trend is being showcased by less successful tokens as well. FLAVIA, another AI agent token launched in October, skyrocketed to a $70 million market capitalization based on excitement and speculation surrounding its experienced team. However, when the product didn’t meet market expectations, the token plummeted by over 90%. More recently, another AI agent called “Slopfather” launched and ran from its bonding valuation of $100,000 to $50 million in hours, based entirely on the speculation that its team appeared to be funded by Alliance DAO.

While traditional memes continue to do well, AI agent and DeSci-related teams are capitalizing on the visibility that their tokens get when they launch on PumpFun, resulting in the memecoin launchpad potentially pivoting into a “fair launch” hub for Solana tokens in general.

Crypto-native funds are noticing the trend as well. “Pumpdotfun has subtly evolved from a pure memecoin launchpad to a general-purpose fair launch platform. While 99% of tokens minted are degenerate junk, a small few have legit technical roadmaps, evoking shades of the 2018 ICO boom as much as the 2021 NFT mania,” said Ryan Watkins, the co-founder of liquid fund Syncracy Capital.