A comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the past and present of Memes and inscriptions

Written by: Bigdean, Chann

Introduction：Recently, social media has been full of news about some KOLs earning hundreds or even thousands of times more than their inscription or meme income. Stories of crazy returns from projects like BOME/WIF have emerged one after another, attracting a lot of attention. At the same time, many KOLs are also talking about whether the third wave of inscription explosion is coming. The traditional financial sector continues to increase its investment in virtual digital assets, and even some national teams are actively buying certain inscriptions.

These news make people excited and panic, because seeing those who have made huge profits through memes and inscriptions, people began to question how these people can get such huge returns again and again? Under the dual mentality of unbalanced mentality and speculative profit, when many of us can't wait to join the meme and inscription track directly fomo, but after a period of time, we will frantically find that our wealth has shrunk significantly, and even most projects have directly returned to zero.

How to grasp and judge a good inscription or meme project, and what kind of mentality should be used to face these projects. As the saying goes, only by knowing yourself and the enemy can you win the battle. In this article, BIB Exchange will deeply analyze the past and present of memes and inscriptions and make a comprehensive interpretation.

1. Overview

First of all, we need to make a simple distinction and definition between inscriptions and memes to avoid confusing them with most people. Although from the perspective of return on investment, they are both based on virtual air.Token, but it is not wrong to classify them into the same category to some extent. However, there are essential differences between inscriptions and memes.

• Inscription: In fact, the earliest inscriptions I came across came from Harry Potter, the Hong Kong movie "Hurry and Hurry" or the scenes in Chinese novels where engraving inscriptions would enhance weapons. Inscriptions refer to marks engraved on a physical object, which may be words, symbols or even graphics. Inscriptions are a unique mark. Inscriptions are usually added by attaching data to Bitcoin.BlockchainThe main feature of a coin is that it is natively associated with Bitcoin and can have a variety of different uses and values.

• "Meme": meme is translated as meme currency. It is a token based on meme culture. It can be said to be a symbolic belief currency, similar to PEPE/DOGE/SHIB, which originated from the Internet.CommunityCulture, it is based on Internet meme images with unique creativity and humor, memes are usually based onBlockchainThey are created by platforms, they focus more on graphic content, convey a social, cultural or humorous meaning, and are usually sold as NFTs (non-fungible tokens).Token) to circulate.

BiB Exchange investment analysts remind that although they may have similarities in investment, there are obvious differences between inscriptions and memes in terms of technical implementation, value attributes and application scenarios.

1.1 The relationship between inscriptions and memes

Inscriptions first appeared in the Bitcoin ecosystem. They originated from BitcoinCommunityThe spirit of the blockchain emphasizes fair issuance and the principle of first come first served, which is consistent with the concept of MEME. Since the advent of inscriptions, they have continued to evolve and become an important role in the MEME field. Despite some prejudice and doubts, inscriptions have always firmly demonstrated the potential and value of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

铭文的出现代表了比特币生态中的一种新变化和演变，体现了 meme 的多样性。与此同时，铭文的文化价值也为 NFT 领域注入了新的活力，通过赋予持有者独特的文化属性，增强了 NFT 的流动性。尽管形式各异，但 NFT 和 meme Token传播的文化属性是相似的，它们共同为加密世界带来了独特的文化魅力。值得一提的是，铭文不仅在比特币生态中蓬勃发展，也在许多其他公链上展现出了光彩，后文我们将对此进行详细介绍。

1.2 Reasons for the “take-off” of inscriptions and memes

BiB Exchange analysts said that the inexplicable rise of Memes and inscriptions can be attributed to four aspects:

• Fair distribution model: This model is widely adopted in the early stages of Meme and inscriptions.CommunityProjects can distribute tokens for free through activities, creative mining, etc., attracting more users to join and forming a large and active community. This fair distribution model not only improves the liquidity of tokens, increases trading volume and price, but also helps to enhance the popularity and promotion effect of the project.

• Low investment price and high return expectations: The prices of memes and inscriptions are usually relatively low, which allows users to buy a large number of tokens with only a small amount of money. Moreover, the great volatility of the prices of these tokens means that even if the investment is small, huge returns may be obtained once it succeeds, which attracts a large number of users with small amounts of money to participate in the investment.

• Strong narrative: The successful narrative modes of memes and inscriptions include derivative narratives, related narratives, and counter-narratives. Through a keen grasp of popular culture and Internet culture, creative adaptation, and witty, humorous, or ironic interpretation and expression of events or themes, these projects create uniquely charming MEME images and stories that attract users' attention and participation.

Finally, community promotion and creative marketing also played a key role in the success of Meme and Inscription. Through community activities and creative marketing, the project attracted more users to participate and designed an attractive product image, which further promoted the development and promotion of the project.

