How to Decide What Memecoins to Buy
OnlyApes Trench Series #2
Welcome Ape!
The onchain memecoin market has been extremely active recently (partly why this post has been delayed). I’ll try to get future posts out more quickly.
When you first start looking at memecoins you’re bombarded with an endless barrage of coins. Tens of thousands of coins are launched per day, with only a small handful being worth your time and capital. Today I will be breaking down my personal framework to select memecoins. I’ve noticed that everyone who is successful in trading memes has similar philosphies with some differences specififc to everyone’s own life experiences.
That’s one of the key aspects in memecoin selection - there is a real, personal element to knowing what memecoins you should buy. Sure, there are generic, universally accepted winners. But there will be circumstances where because of your own unique perspective you will come across a coin that other people don’t fully grasp yet.
You can think of every memecoin as having a certain target market. Each good coin should resonate with a certain group of people. Each of these groups has unique values, beliefs, culture, and emotional reactions to events. The more deeply you are able to understand the target market of a coin and its ability to gain adoption within that group, the more likely you are to be in a successful coin.
This is why something simple like “cute dog” can reach such great heights. Almost anyone can resonate with a cute dog. It’s also why tokenizing existing memes can yield powerful results. Still, knowing which cute dog to buy at this point is just too hard.
There are too many coins. Too many cute dogs.
I’ll make the selection process for dogs and cats simple: just buy what has already succeeded. You are unlikely to come across a new dog or cat coin that goes into the multiple billions.
If you’re hellbent on finding dog coins I would suggest focusing on special circumstances, such as the Doge owner getting a new dog named Neiro. Focus only on new animal coins that are already famous or borrow fame from another famous coin. This part of the market has become so “PvP” however that I personally just ignore all newly launched famous animal memes. If you must play it, either buy all the coins PvPing or wait until a winner has been selected and simply be aware of the risk that your coin could get vampire attacked. I’m perfectly fine avoiding edgeless gambles so I generally elect not to participate.
A key tenet of mine is you don’t need to make money on any one specific meme. Outside of getting some likes on the internet it’s entirely irrelevant that you bought the one coin that everyone is talking about for a few days. You just want to collect coins in your memefolio that significantly outperform the majors (BTC, ETH, SOL) and keep your gains.
The focus today is a framework for memecoin selection. That also means being good at ignoring memecoins, especially early on when you should be collecting data points.
Why Do People Buy Memecoins?
This is a deep question, and everyone has their own answer. Some people buy them because there is opportunity for huge financial upside. Others buy them because it’s entertaining. Some like to gamble. Others bullieve.
In the context of Crypto Twitter, people mostly buy memecoins because they think someone else will buy them.
The prevailing metas today are:
Crypto retail buys coins that they believe non-crypto retail will buy when they want to speculate on crypto at some future date (mass market)
Crypto retail buys coins they find entertaining (crypto market)
Both mass market and crypto market coins can do really well, and until there is a true bull market with substantial retail presence you want coins that at least will do well in the crypto market.
The Framework
If you’re looking to make money at a fast pace in the memecoin arena you need to focus on the velocity of attention. In other words, the primary thing you are looking for when entering short to medium-term positions is potential for virality.
“But there’s no way to know what’s going to go viral!”
Anyone who is a decent content creator will tell you that that is simply not true. Anyone with a decent follower base has gone at least a little bit viral a few times.
Remember when I said everyone has a set of unique experiences that inform their selection of memecoins? For me it was learning about what people respond to when creating written content.
Memecoins are really just a form of content you can speculate on.
Back when I was doing content for protocols in crypto I was looking to improve my copywriting skills. I stumbled across a really useful framework that was created by this youtube/twitter content creator Shaan Puri.
When I sat down to breakdown my memecoin framework I realized I apply a lot of the viral content principles to my memecoin selection, and it works.
Just like viral content, every good memecoin is able to appeal to emotions.
I’ve adjusted the same framework to something that better applies to memecoins.
You want to focus on the memecoins that trigger the following feelings:
Cute — “Aww”
This would be your typical dogs, cats, hippo coins (sidenote: I think Moo Deng is ugly and not cute at all. Normies like it though so send it to $1 billion anyway.)
Funny — “Haha”
Everyone has their own unique sense of humor, but ideally you want the stuff that makes you laugh also applies to a bunch of other people (If you have a sense of humor that no one else gets you might be out of luck).
Shock & awe — “This is unbelievable!”
Things like stunts (midgets fighting, guy who set himself on fire, etc) or anything that triggers a sense of wonder
Absurdity — “Wtf?”
Similar to shock & awe, but leaning more into the stupidity aspect. “Brainrot” coins like Skibidi Toilet would fit in here.
