Will technological narratives become the main theme of hype? A review of the seven hot concepts of 2024 and a look ahead to 2025

Author: flowie, ChainCatcher
Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher

2024 is the inaugural year of the meme explosion, with the meme craze permeating the entire year. As of the time of writing, CoinGecko data shows that memes represent a market exceeding $100 billion. Memes are not only the battlefield for retail investors but have also become a fiercely contested space for major institutions, CEXs, and public chains vying for traffic.

Compared to the past, which mainly focused on zoo-type memes, 2024 can be said to be a year where everything can be a meme, with angles you might not have imagined. This article reviews the main types of meme speculation concepts in 2024 and the predictions from research institutions regarding the development trends of memes in 2025.

Seven Major Hot Meme Speculation Concepts of 2024

Political Concept Memes

The 2024 U.S. presidential election has spawned and heated up many political concept meme coins. On March 5, 2024, CoinGecko added a new section for PolitiFi tokens.

Political memes can be said to have initially centered around Trump, with a meme token named TRUMP in 2023 skyrocketing over a thousand times, astonishing the community. As the key election year of 2024 approaches, various memes named after political figures such as Trump, Biden, Harris, Vance, and others in significant positions have once again become hot topics for speculation. Representative tokens include TRUMP, BODEN, and KAMA.

In addition to tokens named after political figures, slogans and catchphrases from political speeches have also spawned a large number of memes. For example, the meme coin MAGA, named after Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again." The meme coin FIGHT, themed around the incident where Trump was attacked, saw a significant price increase after Trump tweeted "FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!!!"

Moreover, memes represented by PNUT have been given the meaning of expressing political demands. A viral squirrel was captured and euthanized without sufficient communication, leading to a political controversy seeking animal protection and expressing reasonable demands, causing the meme PNUT to go viral. Besides PNUT, a batch of similar meme tokens expressing political demands, such as the monkey Jorgie taken away by the police, also emerged.

AI Concept Memes

In October, an AI bot called "Truth Terminal" (@truth_terminal) "thought" of a meme coin name GOAT, and a16z founder Marc Andreessen even invested $50,000 worth of Bitcoin into it. GOAT skyrocketed from 0 to $270 million in just four days after its creation, with a price surge of 150 times, attracting community attention.

Since then, various meme coins integrating AI concepts have been flooding in, giving rise to multiple sub-tracks. Representative AI Agent memes include GOAT, GNON, VIRTUA, and FUN; AI + infrastructure is represented by ACT; AI investment DAO memes are represented by ai16z; AI + art is represented by slop; and AI + animals are represented by Shoggoth and others.

Hotspot Mapping Memes

This has also been a very interesting phenomenon this year, with almost every hotspot having a corresponding meme appear. For example, in August 2024, after the release of the Chinese-made AAA game "Black Myth: Wukong," many meme coins such as $WuKong quickly emerged on various chains following this hotspot.

Memes can easily ride the wave of hot events. In November, after Sun Yuchen announced the purchase of Maurizio Cattelan's iconic work "Comedian" for $6.2 million, a meme coin named Ban, themed around Cattelan's banana, capitalized on the Sotheby's banana auction and the SpaceX Starship launch.

Additionally, if players miss out on trading during the hot altcoin events, many will choose to wait for meme coins related to the hot concepts to trade. On December 2, after XRP's price hit a seven-year high and its market cap surpassed Solana, many who missed XRP's nearly 400% surge turned their attention to related memes. By around 1 PM that afternoon, the 24-hour trading volume on-chain within that ecosystem exceeded $70 million, with the number of transactions reaching 330,000. The meme $RIPPLE, named after Ripple, surged over 400% within 24 hours, while the meme $589, calling for XRP to rise to 589, surged over 160% in 24 hours.

DeSci Concept Memes

DeSci, or decentralized science, is not a new concept this year. However, in November, Binance Labs announced an investment in the DeSci project BIO Protocol. After CZ and Vitalik discussed their insights on DeSci, several DeSci memes surged, leading to widespread discussion of this concept, aiming to channel meme liquidity into fields such as medicine, physics, and chemistry.

Representative projects include the DeSci concept meme coins RIF and URO, both from the meme token issuance platform Pump.science launched by the DeSci project Molecule DAO. RIF and URO represent the compounds rifampicin (RIF) and urate (URO), respectively, aiming to support medicine through meme coins.

When RIF and URO were first launched, their popularity was low, but under the influence of Binance and CZ, they continuously broke new highs, with a market cap reaching nearly $3 million and a two-day surge of up to 20 times.