1.3 Impact on the industry

As we all know, in a sense, Bitcoin can be regarded as the earliest meme. In January 2009, the Bitcoin system was born on a small server in Helsinki, Finland. Satoshi Nakamoto created and mined the first block, the so-called "Genesis Block", and also generated the first 50 Bitcoins. As the first successfulcryptocurrencyThe philosophical significance of Bitcoin, the mystery of the anonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity, and the spirit of fighting against the traditional financial system all give it a profound meaning beyond the technology itself. Perhaps it is the influence of this meme on the industry that has made Bitcoin what it is today.cryptocurrencyOne of the iconic representatives in the field.

Inscriptions and memes play an important role in the cryptocurrency industry, satirizing and reflecting on concepts and technologies: the continued popularity of inscriptions also reflects the cryptocurrency industry's scrutiny and reflection on technology and concepts. In the rapidly iterating narrative of the cryptocurrency circle, the longevity of inscription culture has made people begin to question the behavior of blindly pursuing new technologies and concepts, thus prompting the industry to think more deeply about the nature and substantive application of technology.

• Emotional transmission and market impact: As a tool for conveying emotions, inscriptions can spread quickly within the cryptocurrency community, trigger emotional resonance, and influence investors' emotions and behaviors. Successful inscriptions can attract a lot of attention and discussion, thereby driving short-term price fluctuations in the market.

• Community building and identity: Inscriptions are not just an entertaining form of expression, but can also build brand identity and community cohesion for cryptocurrency projects. By building a strong community around a specific inscription, a project can effectively promote itself, attract new users, and strengthen its market position.

• Public chain brand building: It can be seen that the better the inscription of a chain, the more beneficial it is to the ecosystem. We will introduce SOL/Base later in this article. These two chains have reaped the benefits of inscriptions in this round of bull market. Public chain projects have also realized the importance of inscriptions for brand building and community cohesion, so they actively use inscriptions to promote projects and enhance community cohesion. Some public chain projects attract more users and enhance their market position and influence by creating or participating in inscription culture.

2. Development and Contrast

NFT (non-fungible token), meme tokens, and inscription tokens are three different types of digital assets in the cryptocurrency field. They have some significant differences in development history, application scenarios, and technical characteristics.

development path:

• NFT: NFT was originally on EthereumBlockchainLaunched on , they introduced the concept of uniqueness of digital assets for the first time, allowing digital art, game items, virtual real estate, etc. to exist and be traded with unique identities.

• Meme Tokens: Meme tokens are mainly generated through the creation, sharing and dissemination of Internet culture, pop culture and humorous elements. They are usually part of cryptocurrency projects and trigger community discussions and resonance in various unique ways.

• 铭文代币：铭文代币最早出现在比特币生态系统中，是通过将数据附加到比特币区块链上的单个聪来创建的。它们与比特币原生相关，强调公平分发和去中心化的特点。

Application scenarios:

• NFT: NFT is mainly used in digital art, virtual real estate, game items and other fields, providing uniqueness and ownership proof for digital assets in these fields.

• Meme Tokens: Meme tokens are often used as a community incentive or part of a token economic model for a project, designed to attract user participation and share the community spirit.

• Inscription tokens: Inscription tokens have relatively few application scenarios. They mainly exist as part of the Bitcoin ecosystem and can carry various additional data, but similar concepts are beginning to appear on other blockchains.

Technical features:

• NFT: NFT is based on blockchain technology.contractEnsure the uniqueness and indivisibility of digital assets.

• Meme tokens: Meme tokens are usually based on blockchain platforms such as Ethereum. Their technical features are similar to other tokens, but they place more emphasis on community consensus and participation.

• Inscription Tokens: Inscription tokens are created by attaching data to a single satoshi on the Bitcoin blockchain and are natively associated with Bitcoin, but similar functions can also be achieved on other blockchains.

2.1 Let’s start with meme

The origin and development history of meme coin:

Meme originated in 2013 and aims to combine Internet culture with crypto assets to attract more people to participate. The development stages are divided into the initial stage (2009 to 2013), the development stage (2013 to 2017), the mature stage (2017 to 2020), the outbreak stage (2020 to 2023) and a new round of prosperity (after 2023).

Meme is a form of cultural expression with diversity and derivatives. It can be likened to a form of gene expression. The most typical example is Musk's Dogecoin. DogeCoin illustrates how MEME is applied in the field of cryptocurrency and has become a popular digital currency, highlighting the market potential and influence of MEME. Memes have similarities in their dissemination and evolution mechanisms, and both undergo a process of replication, selection, and mutation. For example, Pepe the Frog shows the diversity and derivatives in MEME culture, and illustrates how a simple image has evolved into a large and diverse cultural ecology.

