BSC Memecoin Mania: The Forgotten Era (2021)

Before Solana became the memecoin capital, that title belonged to Binance Smart Chain. In 2021, BSC was the home of SafeMoon, Baby Doge, EverGrow, ElonGate, BabyShiba, and hundreds of similar tokens. Transactions cost cents instead of dollars, the chain was fast, and PancakeSwap made trading easy. For most of 2021, more memecoin volume happened on BSC than on Ethereum.

But BSC memecoins had a darker reputation. Rug pulls were rampant. Scam projects launched and disappeared daily. Influencers were paid to shill projects with no due diligence. By 2022, when the bear market arrived, most BSC memecoins were worth nothing. The era was largely forgotten when Solana memecoins took over in 2023. But for a brief moment, BSC was the wild west of meme money — and millions of small investors learned harsh lessons there.