Of nadirs and bidding death in memecoins

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Looking back at my trading thoughts in 2024, some of the points I made about meme coin selection still hold true, but today we seem to have moved into completely new territory. 2024 saw the market evolve from meme-only coins > celebrity coins > art tokens > AI / tech / functional tokens. At that time, the turnover of the market’s mainstream hotspots was relatively clear – there were often clear boundaries and timelines as to when and what topics became market trends.

Fast-forward to 2025, however, and we see a chaotic token landscape: hot projects from the past are struggling for market attention – most of them have experienced a 70-90% pullback from their former glory days. Unfortunately, the only ones still holding on are often the “last receivers” or old players who have been in and out of the market again and again, looking forward to the next wave of shipments. Of course, these projects are not necessarily scams, but more like a game of “drum roll” – the market (or players) always chases the latest hot spot, unless there is a good reason for people to re-focus on past projects.

At the same time, new meme tracks and tech concepts are competing for attention, and the market landscape is becoming more complex. 2024 has already set the stage for the “tokenization of attention” across all sectors, and Trump’s “official” token has opened the door for the entire market (both good and bad projects). good and bad projects). In the midst of all this chaos, we are starting to see a number of tokens with different themes and lifecycles coexisting. However, it’s important to realize – market liquidity, like our attention span, is cyclical. What’s hot in the headlines today may go unnoticed tomorrow, and what’s hot tomorrow is anyone’s guess (laughs).

As a result, tokens of all types of topics will continue to coexist and each track will go through its own liquidity cycle. What does it mean? Remember this chart?

Now, imagine that this is a price chart for a single token; at the same time, you can flip it over and it becomes a chart for another token.

Take it a step further and overlay these graphs in your mind and realize that there are 112,931,920,482 tokens on the blockchain, each with its own highs and lows; at the same time, the overall trend of each track is at a different stage – some have just bottomed out (nadir) and some have already topped out ( zenith).

My core point is that there are always countless trading opportunities in the market, and the key is to spot the ones that haven’t been squeezed yet. Sure, the vast majority of tokens may end up doing nothing, but you can at least put them on a watch list, make a note to yourself, or set a price alert to look back at the right time.

In 2024, we’ve covered almost every major tokenized attention track. I mentioned some of the key categories earlier, so let’s expand on them now. Some projects won’t last more than a week, and some that were once so popular have already bottomed out.

1. pure meme coins – these tokens are purely for fun, often stemming from the X(Twitter)/TikTok viral trend, or retro memes, where the flywheel effect of “Copypasta” and virality is most prominent. The flywheel effect of the “Copypasta” game and virality is most prominent here.
2. Celebrity Coins – These tokens are based on an influential person, and the core logic of many projects is to utilize the fan effect to harvest the market. Although the space is full of “ATM” projects, they still offer a window of opportunity – as they can “lead the average user into cryptocurrency.
3. Art Tokens – Art-backed tokens that can be seen as an evolution of the NFT community in a way.
4. AI / Tech / Utility Tokens – These are tokens that at least conceptually carry some kind of technology or utility. I used to say I would never trade these tokens, but the market environment is changing and we need to adapt. The market tends to look at the “technology outlook” more than the actual technology itself – in other words, sell the news / the idea of the news rather than the technology itself. the idea of the news).
5. Web2 Community Tokens (Communities / Web2) – This category is similar to Celebrity Tokens, but they build on the existing Web2 community and utilize the existing fan base to project into the Web3 space.
6. News / Tweets – These tokens tend to be quick speculations on a short-term hotspot and can set a “market trend” (meta) for a short period of time. These tokens usually rise very quickly and fall just as fast, but of course they can have a second chance. But don’t FOMO (panic buying) too much during the first surge, or you’ll get buried.