2.2 The highlight: Bitcoin inscription

Inscriptions suddenly appeared in the Bitcoin ecosystem as a variation and derivative of memes, and emphasized its community spirit and fair launch characteristics, as well as its performance and potential in the market. Bitcoin inscriptions are metadata engraved on satoshi. The smallest unit of Bitcoin is satoshi (satoshi, or sat). 1 Bitcoin can be divided into 100 million satoshis. Each satoshi is sorted by ordinal theory and has a corresponding ordinal number, which is a unique number. Bitcoin inscriptions refer to the use of the Ordinals protocol to write content into satoshi for engraving. The information written can be text, pictures, videos, audio, etc.

Bitcoin inscriptions also have the following five characteristics:

• "First come, first served": The higher the payment fee, the first to be processed;

• "Unique": Once someone has engraved it, others cannot engrave it again;

• "Relatively fair": Everyone can mint, it just depends on who has a better eye and faster hands!

• "Limited quantity": The quantity can be limited when casting the inscription, and it cannot be changed again after the limit!

• "Unalterable": The bit inscription is not uploaded to ipfs, but engraved in satoshi, which cannot be tampered with!

2.3 The association between NFT and MEME or inscription

Given that many DEX or online platform markets place NFT, inscriptions and memes on the same page for trading, we will briefly analyze and compare NFT and the latter two.

NFT and Inscriptions

Some people say that the inscription is also part of the NFT, while others narrowly believe that the NFT is part of the inscription. How should I put it? Both are actually far-fetched.

Both NFT and inscriptions are digital assets created through blockchain technology with unique identifiers. They can represent any form of digital content, such as images, videos, audio, etc.

• Technical basis: NFTs are usually based on blockchain platforms such as Ethereum, while inscriptions are created by attaching data to a single satoshi on the Bitcoin blockchain.

• Standards and protocols: NFTs use specific standards (such as ERC-721, ERC-1155, etc.), while inscriptions do not have a widely accepted standard, and their creation and operation are based on the flexibility and characteristics of the Bitcoin protocol.

• Fungibility: While inscriptions can be fungible in that they can be used like any other Bitcoin, and can even be used to pay network fees, NFTs are generally non-fungible, each with a unique value and identity.

• Community and Ecosystem: NFTs typically have an independent community and ecosystem around specific platforms and standards, while inscriptions are more deeply integrated into the Bitcoin ecosystem and are more closely related to the Bitcoin network.

NFT and memes

Many articles point out that part of the reason why NFTs have been able to remain active is because of the support and help of memes. In the bull market of 2021, the rise of crypto asset Memes, and the soaring value of meme assets represented by DOGE, have injected new vitality into the NFT market. For example, in January 2022, Memeland launched a new series CaptainZ, which received more than 9,999 deposits in just 11 minutes, and the team earned more than 9,800 ETH. This example is impressive.

Although NFT may be one of the earliest forms of digital assets and has experienced ups and downs, its later development was also influenced by MEME. Many NFT platforms have had to adjust their strategies due to the emergence of MEME, using MEME elements as a publicity gimmick to show goodwill to MEME. In terms of the integration of graph coins on Solana, the integration of NFT and MEME hasXiaobai NavigationThe integration is becoming more and more obvious. As an emerging form of digital assets, NFT is also influenced by MEME in terms of cultural attributes and liquidity. BiB Exchange’s previous article "Hidden "Magic Machine"? Solana, NFT and ERC-404" also has a special section introducing related sections.

3. Inscription

The inscription market is mainly divided into three major sectors, namely, NFTs on various chains, BTC protocol inscriptions, and multi-chain inscriptions. In this section, you can also read BiB Exchange’s previous article “The Rise and Development of the Inscription Market: A New Era in the Web3 Era”, which comprehensively discusses the development of the inscription market, including BTC protocol inscriptions, multi-chain inscriptions, the rise of runes, and the main participants and technological innovations in related markets.

• NFTs on each chain: mainly some NFTs on each chain, including blue box and NFTs on each chain and other projects.

• BTC protocol inscription: mainly BRC20, followed by Ordi, ARC20, SRC20, Runes, etc.

Specific website

https://openstamp.io/home

https://runealpha.xyz/runes

https://unisat.io/brc20

https://atomicalmarket.com/market/token?ticker=atom

• Multi-chain inscriptions: Public chain inscriptions represented by ETHS/Sols/AVAV. Almost every public chain has its own inscription.

The following figure shows the arrangement of the previous public information.

