Pump.fun, a memecoin launchpad, has exceeded $100 million in revenue since its January 2024 launch, while Polymarket's trading volume in August outpaced the entire NFT market.

Although Pump.fun, a new popular memecoin launcher, claims its smart contracts are secure, a former employee allegedly exploited a vulnerability, stealing ~12.3K SOL (approximately $1.9 million).

About half a million tokens were launched on Solana in May, driven by the increasing popularity of memecoins and facilitated by intuitive, user-friendly platforms like Pump.fun. This surge is a reflection of Solana's high throughput and low transaction costs, thus positioning it as a leading blockchain for new token initiatives.

@pumpdotfun shared a stark update from the trenches of the meme coin world: out of 16,357 tokens launched in the past 24 hours, only 175 reached Raydium, and a mere 19 remain above a 69k market cap—resulting in a slim 0.12% success rate from launch to profitability.

Companies are leveraging memecoins, or tokens associated with internet memes, in their go-to-market strategies. These companies are taking advantage of memecoins' established communities by integrating popular memecoins into new products or projects. Examples include the BONKbot trading bot using the $BONK token and $SHIB incorporating its token into an Ethereum L2 called Shibarium. This approach can tap into the established userbase and liquidity of memecoin communities, providing a potential solution to getting initial momentum in a project.

The chart indicates that Polymarket is expected to achieve ~$475M in trading volume and add 75K new accounts in August 2024, showcasing its growing popularity and influence as the US approaches the November elections.

MetaMask Debit Card 🦊, Coinbase Announces cbBTC 🪙, pumpdotfun Sees $5m in 24hr Revenue 💰

- Justin Sun announces SunPump, the first memecoin launch platform on TRON, aiming to innovate within the meme culture ecosystem. - Kamala Harris is expected to maintain a tough stance on crypto, continuing Biden's regulatory approach. - Robinhood's CEO reveals the firm now earns more revenue from crypto trading than equities, highlighting the growing importance of crypto in financial services.

The pie chart shows that 60% of pump.fun traders were not profitable, ~5% broke even, and the remaining ~35% earned varying amounts, with only 0.5% making over $10K, highlighting the high risk and low profitability of their trading activities.

While a large portion of Polymarket's growth this year can be attributed to the U.S. election, the platform has also seen an increase in non-election-related trading. Although 42% of new users initially traded in election-related markets, there has been a 391% YTD growth in volume across various other markets, indicating consumer interest beyond political events.

'Meme coins,' digital assets rooted in internet culture, are gaining significant traction, with established coins like Dogecoin taking off and other newer coins like dogwifhat, Pepe, and Bonk having explosive moves and reaching multiple billion dollar market caps. Even though investing in such assets carries high risks, including possible loss of principle, technological failures, and regulatory challenges, users in the space are having fun betting on which coins will be the most viral.

Short-sellers collectively lost $50m as leading memecoins surged in price. PEPE, WIF, and BONK all hit all-time highs over the weekend - even Doge saw price gains. Memecoins, only recently stepping into the spotlight as legitimate speculative bets, have rapidly been gaining traction as an asset class not to be overlooked by investors and speculators.

This edition of Consumer Notes highlights key developments in consumer crypto, including the rise of innovative platforms like Makememe.now, marginfi's The Arena, and dumpy.fun, which are pushing the boundaries of meme coins. It also covers major updates such as the launch of the Pudgy Penguin Consumer Chain on Abstract's testnet, Telegram's new crypto-integrated browser and mini-app store, and Blackbird's Flynet, a blockchain-based payment system aimed at revolutionizing restaurant loyalty programs.

The memecoin frenzy that has been brewing on Solana has boosted on-chain volumes to new records, exceeding $3.79 billion in volume per day. The success of coins like dogwifhat and the Book of Meme presale helped drive these volumes to new heights. This trend has helped Solana pass Ethereum in on-chain DEX volumes and has pushed the price of Solana to over $200.

Memecoins blend internet culture with digital currency. Tracing back to the early days of cryptocurrency, with each cycle introducing new iterations, they gained momentum through early Bitcoin alternatives, ICO crazes, DeFi summer, and meme stocks, evolving to include NFTs which brought visual representation to these tokens. Memecoins, such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, have often been regarded as cultural tokens, gaining value from their associated memes and community engagement. Despite their potential for high returns, they carry risks of volatility and regulatory uncertainty.

