Chinese Meme Coin Explosion: From Cultural Collision to "Wealth Creation Movement"

A Chinese coin has gone viral in the crypto world for two weeks.

Recently, there is a term in the crypto world that has gone viral to the point that you can't possibly have not heard of it—starting from a teasing joke and later becoming a phenomenon. Those who have been through the ups and downs in the crypto world know that there is a string of stories behind it: first, a CEO of a leading exchange followed the discussion, then the Chinese ticker craze of Tron and Solana, followed by the founder publicly stating the “listing terms” which led to a confrontation between the two chains, and finally, it seems to have temporarily calmed down on the Base chain.

But what this might represent goes far beyond just one coin – this could be the first time a batch of high market cap meme coins has ignited the market with Chinese labels, and the cultural significance behind it is even more worth pondering.

Europeans can't understand what Chinese meme coins are doing

A Polish trader, Barry, operates a trading community of hundreds of people and has witnessed the madness of this market trend firsthand. “I was shocked the first time I saw a certain Chinese coin surge to a market value of $20 million,” he recalled, “By the time it reached $60 million, or even $100 million, the European group was already on fire, with a bunch of people rushing to recharge on the chain, completely clueless as to why it was rising.”

This is not an isolated case. On October 8th, the trading volume of a certain public chain surged to $6.05 billion—this is a scale that was only seen during the altcoin boom in 2021, except this time it is led by Chinese meme coins.

On that day, more than 100,000 new traders flooded in, with nearly 70% making a profit. This directly attracted foreign retail investors—active on-chain addresses increased by nearly 1 million at once. What was the result? Many Western investors rushed to follow the trend only after the coin price soared, and only later did they check in Chinese to understand what happened.

“In the past, meme investments in Europe followed American internet culture, with its self-deprecating and rebellious tone.” Barry said, “The suddenly emerging Chinese memes completely leave people baffled.”

But Barry, having worked with Chinese teams in his earlier years, began to popularize the Chinese narrative in the European community, explaining the differences to Western traders. Slowly, he discovered something interesting:

European traders participate in meme coins largely relying on big KOLs to pump them, primarily playing within the Ethereum ecosystem. Although such communities can quickly gather popularity, the large holders who control the bottom chips also pose a threat of selling pressure. Therefore, maintaining a long-term project in Europe is particularly challenging.

But the Chinese community is different - they are more into “stories” and “emotional resonance”. Project teams and communities tell stories in WeChat groups, using emotions to drive people to buy in. Theoretically, this approach can sustain a longer community lifecycle.

This round of market is simply too easy for Chinese retail investors. Some just stare at the popular IPs or the speeches of opinion leaders, and then “print money at will.” One retail investor participated in 65 types of on-chain Chinese meme coins within 7 days—first spreading a net with 100-300 dollars, and then increasing the position on coins with strong momentum, netting 87,000 dollars in a week.

This high-frequency net-style layout reflects the rapid speculative style of most Chinese retail investors towards new tracks. At the same time, European and American players are starting to abandon small-cap coins around $500,000, turning to targets starting at $5 million.

From American Satire to Chinese Resonance

From a broader perspective, the evolution of meme coins reflects the collision of different cultural genes.

The ancestor of Western meme coins is Dogecoin from 2013—a joke created by two programmers, essentially mocking the serious nature of Bitcoin. However, due to celebrity effects and community enthusiasm, it reached a market value of $88.8 billion in May 2021.

The later Pepe coin is similar, rising from the 4chan community and going viral when it launched in early 2023, with a market value surpassing 1 billion USD. The Pepe project had no presale, no team allocation, and no roadmap; the team even said this coin “has no value and is for entertainment only.”

This set of values has dominated a large number of subsequent Solana meme coins - nihilistic coins, coins that satirize reality, and various coins with dark humor. They capture the imagination of investors with image memes and a rebellious spirit, occupying the center stage of the attention economy for a long time.

But the Chinese meme coins are taking a completely different path. They are rooted in resonance and identity projection—what “humble little He”, “customer service little He” use self-deprecating humor from the grassroots working class to ridicule social realities; the “cultivation” series reflects netizens' fantasies of escaping reality; and then there is “Binance life”, which directly embodies the dreams of retail investors becoming wealthy overnight in the crypto world.

The common feature of these coins is that they are all associated with some official or authoritative entity. For the Chinese, this is called “widening the path,” but for most players in Europe and America, names like these mean that whether they rise or not depends on whether the “system” is willing to pump.