3.1 Why Bitcoin needs L2,and L2 Why the inscription again?

Bitcoin L2 伴随着铭文资产的使用需求以及比特币生态本身的火爆而诞生。

The purpose of Bitcoin L2 is to solve the problem ofSafetyWhen it comes to the "impossible triangle" problem between security, decentralization, and scalability, a balance needs to be found. Although the traditional Bitcoin Layer2 may be just a superficial concept, choosing traditional consensus may mean accepting the "limitations" of expansion.

Secondly, Bitcoin lacks the data availability (DA) capabilities of Ethereum and relies mainly on off-chain indexers for accounting and verification. Due to Bitcoin’s limited interoperability, it cannot effectively coordinate with Layer 2, while Ethereum’s mainnet can be used through smart contracts.contractCoordination Layer 2.

Third, Bitcoin’s UTXO Safety模型仅适用于简单的「支付」场景，与以太坊的 Plasma Layer 2 类似。要在比特币链上实现复杂智能contract，需要在链外添加额外的共识机制。

2) Solution - L2 solution

Solution 1: Using Bitcoin as a payment solution, including Lightning Network, Taproot assets, and RGB client verification, but there are problems in complex smart contract scenarios.SafetyThe problem of level reduction.

Option 2: Use Bitcoin as the settlement layer and build an independent consensus for Layer2, but it may face similar problems as Ethereum's settlement chain.

Different directions include side chains, lightning networks, Taproot Assets, RGB, BitVM, etc., each trying to achieve Bitcoin's Layer 2 expansion. For example, the more typical Merlin Chain focuses on serving Bitcoin's native users and assets, and provides a completely Bitcoin Native expansion solution.walletScheme, support different BitcoinwalletSeamlessly switch between the first and second layers. Build cross-chain bridges and adopt ZK Rollup technology to increase the functionality andSafetysex.

Ligo, which BiB Exchange previously invested in, is also a solution for Bitcoin L2. In the future, BiB Exchange will continue to make efforts in the Bitcoin ecosystem, so stay tuned for more progress!

3) Specific operation – through inscription

At this time, the issuance of Bitcoin's Layer2 through inscriptions can be seen as an innovative approach aimed at leveraging the potential of the Bitcoin ecosystem to achieve higher-level functions and applications.

Merlin launched People's Launchpad, using a distribution method similar to Bitcoin's first layer. Other projects are similar to BEVM (using Taprootmultisig for threshold signatures, and obtaining points through Odyssey activities); B2 (focusing on mining and team invitations, mining by depositing different assets, and rewards halved every month); Ligo (adopting a staking model, while inscriptions go hand in hand) and more than 100 other projects claiming to be Bitcoin L2 have more or less issued through inscriptions.

Many of these projects raise private financing through the so-called inscription method, and then transition from inscriptions to the expansion of Bitcoin ecosystem usage and the implementation of L2 from the perspective of replacing Bitcoin with Gas consumption. Through inscriptions, Layer2 can achieve more decentralized features because the inscriptions themselves are issued and managed through Bitcoin's decentralized network.

3.2 Inscriptions, Runes and Global Overview

It should be emphasized that inscriptions and runes are different concepts and should not be confused. BRC20 is a standard protocol for issuing assets on the Bitcoin chain, based on the ordi protocol. However, BRC-20 based on the isolated witness zone will cause congestion in the Bitcoin chain, so an improved protocol based on UTXO, Rune, has emerged, and the token is called a rune.

• Runes is a simple, UTXO-based, homogeneous token protocol that allows Bitcoin users to have a good experience. The balance of the Rune Token is directly included in the UTXO, and the UTXO can contain any number of Rune tokens.

• An inscription is a piece of metadata inscribed on Satoshis using Ordinals, also known as a “Bitcoin NFT”.

• A key difference between Bitcoin Inscription and Rune is that Inscription is engraved in the Segregated Witness data, while Rune is engraved in OP_RETURN.

• BRC-20 (inscription): Ordi, Sats, Rats, TRAC

• ARC-20 (Inscription): ATOM, Quark

• SRC-20 (stamp): Stamp, Luffy, Utxo

• Tap protocol: Tap Curse Inscription CSRD -TAP

• Rune: Pipe, COOK, PSBTS

Therefore, BiB Exchange has compiled the relevant inscription/rune standard protocols based on the Bitcoin protocol as follows:

3.3 Three Futures Musketeers Based on RUNES: RUNESTONE/COOK/RSIC

Based on the inscriptions we discussed in the previous paragraph, Casey (co-founder of ordi) has always been somewhat dissatisfied with BRC-20, a FT protocol that parasitizes on the Ordinals protocol. So in September 2023, Casey released his conception of this new FT protocol Runes. In December 2023, Casey announced the time for the Runes protocol to be launched on the mainnet at the Taipei Blockchain Week event, which is when the Bitcoin block height is 840,000, which is the time of the 4th BTC halving, which will be in late April.

