As the cryptocurrency market continues to evolve, we are excited about what the future holds in 2025. Meme coins seem to be ushering in a new round of hype this cycle.
The rise of memes
The time can be traced back to the end of last year, when the first wave of Solana meme fever in this cycle was set off by memes such as MYRO, SILLY, and WIF.
At that time, all memes were rising, but silly was at the bottom. Silly was the meme coin that the founder of Sol had previously supported. Bonk and Wif on the Sol chain had already gone crazy. Those who remember it may still remember that at that time, Solana launched the Saga Web3 mobile phone, each of which would come with 30 million BONK tokens. Due to the sharp rise in BONK at that time, the value of the free BONK exceeded the price of the phone itself, and the sales were really good.
The second wave of meme fever originated from the meme pre-sale launched by BOME and SLERF in March this year.
The craze surrounding Solana Memecoins such as BOME and SLERF highlights the growing influence of Memecoin in the crypto market. After BOME was listed on Binance in just three days, many crypto veterans were "broken", and SLERF achieved what BOME achieved in three days in just two hours.
Since then, as the voices condemning VC coins have gradually spread, more and more meme coins have been listed on CEX and gradually gained greater acceptance.
However, the development of memes has not been smooth sailing. As the bull market turned to bear in the second quarter, altcoins generally performed poorly. Meme trading tools led by Pump.Fun further promoted the meme fever by upgrading infrastructure, prompting the outbreak of the third wave of memes.
At that time, everyone was impressed by the capsule-like logo. Data showed that pump.fun's cumulative revenue exceeded 80 million US dollars. According to data in March, pump.fun added nearly 10,000 Meme coins every day. Although it was very fast and cheap, it also created a flood of low-threshold memes and Solana's excellent marketing capabilities.
After getting through the so-called September curse, the crypto market has ushered in a new wave of enthusiasm, and new internet celebrity animals have become the top memes.
As Binance launched three MEME coin projects at once, it triggered widespread discussion in the market. Binance’s top female investor responded that only MEME coin projects are popular in the market at present, and in the absence of new narratives, Binance can only choose to follow the flow. Remember: NEIRO, TURBO and BABYDOGE. Although launching three new coins at once, especially during the Launchpool mining period when liquidity is already tight, it quickly consumed the liquidity of the market.
But recently it seems that the fourth wave of memes has exploded, with new internet celebrity animals becoming the top memes.
As Sui Chain becomes popular, it has a tendency to surpass Solana. In addition to the excitement of the main network, Memecoin on Sui Ecosystem has also taken over part of the traffic of Meme craze. The situation has changed this week. Blub and Fud are no longer the leaders. Hippo has been released one after another. The market value of Hippo on Sui has surpassed that of Sol's Hippo, reaching 150 million. The market value of AAA created 22 days ago has also reached 18.2M.
Recently, abstract art has returned to the market, bringing a new wave of meme hype. It all started with Murad Mahmudov and the Token2049 feast!
The new meme leader who has gone viral: Who is Murad Madhov?
Murad graduated from Princeton University and went to China for a one-year exchange program in 2013. There, he met an American in Beijing’s foreign circle - the fifth employee of OK Coin. Through this friend, Murad learned about cryptocurrency and began his crypto journey.
He has a unique theory: the next best performing assets will be Memecoins, crypto assets based on online memes, which he believes will create millionaires, multimillionaires, and even billionaires.
Murad's appearance has also changed from a short-haired and slightly shy finance man to an anti-mainstream image with long hair and a beard, which is consistent with the Cult culture he promotes, at least it is not mainstream.
Encryption process:
Before 2016, Murad did not devote himself to the crypto field full-time, but worked in traditional financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Glencore. After resigning, Murad became a Bitcoin Maxi.
Since 2017, Murad has done a lot in the crypto space, writing on-chain analysis articles, doing trading investments, and participating in the development of DeFi.