Anger — “This is offensive/not ok”
Anything polarizing. Racist memecoins fit in here. (Note: the actual buyer isn’t the person angry at the coin concept - it’s about other people being angry so that they talk about it and it drives attention)
Disgust — “This is gross”
I don’t have a good example memecoin here but putting it because it works for content. I’d say this is the weakest trigger for me, purely because I have no interest in seeing something I find disgusting repeatedly in my memefolio.
We live in a world with endless content.
You need emotional triggers to get people’s attention.
Memecoins are just tokenized attention.
Note: emotional triggers aren’t the only reason a memecoin works. A better way to think about the framework is that when emotional triggers are present it is more likely to work. There are so many other factors at play in the memecoin arena (holderbase, distribution, prevailing meta). Emotional triggers help memes get noticed.
Often times coins lifting from an existing brand, following, or recognizable movement can bypass the need for emotional triggers because people are already emotionally connected and attention is built-in. This was a key driver of the ZYN thesis I published back in March. When you add emotional triggers on top these kinds of memecoins they have the potential to really take off.
When you combine many emotional triggers together you get really crazy results. The racist joke memecoins do well for explicitly this reason. They trigger anger and perhaps disgust among people who don’t like the coins while others find them funny. This creates a combustion of various emotions that drives attention. Think coins like Retardio, George Droyd, Indian Call Centre (RIP), etc. (set aside the morality of racist memecoins for this publication — I am just explaining what goes up and why).
Something like the Mark Cuban troll CHABENISKY is a great example of absurdity and funny while also leveraging his celebrity status against him to drive more attention. Some people are drawn to it because it’s funny, others because of it’s strangeness/absurdity, and others perhaps because they feel anger towards Mark.
Don’t assume the reason you buy something is the same as others. Ultimately the value of your coins is based on the value of the network of holders. A coin needs to be able to reach the target network of buyers and make them feel something.
All that to say: EQ is far more important than IQ with memecoins.
Housekeeping
Memecoins have proven to be a permanent fixture in crypto. That means it is in fact worth your time to get good at making memecoins and/or trading them. They are the most accessible opportunity in crypto for anyone to make a project that could go into the multi-millions.
A lot of people ask me what bots/tools I use on Solana, so this probably deserves its own post at some point. You probably wouldn’t believe it but I’ve been rawdogging with the Jupiter frontend and the Phantom browser wallet most of this time. A couple of weeks ago Jupiter released their own trading terminal so I tested that out and wow my execution improved a ton. I have probably given up tens of thousands of dollars over the last couple of months trying to squeeze transactions through with basic tooling.
It’s not perfect (can be a pain to execute transactions during high volatility without setting slippage too high) but definitely better than what I was using previously. If you want to use it use the OnlyApes link (you get 10% off + whatever we make gets reinvested into the OA platform anyways). If there are other trading bots you guys think are better let me know and I’ll try them. Jupiter’s is the cheapest at .50% per trade and it’s good enough for my purposes. I like to keep it as simple as possible and focus on my meme selection over the various tools.
Important: I have not done any research whatsoever on the terminal’s security. You shouldn’t have your entire portfolio in memes anyway, but in the event that you do, do not send the entirety of it to any trading bot. This is just for running up smaller bags with an actively managed strategy. Like I said in the last post the memecoin arena is more for staying on top of trends and finding coins to put into your memefolio. You don’t need to take a ton of risk in terms of portfolio sizing due to the asymmetry involved.
That’s all for today’s post. Let me know:
If you found this helpful
Memecoin related topics you want to see covered in depth
The next 100x coin
Bye for now.
Disclaimer: The content provided on this blog is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Memecoins are highly volatile, speculative, and come with significant risks. The information shared on this blog should not be considered as financial, investment, or trading advice. We are not financial advisors, and you should not rely on any information here to make financial decisions.
By accessing this blog, you agree to use the information at your own risk.
Thoughts on memecoins as it relates to the election / if Trump wins, what that'll look like for memecoins both short and longer term since JD Vance has spoken against coins without utility?
Also, what are signs that it's time to sell a coin?
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“But there’s no way to know what’s going to go viral!”
Anyone who is a decent content creator will tell you that that is simply not true.
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As someone who has made several videos/memes for large brands that reached 1 million+ people organically, you're 100% correct. Sometimes you get surprised, but you often know what will be a hit.
The key to focus on emotion can't be stated enough. People don't do something unless they feel something.
Great post! It would be interesting for readers to send you some meme coins that are less known and you explain with your system for evaluating them why they may or may not work. 1 or 2 would probably provide a great example of your framework and be very educational