The Rise of Meme Tokens: Analyzing the Success Path of BTC and Bome

Introduction

Humans chase trends, and trends create value. This is a phenomenon that has repeatedly occurred throughout human history.

The tulip bubble is a typical case of the combination of popularity and limited supply, and it is also one of the most famous early super memes in human history.

Entering the 21st century, the information age has evolved from the infinitely replicable Web 2.0 to the limited information of Web 3.0. Information spreads across the internet at the speed of light, and entities carrying popular value have transformed from physical objects to non-replicable digital data. The popularity of mobile payments has made payment scenarios ubiquitous around the globe. These changes have given rise to the explosion of Memes, forming a unique meme world.

In the ecosystem of Meme coins, projects that can create internet trends can directly monetize popularity through tokens. So, how can we create trends? This article will first propose the theory of Meme popularity, and then apply this theory to analyze the successful journeys of BTC and Bome.

Decoding the Popular Mechanism of Cryptocurrency

The popular nature of information is essentially similar to the spread of diseases. In communication studies, both information dissemination and virus propagation are analyzed using the SIR model.

The information dissemination process can be divided into two parts: information infection and information immunity.

Information infection refers to the transformation of ordinary people into followers of popular information. Information immunity refers to followers breaking free from the influence of popular information and becoming outsiders.

The key to making information go viral is to ensure that the infection rate exceeds the immunity rate. As long as the number of new infections within a unit of time exceeds the number of immune individuals, the followers of the viral information will increase, and the spread of the information will expand. Conversely, the popularity will decline.

So how can we increase the infection rate and reduce the immune rate?

Clearly, the more new audiences information can reach, the higher the infection rate will be. The higher the quality of the information and the stronger its stickiness, the easier it is to spread and the harder it is to escape. According to theories of communication and social psychology, the four key external factors for the success of a meme are:

Four Key Elements

content

Content is information, which is the main subject of dissemination and determines the attributes of communication. Content determines the suitable audience for dissemination and the preferred communication nodes. For example, $People naturally has a leftist color, making it easier to resonate with leftist groups. $Doge has an affinity for dog lovers, and this affinity can exist for a long time.

The stickiness of content is also very important. Certain concepts have a time sensitivity, such as memes related to political figures or sports events. Once the real-life events are over, the related memes may also lose their momentum for spreading.

Good communication content should lower the barriers to dissemination. The simpler and more direct it is, the easier it is for ordinary people to share, thus achieving wider dissemination.

Environment

The environment includes two aspects: time and space.

Time refers to the cycle of the cryptocurrency market. The outbreak of Memes requires high industry attention and the willingness of users to participate. In the past, this typically occurred in the later stages of a bull market, when other projects lacked new stories, and pure cultural dissemination Memes would emerge. The current Meme craze triggered by inscriptions marks an important shift, with Memes themselves becoming a way to attract traffic. This is closely related to background factors such as the upcoming approval of the BTC ETF and the impending BTC halving.

Space refers to the community. A community is a group of people with common goals. If the content being disseminated aligns with the attributes of the community, it can achieve a faster dissemination speed. The rate of dissemination of different content varies among different groups of people, just as the spread of different diseases varies in different environments.

KOL Matrix

Scientific research shows that there are differences in the communication abilities of different individuals. Some people are particularly good at expressing their opinions to others and are more persuasive to those around them. These individuals are known as super individuals, or KOLs. The more KOLs one has, the stronger the KOL matrix can be formed, influencing a wider group. KOLs are closely linked to communities, and those who can influence the target group's KOCs are the truly valuable nodes.

Wealth Effect

In the cryptocurrency field, the wealth effect can guide attention. The so-called "using gains to persuade people" means using financial returns to assist in information dissemination. Therefore, there is a self-reinforcing effect between the price of Meme tokens and cultural dissemination. When token prices rise, it promotes cultural dissemination and strengthens belief; when prices fall, it hinders dissemination and weakens belief. This also explains why Meme tokens often exhibit extreme volatility.

Case Study Analysis of Meme Project Operations

BTC

Although some do not acknowledge BTC as a meme Token, from a macro perspective, the diffusion of BTC consensus is essentially no different from the paths of other meme Tokens, only the content being disseminated is different.

The core content of BTC is the fear of the collapse of centralized finance. Its genesis block contains a news summary about the British government's bailout of the financial system, serving as an anchor to reinforce this fear. Each financial crisis further strengthens the consensus around BTC. BTC believers usually find it hard to give up their faith in BTC, and this stickiness is well-known in the industry.