In 2018, Murad founded a community of tens of thousands of people and was once considered one of the leading Bitcoin analysts. His portfolio grew fivefold in just seven months.
In 2019, Murad founded a fund called Adaptive Capital
In 2022, Murad announced his return to social media and renewed his passion for crypto.
In early 2024, I tried to understand meme coins from the perspective of first principles. In June, Murad began to share his meme trading philosophy and targets in the community.
Murad Madhov became famous overnight on Token2049
Ps: TOKEN2049 is one of the largest Web3 events in the world, attracting 20,000 attendees and more than 500 events. This shows the influence of the encryption industry in the world.
The speech on the meme coin super cycle at the TOKEN2049 conference made the recently popular meme coin KOL: Murad popular in the crypto circle.
He said in an interview: I think we still have 8 to 14 months of Meme craze to go through. Therefore, I say to my friends who are involved in Meme that we need to try to stay calm and patient, and not celebrate or be impulsive before 2026. I think 2025 will be a huge opportunity year in the crypto field, especially Meme, and we need to be prepared to catch this wave.
Of course, the speech was widely circulated on the X platform, receiving more than 1.4 million views and tens of thousands of interactions.
Beyond that, Murad’s rapid-fire speaking style and rapidly flipping slides almost make you feel like you’re trading Memecoin, watching the price chart quickly go up and down.
He once boldly predicted that Bitcoin would reach 10 million US dollars. Now he is considered to be the next generation of top streamer after meme master Ansem. The reason why he can inherit the mantle is that Murad's order calling is very effective.
What are Murad's interests?
In the address disclosed by ZachXBT, Murad holds three meme coins, namely SPX, APU and MINI. On X, Murad also made a list of the above three meme coins. In addition, there are old meme coins such as MOG, POPCAT and GIGA on the list, which have all gained considerable gains recently. The meme coins that Murad called out have one common feature, that is, they all have some cult temperament.
Ps: Cult refers to a highly dedicated following culture, where fans show enthusiasm and loyalty to a specific thing, such as a person, brand, idea or work.
Murad's Meme Strategy
Murad believes that they (memecoins) are not just products of popular culture, but also symbols of the community. He pointed out that the success of altcoins lies in how they evolve and adapt to market needs. He reviewed the development of the crypto industry, mentioning the first Oscar wave in 2014 and the ICO boom in 2017, believing that these have driven the rise of altcoins.
From June 25th to September 13th, Murad gradually filled out this list of cult memes that he believed would explode in the next meme super cycle.
For meme coins screening criteria:
Focus on mid-cap coins with a market cap between $5 million and $200 million.
Prefer Solana and Ethereum to exclude Base, Ton, and Sui, because whales will park their wealth on the first two.
· Projects that are at least six months old;
“Time is something that cannot be faked and represents a real commitment. Assuming that each of us lives for 80 years, time itself is a very serious resource investment.”
Murad screened out the Cult meme mentioned above by studying on-chain data, market value, holder distribution, degree of decentralization and other indicators, as well as avoiding leading derivative coins, celebrity coins, most animal coins, newly launched popular coins and KOL shouting coins.
Murad on the Meme Supercycle
Murad mentioned in his speech that Memecoin, both old and new, outperforms all other tokens. Memecoin has proven their "role" with DOGE, SHIB, PEPE, and WIF. I am definitely not a Memecoin supporter, but I took notes on PEPE and WIF in their early stages and why they are interesting.
He believes that the tokenization of memes is a natural evolution. After all, all types of content and assets are being tokenized, from written content, car ownership, treasury bonds/commodities, all the way to digital collectibles and artworks.
The future of Memecoins
Murad predicts that future Memecoins will move from simple funny images and animal themes to more complex and serious themes. He believes that Memecoins are actually "tokenized communities" and that in the future there will be Memecoins related to various concepts, including each word, number, sentence, etc. He believes that in such an environment, only a few truly valuable Memecoins will be able to stand out.