General Partner at Electric Capital Maria Shen divides her list of the most innovative onchain experiments from the last 3 years into four categories. For human coordination mechanisms, she highlights Nouns DAO for its complex treasury system and spin-off projects and Curta for its recognition of solving hard problems. In the “pricing historically difficult assets” category, Love on Leverage prices momentum during a live dating show and Orb Land allows users to access Q&As with influencers. Her “markets for unique assets” category includes liquid NFT markets. The final category is for incentive mechanisms for onchain art, represented by the 5/9 chess engine's NFT-per-move mechanic.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin provides his take on the current state of the memecoin market, opining how memecoins can be positive-sum and more than a tool for speculation. He argues for integrating memecoins with a specific initiative or charity but notes potential limitations with a simple partnership. His main point centers on memecoins tied to fun, engaging games that leave lower-income players better off while still being enjoyable for those playing without monetary incentives – “World of Warcraft on the blockchain.” Buterin concludes by expressing disdain for the racist or derogatory memecoins but hopes that the positive ones could have a significant societal impact.

Bitcoin was the first real memecoin, its narrative buoyed by skepticism of central banking and institutional trust erosion. However, the memecoin space has evolved to encompass thousands of other coins, boosted by shifting crypto trends and attention economics. Solana recently illustrated this with its high density of rapidly growing memecoins. However, this has led to challenges with Solana's blockspace allocation, transaction inclusion, and a rise in 'MEV' or Maximum Extractable Value. Bitcoin now looks set to experience its own MEV surge driven by an influx of memecoin-driven activities. This highlights a need for deeper discussion on managing such complexities in the broader non-EVM ecosystem.

Five categories of memecoins based on how they start: meme-first, community-first, token-first, product-first, and event-based memecoins.

Memecoins, from Dogecoin to lesser-known tokens, play a vital role in pushing the boundaries of financial freedom and societal commitment to digital property rights. Memecoins are both a cultural and a financial phenomenon that represent a form of collective expression gained through emerging technologies.

Donald Trump- and Joe Biden-inspired memecoin prices have risen significantly over the last 24 hours. The MAGA coin is up 44% and the Biden coin is up 22%. This rally seems to stem from Trump recently announcing that his campaign will accept crypto donations.

The rise of meme coins in the crypto space has sparked concerns about their negative impact on the industry's credibility and long-term growth. Critics argue that these tokens, which often lack technical innovation and rely on hype-driven speculation, create a predatory environment that disproportionately benefits savvy traders at the expense of less experienced investors.

Over the past year, Hyperliquid has grown to host 150,000 users and over $220 billion in volume. Traders at all levels and across Crypto Twitter like the platform, and it has found product/market fit. Over 95% of Hyperliquid users are down on their trades but continue to use the platform, creating a community moat.

This post breaks down the most profitable industry sectors this year. Memecoins are the clear leader, with a 1,313% market capitalization increase, followed by RWA and AI at around 250%.

If tokens are the product, they flip the traditional model of creating value without capturing it first. Tokens serve as a prediction market for investors' interest in a project's direction and the likelihood it will happen, making them a narrative discovery tool and creating tight feedback loops for teams. Since tokens immediately allow teams to receive more capital for a proposed product, they act as a more efficient and faster version of VC funding. Memes are necessary to ensure sufficient and consistent interest and liquidity, keeping the project relevant and with an army of supporters.

Moonshot is the first app on the App Store that allows users to buy and sell memes with Apple Pay. It offers a seamless sign-up with email and FaceID with no need for blockchain knowledge or wallet addresses. Users can earn money through trades and referrals. The app is now available in over 130 countries.

Nearly half of the $25 billion in orderflow volume over the past month on Ethereum has come from private or proprietary applications. The trend started with DeFi summer, when transaction aggregators, wallet swaps, Telegram bots, and solver networks launched. This development supports the fat app thesis, where applications controlling user attention and order flow would accrue the most value in the ecosystem.

Coinbase has introduced pre-launch markets, allowing users to trade tokens before their onchain creation and participate in price discovery. Pre-launch markets uses a perpetual derivative model, basing the token price off the exponential moving average of the market's mark prices every four hours. The first token supported will be EIGEN and trading will be open to Coinbase International Exchange and Coinbase Advanced users.

Immutable received nearly $1 billion in funding to build an ecosystem with over 200 games, while Sorare received almost $750 million for crypto fantasy games and now has over 3 million users. Smaller studios have abandoned projects after raising over a billion dollars cumulatively. Other games are targeting specific niches, like Parallel's focus on AI, Off The Grid's console experience, or Mythical Games' Pudgy Penguin mobile app.

PYUSD, which expanded to the Solana network in May, has surpassed $500M in market cap. The stablecoin's expansion to a mix of centralized and DeFi platforms has helped increase its supply from $270M to over $530M in 1 month.