Therefore, on March 31, 2024, it posted on social media: In the future, Runes will fully open the RUNES 0-9 Genesis Runes, which will be completed in 4 years and Open Mint.

Casey himself has tweeted that the first 10 "Rune" tokens may be "hard-coded", that is, they will not be open for deployment but directly written into the code. These first 10 "Rune" tokens will all be fairly openly minted, and there will be no pre-mining/pre-allocation.

RUNE Stone

RUNE Stone is also a picture inscription issued on the Ordinals protocol. The project owner stated that after the RUNE protocol is launched, they will issue inscriptions (also called runes) on RUNE and airdrop them to everyone based on the number of RUNE STONEs held.

The original intention of Stones is to create the world's top memecoin on the world's top blockchain. RuneStone's more transparent airdrop, for example, requires that before Bitcoin block height 826600: have at least 3 inscriptions; do not contain inscriptions with file types starting with "text/plain" or "application/json" (such as "text/plain; charset=utf-8" inscriptions); contain curse inscriptions that can be searched by ordinal. But at present they are all inscriptions nft, does not belong to the rune.

Runealpha

A forked version of the Runes protocol, the RuneAlpha project is positioned as an infrastructure service provider for runes, which means providing services such as rune etching, transfer, and automatic marketing. As a pioneer explorer of runes, it verified the feasibility of runes before the mainnet was launched, and allowed rune supporters to intervene early and enjoy early dividends.

BIB Exchange believes that Cook is the first Rune coin. Cook is the platform coin of RuneAlpha and the first Rune coin developed based on the Rune protocol. Although the protocol version used is not the latest, it is promised to migrate to the main network after the Rune main network is launched. It assumes the role of ordi+sats, which is both the first issue coin and the infrastructure platform coin. In the future, it can lock liquidity through staking.

RISC

On January 20, 2024, the RUNECOIN project was established and announced the airdrop of RSIC inscriptions. After the mainnet is launched, they will be exchanged to the RUNE protocol mainnet according to the corresponding ratio. RSIC is the abbreviation of Rune Specific Inscription Circuits. The total amount of Ordinals NFTs is 21,000. 90% of RSIC was airdropped to the holders by the project party at its own expense, costing more than 3 BTC. Due to the wide range of airdrops and innovative airdrop forms, RSIC was even speculated by the community to be issued by Casey.

rsic airdrop nft, providing a gameplay similar to mining points. Runes can be exchanged according to points after the launch of the Rune mainnet. However, RISC's short mechanism is not transparent enough, and 10%'s mouse warehouse is reserved, so Cook is a rune developed based on UTXO. Runes can be used as an indispensable part of the issuance of BTC ecological assets. It is a method natively supported by Bitchain. Although there are various expansion methods such as L2 and sidechain, they do not conflict with the Rune protocol. The Rune protocol can be used as the most basic way to issue assets on the Bitchain, and can be used in conjunction with L2 and sidechains in various transaction scenarios.

3.4 Typical Projects

Of course, apart from runes, runes may become the main force in the next round in the recent momentum, so different types of inscriptions and runes coexist. For example, the blue box BRC-420.

• Bitmap is a completely decentralized and trustless asset. Each inscription represents the data of a specific block, including transaction information, handling fees, and mined bitcoins. The asset is completely decentralized and has a large community. Although the initial market value is only $2 million, we hope to develop applications for it, provide practicality, and launch Bitmap.Game, a metaverse on Bitcoin, to build a large community. Bitmap.Game builds a metaverse based on Bitcoin, realizing a decentralized product where the client does not rely on a specific server.

• BRC-420 is a data modularization and module tokenization asset protocol. It can turn any data into modules and tokenize it to make it an asset. BRC-420 is described as a data modularization and module tokenization asset protocol. It can turn any data into modules and tokenize it to make it an asset. Bitmap is a completely decentralized asset, and each inscription represents the data of a specific block.

• Bitmap.town is a DLC that contains metaverse game assets, which packages animations, scripts, avatars, music, etc. into a DLC and tokenizes them. BRC-420 provides functions such as asset trading, increase, number of holders, etc., which provides possibilities for innovation of metaverse protocols.

Whether it is the inscription of the previous L2 project, the runes project, or the BRC420 project, they are unique in the Bitcoin ecosystem, focusing on innovation rather than repeating the gameplay of Ethereum. Inscriptions are, to some extent, an innovation in the product model, emphasizing the composability in the Bitcoin ecosystem. It is difficult to achieve active gameplay of users and assets through inscriptions on Bitcoin Layer1. We hope to serve the native users of Bitcoin, develop native assets and protocols, and explore the native innovation of Bitcoin.