BTC adopts a fair mining mechanism, where anyone can obtain BTC by contributing computing power in the early stages of the project, which is a mutually beneficial design. Satoshi Nakamoto also conducted airdrops for some users in the early days. The act of contributing computing power itself demonstrates recognition of the BTC project, and this behavioral recognition will translate into psychological affirmation.

In terms of supply, BTC has implemented a limit of 21 million coins through its programming, highlighting its scarcity. Satoshi Nakamoto's documents also depict a vision where the price of BTC reaches $1,000 after global acceptance, which now seems overly conservative, but at the time of BTC's inception, it was a highly attractive promise.

The BTC white paper was released in 2008, at a time when the centralized financial system was in turmoil. Its timing and content are highly complementary, which is crucial for the early spread of Memes.

The community initially chosen for BTC was also carefully considered. Satoshi Nakamoto first selected the crypto community, whose philosophy is highly aligned with BTC's design philosophy, both focusing on decentralization. They were chosen as seed users to minimize resistance.

The initial KOL matrix of BTC includes well-known figures in the crypto community, such as Dai Wei, Fal Finney, Jon Matonis, and Laszo Hanec. In an email to Dai Wei, Satoshi Nakamoto pointed out that BTC not only realized the ideas in Dai Wei's paper but also gained recognition from Fal Finney, thereby obtaining credit endorsement. Although these individuals are not well-known outside the crypto circle, they have a strong influence within the crypto community, helping BTC quickly establish itself in the crypto space.

Bome

Before its release, the artist Dark Farm made ample preparations for the popularity of a Meme. In content, Bome is a "Book of Memes" that records the history of Memes, holding historical value in the current environment. This year, issuing cultural tokens is no longer an alternative solution when there are no projects to launch, but has become a leading trend in the entire industry. Whether it's Solana, Avalanche, or Ethereum, all treat Memes as an important means of attracting new users. Investors are also beginning to recognize Meme tokens as an asset. The Book of Memes, as a culmination of meme culture, naturally attracts attention. This concept has a natural affinity for groups chasing Memes.

In terms of timing, Bome was launched during the industry's bull market with ample funds. As for the community, Dark Farm has previously focused on Meme culture within the ETH ecosystem, and the Book of Meme project is not a coincidence; he has a certain influence in the meme community of the coin circle. His previous works had a floor price higher than the issuance price before the Book of Meme became popular, indicating that his contributions are recognized by the community and he has a certain level of notoriety within it. This community overlaps significantly with the community that speculates on new coins.

From the dissemination of posts published by Bome, it appears that many supporters are KOLs who are also artists. Although these artists are not large in scale, their users are genuine and cohesive. Once the Meme reaches a certain scale, it can gain interactions from other traffic, such as Beeple's promotion. As a Meme artist on Twitter, DarkFarm is also very adept at utilizing traffic and is skilled at enhancing project influence through super nodes.

The avatars of early promoters show that the initial advocates came from the SMOWL community. Having a community allowed Bome's Meme to directly cross the most vulnerable stage. This was also part of DarkFarm's plan, where the SMOWL echoed with these early KOLs in his Bome declaration image. After Bome's success, the price of SMOWL's NFTs also rose to a floor price of 0.7, providing substantial returns to community members. The entire operation formed a perfect closed loop.

The three pillars of projects in the internet era are traffic, technology, and capital. In the world of Memes, technology and products do not exist. The success of Meme projects is the mutual matching of traffic and capital. Capital can drive up coin prices, but merely pushing up coin prices cannot effectively attract retail investors to chase.

This also indicates that, for Memes, there can only be one benchmark project in an era. From the perspective of traffic economy, all other Memes are competitors to Bome. If Bome is diverted, it may fail, making it even harder for other followers to succeed. If Bome is not diverted, other projects can only make minor contributions.

Conclusion

Meme Token is the most distinctive phenomenon of the attention economy in the Web3 era, where attention is directly assigned financial value. The match between capital and attention creates Meme Token.

Creating attention requires interaction with people. In addition to the unique wealth effect, it is necessary to emphasize the fit between the KOL matrix, the communication environment, and the content of the information. It is not easy to have all these factors in place, thus creating a successful Meme is also not an easy task. To evaluate the birth and development of a Meme, one can start from these four factors.

Meme focuses on attention, and when investing, one can consider the attention feedback phenomenon. For example, the Bome community has driven the value increase of the SMOWL community.