But what really drove the explosion of Chinese meme coins is the power of emotional resonance. Take this coin for example, it compares itself to the previously popular “Apple Life”, and this innovative narrative is completely different from the satire of Dogecoin, appealing more to loyalty and sentiment.

Once enough people understand the meaning behind this logo, this ticker will be bound to the “system.” When it is used for mockery, the official “has to pump the price” to maintain its image. Many people who can still hold this coin after the washout are probably thinking along these lines.

The Platform War Hides a Cultural War

The current meme craze is not entirely driven by retail investors spontaneously, but is also the result of careful cultivation by a leading exchange's ecosystem. Starting from a joke by the CEO, a response from the founder, to a series of official interactions, and the launch of a meme platform, it has systematically released favorable news step-by-step and phase-by-phase—integrating the chaotic issuance of meme coins into the official framework, making the celebration more organized, and keeping market attention locked on a particular chain for an extended period.

This wave of operations has spread the enthusiasm from individual projects to the entire ecosystem, further strengthening the mentality of retail investors that “the next one may become a millionaire.” Why is it that when multiple projects are booming simultaneously, there is no obvious liquidity siphoning effect? Because there is a joint operation behind it from both the authorities and the community.

In contrast, Western meme coins are more about community-driven luck or the push of conspiracy groups. But this time it's different—under the multiple roles of founders, platforms, and communities, the celebration has transformed into a blatant “wealth creation movement,” and such structured listing expectations would have been unimaginable just a few months ago.

For this reason, a fierce PR showdown broke out between trading platforms. In mid-October, a DEX leader angrily criticized the listing fees of centralized platforms on social media, claiming they reached as high as 2%-9%, and revealed that a huge stake and high fees were required to be listed on a certain leading platform. This caused a sensation throughout the crypto world.

A certain leading entity that was named quickly denied it, claiming “never to charge listing fees,” and even threatened legal action. However, their attitude later softened, acknowledging that their response was overly aggressive but reiterating that they do not charge fees.

At this time, the person in charge of a certain DEX made a brilliant move – officially announcing support for the mainnet token of a leading exchange. This is the first time in history that a major platform has announced support for the token of a direct competitor. The founder of the leading exchange expressed welcome and even encouraged the other party to list more ecological projects.

The person who was named in the exposure has also started to show goodwill, and the DEX manager's attitude has changed 180 degrees—first, an App demonstration video was released, in which “Binance Life” was used as an example coin, and jokingly in Chinese said “to start the Binance Life mode on Base,” while in the comments, they were flattering each other with a certain top founder.

This series of actions has been interpreted by the industry as a ice-breaking between the US and China crypto world. It also inadvertently brought a long-awaited little golden dog to a certain chain.

What does this indicate? When the trading volume and attention brought by the Asian market reach a certain scale, Western exchanges have no choice but to actively approach the Chinese community. The competition among trading platforms has already become closely intertwined with cultural narratives.

Language has become a new entry barrier

Mainstream media in Europe and America have given high attention to this matter. However, many Western retail investors lamented in the group, “We can't understand the rise in coin prices.” Most people hurriedly bought in only after the coin prices took off.

Even in communities like Barry's, which have deep interactions with the Chinese system, when anticipating a meme coin with internal cultural significance, it is often the case that they “only understand its meaning but not its significance.” For overseas investors, Chinese elements once became a new barrier to entry.

There are also members of the European and American communities who have developed tools for translating Chinese to English to track Chinese coins. Moreover, there is a series of videos of foreigners learning Chinese to buy meme coins that has become extremely popular.

But Barry also gave his judgment: “I think the current wave of Chinese memes is coming to an end. The longer this cycle lasts, the worse the PTSD for traders will become. These coins have already started to rotate towards smaller market cap and faster sectors.”

“However, he also noticed a new trend: 'English and Chinese have become the main components of the meme market, and this situation will not change anytime soon. China has a larger market and is more easily driven by emotions. The European market is lagging behind. I think English tickers may make a comeback, but they'll become more Chinese - incorporating Chinese humor, symbolism, and aesthetics.'”

Future Multipolar Opportunities

To capture the next wave of meme coin opportunities, relying solely on luck is not enough. It is necessary to deeply understand the language and culture of different regional communities.

AI may now help with cross-language communication—automatically generating Chinese memes and translating social media dynamics to accelerate information dissemination. However, AI finds it difficult to replace a deep understanding of cultural context.

In the future, we may see a more multipolar crypto world. More and more chains are emerging with the Chinese ticker “Golden Dog”. There is a new trend of integration and mutual learning between Western and Eastern communities, but there may also be the emergence of separate ecological zones.

And perhaps the next opportunity lies within the gaps of these cultural differences.