3.5 Inscription Overview

Since I will not introduce them one by one, I will just make a statistical table as follows:

We will not analyze the inscriptions of other public chains one by one, because Bitcoin inscriptions still dominate the inscription market. Overall, the market competition is fierce, and liquidity has become a key issue in the inscription market. In addition to continuing to support BTC protocol inscriptions, the launch of multi-chain inscriptions and runes and improving the liquidity of the trading market will be the key development direction.

4. MEME

In the previous chapter, we introduced the Bitcoin inscription project. In the next chapter, we will focus on the memes of other chains.

4.1 Let’s talk about the meme phenomenon first

• Value Perspective: Meme coins reflect the principles of market freedom and individual autonomy and should therefore be seen as a free expression of economic decision-making. Practices that restrict the meme coin market are contrary to more general free market principles.

• Market Dynamics: The market performance of meme coins, such as Dogecoin’s market capitalization growth, reflects people’s recognition of their importance, even in the adverse environment of the cryptocurrency market.

• Cultural phenomenon: Meme coins are not just a financial phenomenon, but also a cultural phenomenon, representing people's expression of collective humor, dissent or friendship.

• Financial Nihilism: Meme coin activity may be driven by financial nihilism, reflecting distrust of the traditional financial system and concerns about social issues.

Memes play a positive role in society and finance and need to be managed transparently and responsibly. Critics often view the questioning of the traditional financial system as a moral deficiency, while ignoring the critical exploration of its effectiveness. Some people believe that meme coins are full of fraud and scams, but honesty and transparency should be strictly required, and fraudulent behavior should be held accountable.

4.2 Reasons for the rise of meme tokens

The success of Meme Token is driven by four core drivers

• Attention Economy: Relies on celebrity effects and virality to attract attention, but it also comes with high risks and requires tracking community engagement and market sentiment.

• Small market capitalization potential: Compared with large market capitalization cryptocurrencies, small market capitalization Meme tokens are more likely to achieve rapid price growth, such as DOGE, SHIB, and the recent PEPE/WIF.

• Narrative consensus: It requires an attractive story to convert followers into holders, and improvisational stories are key, such as DOGE’s reward culture.

• exchangestrategy game:exchangePlay a key role in the hype process, attracting new users by creating wealth effects and maintaining hot topics, such as the appreciation of SHIB after it was listed on multiple exchanges.

4.3 Meme’s “Spotlight Chain”

The early inscriptions mainly reflected ETH. The last round of DOG/SHIB can be said to be the originator of meme. The market value of the two projects has been hovering around the top ten for many years. DOG, as the cryptocurrency representing meme, has been supported by Tesla CEO Musk and has become a global phenomenon, attracting a large number of new investors.

In this round of bull market, memes may explode on several other chains: Sol/Base/Ton/Tron.

Sol

Recently, SOL's ecosystem is still the strongest ecosystem, and its meme projects are even more surprising: the first Silly is straightforward, and then the WIF project benefits the myth. Later, BOME has reached a new high, rising 50 times in one day, and Pepe continues to be crazy. BOME has risen in three days.Binance, the stock price plummeted after the positive news of the launch was released. In order to continue to suck blood, the director dramatically directed SLERF. Then an artist made a meme picture, and the founder of SOLANA retweeted it immediately! A series of actions, the connection was flawless.

At present, the strategy adopted by Sol Ecosystem is a few main themes (WIF/Neon/Bome/Slerf) + capital plate. The main theme is based on users to maintain the industry's trust in Sol, while the capital plate is looking forward to continuous new projects and continuous web3 Lottery-style new issuance. One after another, various funding schemes have attracted all the market attention to the Solana ecosystem.

Most new projects are pre-sold, and you can participate by sending SOL to a designated Solana address. There is no fixed price for the pre-sale, and all participants in the pre-sale are allocated tokens based on the proportion of their donated SOL. This is the reason for the surge in Sol, and JUP/RAY, as a trading platform for these memes, will naturally continue to rise.

Base

Base, in the TVL of L2, the top five Manta/Blast/Starknet/Metis/Mantle have changed in turn, but Base has never been absent. To some extent, it is firmly sitting in the third place. Before there were new projects, Arbitrum/OP Mainnet/Base were the three major players.

The memes on Sol also had an even more phenomenal effect on Base, such as DEGEN's profit reaching tens of millions of US dollars.