TikTok Concept Memes

Around October 2024, a meme called ChillGuy went viral on TikTok. This meme features a personified character dressed in a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, with hands in pockets, appearing very calm and becoming extremely popular among young people. Related videos garnered over 20 million views in just two months.

With the popularity of CHILL GUY, a meme coin named CHILLGUY was also born on the Solana chain. Celebrities like El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and Elon Musk helped boost the meme coin's popularity by sharing CHILL GUY elements, leading to a 7000% increase in $CHILLGUY within just five days, with a peak market cap exceeding $500 million.

The user base of TikTok overlaps significantly with those investing in cryptocurrencies and meme coins, primarily Gen Z and Millennials, making TikTok a potential creative generator for meme coins.

In addition to CHILLGUY, other TikTok concept meme coins such as MOODENG, APPLE, WAIT, HUZZ, and GRIDDY have also received considerable attention.

Zoo Memes

Zoo memes remain one of the most easily spread and resilient narratives. Following Doge, new rising stars like Neiro and MOODENG emerged this year.

Neiro is a meme named after a new pet adopted by the owner of the Doge prototype, which went viral on the night of Trump's Bitcoin conference speech, overshadowing the Trump-themed NSYB (never sell your bitcoin) meme and sparking a debate over case sensitivity in memes.

MOODENG's prototype is a viral baby pygmy hippo born in Thailand. The rise of MOODENG also fueled a phenomenon of crazy animal-themed memes on the Solana chain, with various animals like penguin PESTO, baby elephant TOTO, monkey GEORGIE, beaver BOBR, and frog omochi becoming hot topics for speculation.

Under the dominance of Doge, cat culture meme themes have also emerged as a new speculation direction, giving rise to memes like MEW, which oppose "dogs," and cat-themed memes like MIGGLES, which gained popularity from a Coinbase promotional video.

Additionally, the previously mentioned PNUT and other memes expressing political demands also fall under the animal-themed meme category.

Celebrity Memes

Celebrity memes remain an important direction in meme trading that cannot be ignored. This year, in addition to Trump and Musk, who are both meme hotspot creators, some artists and entertainment stars issuing tokens have also become a trend, receiving significant attention.

Earlier this year, Pepe meme artist Darkfarm's issuance of BOOK OF MEME (BOME) went viral across social media platforms, increasing 20 times within just three hours of launch and surpassing a market cap of $1 billion in three days, while Doge took four years to reach a $1 billion market cap.

Throughout the year, several celebrities launched tokens, such as JENNER from Caitlyn Jenner, Trump's transgender father, and MOTHER from female rapper Iggy Azalea, both achieving hundreds of times in price increases, causing celebrity memes to sweep the crypto community once again.

However, celebrity memes often have very short lifespans, and these meme coins have been criticized for being quick money grabs. Vitalik has expressed dissatisfaction with the experiments of celebrities issuing MEME coins.

2025 Meme Trend Predictions: Larger Scale, AI Memes May Lead the Way

Both Messari and DWF Labs believe that the popularity of memes will continue into 2025. Messari mentions three aspects that will drive the continued growth of memes.

In terms of infrastructure, some high-throughput chains provide ample block space, allowing meme transactions to avoid high costs.

In terms of user experience optimization, applications like Moonshot and Pump.fun continue to lower the entry barrier and simplify transaction processes, likely attracting more retail participants.

Additionally, meme coins, as speculative outlets, are similar to gambling and may continue to attract users seeking entertainment and profit in the current macro environment.

Bitwise also predicts that a larger-scale meme coin craze will emerge in 2025 compared to 2024, stating that tokens issued by AI agents will become the leaders of this wave.

Beyond AI narratives for memes, the Web3 ecosystem incubator Nomos Labs has also mentioned more technologies empowering the development of memes, such as attempts to link with NFTs and integrate with payment scenarios and DeFi. Nomos Labs believes that technological empowerment will be an important focus for the next stage of meme coins. "In the long run, only when technological narratives are realized can meme coins possibly break free from the fate of short-term speculation."

The practicality of memes may also become more prominent in 2025. Venture capital firm MV Global states that with the push of practical meme coins, decentralized science (DeSci) is expected to achieve significant growth in 2025.

However, Murad, known for his meme calls that exploded in 2024, holds a different view. He believes that in a bull market, practicality may actually become a constraint, and pure speculation will make meme coins perform better. However, he also mentions that future meme coins may indeed add DeFi functionalities, evolve into investment DAOs, and even create brands in fashion and lifestyle.