The above list of categories is not comprehensive, and is just an attempt to categorize them in order to simplify the analysis process. So, will there be new categories in the future? I hope so – as a rule, new market winds (meta) tend to be accompanied by the most lucrative returns. However, as mentioned earlier, the lines of the market are becoming increasingly blurred as different categories of tokens are gradually taking hold and are at different stages of their lifecycle. Add to this the cooling of the market after the Trump token frenzy, and we are seeing more bearposting. Indeed, it’s hard to think of anything that can top that boom, and I personally don’t see a clear direction, at least not yet.

Nonetheless, I welcome this slowdown in the pace of the market. As someone who prefers to be a holder rather than a trader, I have benefited more from this environment – the market has returned to being dominated by tokens in the 1st/3rd/4th categories, which are generally slower-paced, community-driven, and have more organic growth characteristics.

Some of the 2024 thinking still applies when it comes to meme coin selection (especially category 1/3). But with more and more tokens experiencing 90%+ pullbacks, this creates new entry opportunities. Here are some key factors that could be catalysts for the future:

1. Community Expansion: Who are the likely future backers of the token? In fact, in most cases, they don’t even need to actually buy, just the market’s expectation that they will is enough reason to drive the price up. For example, the MLG token was dormant for 7 months until it was picked up again and eventually attracted the attention of big Vs like Faze. Core Strategy: Tell the story and the idea of an attention flywheel. 2.
2. The Current Community / Team: Is the tekk still tekk? (Is the tek still tekking?) Is dev still devving? (Is the dev still devving?) Is the community still vibing? (Is the community still vibing?) For traditional meme coins, I usually recommend evaluating the resilience of the community during market pullbacks, while for Type 4 tokens (tech/functionality tokens), it is important to look deeper into the progress of the project to see if there is an influx of more money and attention. This growth is not always directly reflected in market capitalization, so arbitrage opportunities exist here as well.
3. Mainstream Coverage: Similar to Community Expansion, but here the emphasis is on traditional media attention to specific events. For example, the politicized discussion of pnut tokens, the ongoing coverage of moo deng, or the shift in traditional finance (TradFi) to a specific industry (e.g. AI / robotics). Essentially, this is laying out news expectations ahead of time, but here’s the key: the expectations can’t be too obvious or the trade becomes crowded prematurely.

As with any trade, you need to get in before the market gets crowded and exit in tranches as the market gets crowded. Think at each stage: who are the marginal buyers? Is the story still a good one?

Potential risks to be aware of:

1. Position management (Sizing). You may have found 312,849 reasons to believe that certain tokens are going to skyrocket, but the question is – do you really have enough money to allocate it wisely? It’s important to realize that you may never get back the money you put into these projects, so you still need to keep enough liquidity for participating in the mainstream tracks and popular tokens in the current market. The bright side is that if you are buying these tokens at the bottom, even if they don’t end up exploding, your pullback is usually not too big. But if you spread your money across 1,293 tokens, you realize that this can become a serious problem.
2. Moat / Legitimacy. You may have had good reason to believe that a certain token should make a comeback, and the market trend seems to be going the way you expected. But then all of a sudden – someone issues a brand new token and all the market money pours into that project! This is the sad reality of the Pump.fun era, when anyone who doesn’t know anything about blockchain can easily issue a coin, which is why the market is flooded with 12,312 “broccolis” and 12,903 “neiros”. This is why there are 12,312 “broccolis” and 12,903 “neiros” on the market. The Solution? If you really believe in your investment logic, then spread your money among all possible options and wait patiently for the market to filter out the winners. If you are spreading your money too thin, then recover some of your initial investment as early as possible, then wait for the market to pick the eventual winner on its own, and then concentrate on adding to your positions. My personal examples are chillguy and mnc, where the market ultimately decides on its own which one wins.

I am also aware that this type of trading is not for everyone. There are countless ways to make and lose money in this market – at best you’ll be considered a genius, at worst it’s just a form of self-congratulation. But many times experience has taught me that focusing on those corners of the market that the market has forgotten about and ambushing tokens after the storm has been a proven strategy for me. As of this writing, some random Fortnite token is the latest example of this pattern, and we’ve seen similar situations many times before.