CoinBase launched the Layer2 network Base built on OP Stack. When CoinBase announced the launch of the Base testnet in February 2023, the trading platform stated that it would not issue new network tokens. The developer mainnet was launched on July 13, 2023, and the mainnet was officially launched on August 9, 2023. Base has repeatedly emphasized that it has no plans to issue tokens.

Not issuing coins does not mean that the chain is useless. The gas fee of a few tenths of a dollar on Base has been reduced by 90% compared to before the Cancun upgrade, which undoubtedly provides users with a more economical and efficient trading experience. In addition, the compatibility of Base with Ethereum enables it to seamlessly connect to Ethereum's huge infrastructure and user base, creating an extremely ideal hype environment for Meme enthusiasts, which also enables Base to stand out in the market and be highly favored. Some community users even believe that Solana is close to saturation, so they turn their funds to Base.

User volume: There was a surge in the middle of this month, with 630,000 new users on March 16 alone, bringing the total number of users to 5.8 million.

Number of transactions: In the past week, the average number of transactions per day exceeded 6 million, continuing to break through the circle. The Base network has maintained steady growth in user scale, transaction volume and activity, TVL, etc., and has shown a steep upward curve growth trend in the past half month.

As of the time of BIB EXCHANGE publication, according to Coingecko data, the market value of Meme coins on the Base chain has exceeded US$1.6 billion, currently at US$1,625,653,431, with a 24-hour increase of 12.8%.

At present, the relatively mainstream projects are DEGEN/DINO/BREET. In particular, the memecoin project DEGEN on Base has increased by hundreds of thousands of times in less than a month. The community cohesion is very strong and the popularity is extremely high. But it is also different, just like a few days ago DAO Infrastructure service provider Syndicate even launched an ultra-low-cost L3 chain Degen Chain for the Degen community.

TON

Compared with Solana ecosystem, TON ecosystem is still in its early stage, especially meme, which is still in the dividend period. TON has 800 million users of Telegram. Many phenomenal products (robots, mini games, red envelopes, mini programs, etc.) have appeared on TG, which capture loyal users through these high-frequency scenario usage products. The meme coin FISH of TON chain has increased by about 70 times in 4 months, but it is still very low compared with the overall market value of TON. TON itself has also achieved a monthly price increase of nearly 100% due to this wave of meme dividends.

Some Meme Projects:

• $REDO is the code for the token Resistance Dog $TON on the blockchain, which is the original blockchain of Telegram created by the founder Durov himself.

• $Gram: Gram is a decentralized cryptocurrency distributed through a PoW mechanism on the TON blockchain

• $TONY: Tony McDuck is the official mascot of the TON blockchain and the TON Foundation

• $sTONks: The first robot sniper on the TON network $APE: The first Ape Coin on the TON network

TRON

At the Taipei Blockchain Week in December 2023, Justin Sun said: "The future of inscriptions and meme culture in the TRON ecosystem. Inscriptions and meme culture will be the focus of TRON's next stage of development."

Justin Sun pointed out that the recent trend of inscriptions and meme tokens on the Tron network has also seen similar phenomena on other networks, which is of special significance to the Tron network. First, the Tron community calls inscriptions the Tronscription ecosystem, and many developers are actively building markets and inscription projects, and TRON will support the launch of such assets on platforms such as Poloniex and HTX. Secondly, Meme culture has become one of the most important areas in the crypto industry. Through Meme, users can better understand and experience how the crypto community operates, and TRON will also actively explore the development strategy of Meme culture.

Talking about the TRON ecosystem, Justin Sun pointed out that the total market value of stablecoins on the TRON chain has exceeded 50 billion US dollars, and an average of about 15 billion US dollars of stablecoin transactions are processed every day, making TRON the preferred platform for global users to transfer stablecoins. In addition, the traffic of BTTC and BitTorrent networks has increased significantly recently, and BitTorrent has attracted projects and developers such as SushiSwap, Kyber, and Quickswap to settle in for development. At present, BitTorrent is still one of the largest decentralized protocols.

5. Limitations, Risks and Practice

5.1 First of all, limitations

The current limitations of inscriptions are mainly reflected in their liquidity and application scenarios.

• Liquidity Limitations: Meme and inscription markets are relatively small and have limited trading volumes, so their liquidity may not be as high as other mainstream crypto assets. This means that you may encounter large price spreads or insufficient trading when buying and selling. Due to the lack of market depth, users holding large amounts of memes or inscriptions may face greater liquidity risks, especially when they need to sell quickly, which may affect prices.

• Application scenario limitations: Memes and inscriptions have relatively limited application scenarios. Although they may have unique cultural significance or personal value, they have fewer practical uses and application scenarios compared to other crypto assets such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Some inscriptions may have more limited application scenarios due to their special properties, such as being associated with a certain event or cultural symbol, and are only suitable for specific communities or collectors.

5.2 Risks

Prevent over-hyped projects

Not every project is a dog/shib. Don’t have a survivor bias. For most inscription or meme projects, the final result is a significant shrinkage. We need to prevent over-hyped projects.

Fraud Prevention Program

The most heated discussion recently is probably about VT and Red God's ents. First of all, I will not judge who is right or wrong here, but we can see that there are definitely a lot of investors who have lost money.

Be cautious about large platform projects

Ink has shrunk from a peak of 0.46 BTC to nearly 951 TP3T so far. Therefore, projects endorsed by large exchanges may not necessarily have sustained good performance. Many investors and even KOLs have failed in this project.

5.3 How to invest in screening inscriptions and meme projects

BiB Exchange analysts pointed out that for most users, if we cannot find a project that has skyrocketed and there is no early information, we need to do the following three things:

1) Find the main theme project of the track, make a layout when it just starts to develop, and be able to participate in the pre-sale stage.

2) Continue to track the status of the community; follow the Twitter of new projects in this track or join a community of a certain ecosystem, and adopt a general investment approach for new projects, such as investing a little money in each project. One of the editor's colleagues participated in the sol new project meme through offline group participation. With less than 2000U, he randomly blindly invested in 20 projects and made more than 1 million from a project in one night.

3) Buy popular projects, projects with the same name on the new chain, such as pepe/ape/shib and other popular projects with similar names on other chains, or buy well-known artists, such as the artist Bome who was successful in SOL and launched a project #mfer on the Base chain.

At present, the market demand is mainly focused on trading liquidity, while the inscription market lacks liquidity. It is recommended to focus on developing the trading market, because the successful inscription products in the future will be those that can provide sufficient liquidity. The improvement of liquidity can become a key factor in attracting users. For asset management institutions, they can invest in the leaders of various sectors.

5.4 How to post a meme or inscription yourself

The process of minting inscriptions is similar to that of memes. It should be said that many inscriptions are relatively simple and can be directly created. There are many multi-chain inscription minting tools, and the income is relatively low. Minting tools that support inscriptions of various public chains may be a feasible strategy. The main minting income comes from BTC protocol inscriptions, but in the face of competition, users may be more inclined to use products they are already accustomed to, such as Unisat, OpenStamp, OKX,Binance Web3 钱包等。

For those who are interested in creating memes, you can take a look at the specific creation process as follows:

1) Choose a unique theme or concept: Choose a fascinating and resonant theme or concept for your Meme Coin, often thriving on humor or satire to resonate with your target audience.

2) Select a blockchain platform: Select a blockchain platform suitable for creating tokens, such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, etc., to realize the issuance of tokens.

3) Create a wallet: Set up a wallet to store Meme coins. You can choose an existing wallet or create a new wallet specifically for Meme coins for initial token distribution and team holding.

4) Design Tokens: Design the specifications of the Meme Coin, including the name, symbol, and minting quantity, determine inflation or deflation, and set other concept-related parameters.

5) Develop smart contracts: Seek the services of a blockchain developer to develop smart contracts to define the rules of the tokens, including transfer methods and special functions.

6）审核智能合约：对智能合约进行全面检查，确保Safety性和有效性，以识别和纠正可能被恶意利用的漏洞。

7) Token distribution: Determine the initial token distribution method, which may include pre-sale, initial coin offering (ICO), etc., and maintain transparency.

8) Create a website and white paper: Create an official website and write a white paper that describes key details such as the project’s concept, token economics, use cases, and team information.

9) Marketing Meme Coins: Implement marketing strategies, utilize channels such as social media platforms and online forums to increase awareness, actively interact with the community, solve problems and provide support.

Summarize

Looking forward to the development and future of inscriptions and memes, as blockchain technology continues to develop and the community's interest in NFTs and memes continues to grow, we can foresee more innovative and experimental projects emerging. The application scenarios of inscriptions and memes will further expand to more fields. In addition to artworks, collectibles, and virtual assets, they may play an important role in games, social media, brand marketing, and other fields. They will be more widely accepted and applied, and cross-field integration, such as gamefi/socialfi/defi There is also the possibility that the track will go viral in the future.

As an important part of the blockchain field, inscriptions and memes will continue to play an important role in the future. With the advancement of digital currency and blockchain technology and the continuous development of the market, they are expected to show a broader prospect in many fields such as art, entertainment, and culture. We not only invest and sell related inscriptions and memes, but also need to be a rational investor, fully utilize the initial dividends of inscriptions and memes, and put them into the healthy development of our lives and work.

The article comes from the Internet:A comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the past and present of Memes and inscriptions

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