Blog

SMOG launched on Solana in early 2024 with a strategy that became a template for the year: massive airdrops as a marketing tool. Instead of holding tokens for the team, SMOG distributed tens of millions of tokens to thousands of Solana wallets that met certain on-chain activity criteria. Within weeks, the token had reached a market cap exceeding $200 million.

The airdrop strategy worked because it solved memecoin distribution’s biggest problem. Most memecoins concentrated supply in a small number of insider wallets, creating dump pressure. SMOG inverted that: by giving tokens to thousands of unrelated wallets, it created a broad holder base with no single party powerful enough to crash the price. The decentralization was real.

SMOG also ran one of the most aggressive marketing campaigns of any 2024 memecoin. The team purchased Times Square billboards, sponsored crypto podcasts, and bought Twitter ads. The mascot — a cartoon dragon with a smoggy aesthetic — became one of the more recognizable images in the Solana memecoin landscape. The branding was professional in a way most memecoins weren’t.

The trade-off with the airdrop strategy was always sustainability. Recipients who didn’t buy the token had no skin in the game and would dump for any profit. SMOG fought through that pressure by maintaining marketing momentum and active community management. By the end of 2024, SMOG had outlasted most of its airdrop-era competitors. The lesson: distribution mattered, but follow-through mattered more.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android

ZYN launched on Solana in 2024 as one of the more unexpected memecoin tributes: a token built around the popular nicotine pouch brand. ZYN pouches had become a cultural phenomenon among American males in their 20s and 30s, with the brand mentioned constantly on podcasts, in sports culture, and across social media. The memecoin community noticed and immediately tokenized the trend.

The launch was opportunistic but well-executed. The team built community around the parallel between ZYN nicotine pouches (an addictive dopamine hit) and memecoin trading (also an addictive dopamine hit). The connection landed. Within weeks, ZYN had reached a market cap exceeding $50 million. The mascot was a cartoon nicotine pouch with cool sunglasses and a confident pose.

The actual ZYN brand (owned by Philip Morris International) had no connection to the cryptocurrency. The token was an unauthorized cultural appropriation in the same way most memecoins were — borrowing existing brand recognition without permission. Philip Morris never publicly responded to the existence of ZYN coin. The legal questions were never tested.

ZYN illustrated a recurring strategy of 2024 memecoins: identify a viral consumer brand or product, tokenize it before the moment passed, and ride the cultural wave. The list of products that got their own unauthorized memecoins in 2024 was long: ZYN, Stanley Cups, Crocs, Labubu dolls. Almost any consumer phenomenon with internet attention could become a tradeable asset within hours of going viral.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android

PEIPEI launched on Ethereum in 2024 as one of the most successful Pepe-derivatives of the cycle. Where the original PEPE coin used Matt Furie’s familiar frog, PEIPEI used a different cartoon style: a fatter, simpler, more cheerfully grotesque version of the frog. The name was a deliberate play on the original — close enough to ride the wave, different enough to be its own thing.

By mid-2024, PEIPEI had reached a market cap exceeding $100 million. The community built around the idea that PEIPEI was the “true” successor to PEPE — that the original had become too associated with serious traders, while PEIPEI was for people who still wanted the frog meme to feel weird and unhinged. The token positioned itself as the more degenerate alternative.

PEIPEI captured a recurring dynamic in memecoin culture. Every successful original spawned variants that competed for the same audience. Doge spawned Shiba, then Floki, then Baby Doge, then dozens more. PEPE spawned PEIPEI, HOPPY, LANDWOLF, and countless others. The memecoin economy worked the same way meme culture worked: through endless remix and competition for attention.

PEIPEI also demonstrated the power of slight differentiation. By being not-quite-PEPE, it captured holders who wanted exposure to the frog category without owning the most expensive frog. It was the budget version of a known winner. In a market where the original was already too big, the second-tier alternative could deliver bigger percentage returns to its holders. PEIPEI made that bet and won.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android

“Just a chill guy” was a single illustration drawn in 2023 by an artist named Phillip Banks. The image showed a brown anthropomorphic dog in a t-shirt and jeans, leaning casually with his hands in his pockets. Banks posted it on his Instagram with the caption “my new character. his vibe is just a chill guy. he is a chill guy. he’s pretty cool.” The meme exploded across social media in late 2024, becoming one of the most-shared images of the year.

Within days of going viral, CHILLGUY memecoins launched on Solana. The largest version reached a market cap exceeding $600 million within weeks. The token captured the energy of the meme perfectly: relaxed, friendly, no agenda. CHILLGUY holders adopted the same persona — calmly bullish, never frantic, content to wait.

The story took a complicated turn in November 2024 when Phillip Banks, the original artist, publicly objected to the unauthorized use of his character. He filed DMCA takedowns against memecoin-related content using his art. Solana traders argued about copyright versus fair use. The token price wobbled but recovered. The community-versus-creator tension became a defining example of who actually owns memes in the age of memecoins.

CHILLGUY raised an unresolved question that would haunt the memecoin economy. Artists created the cultural source material that memecoin communities turned into billions of dollars of market cap. The artists rarely saw any of that money. Was that exploitation, or was it the natural cost of creating something for the internet? CHILLGUY didn’t answer the question — it just made it impossible to ignore.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android

MUMU THE BULL launched on Ethereum in 2024 as the first major memecoin built around a bull market theme. While almost every other memecoin used dogs, frogs, or cats, MUMU went for the most bullish image possible: a cartoon bull. The pitch was simple: in a bull market, hold the bull. Within months, MUMU had a market cap exceeding $200 million.

The branding worked because the timing was perfect. By mid-2024, crypto was clearly entering a new bull market. Bitcoin had broken its previous all-time high. Solana was running. Memecoins were exploding. Holding a token literally called “the bull” felt like declaring market sentiment in your portfolio. MUMU became the unofficial mascot of the 2024 bull cycle.

The community was unusually focused on the meta — they treated MUMU as a bet on bull market psychology itself. As long as crypto sentiment was bullish, MUMU was the purest representation of that sentiment. When fear returned, MUMU dropped. When greed returned, MUMU pumped. The token became a kind of sentiment index, simpler than any technical indicator.

MUMU’s success demonstrated that even in a market saturated with animal mascots, fresh angles still worked. A bull was cliché in traditional finance, but in the memecoin world it was novel. The token captured a niche that no other memecoin had directly targeted: the visual representation of crypto bullishness itself. In a market full of frogs and dogs, the bull became its own brand.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android

SLERF is the most famous accident in memecoin history. Launched on Solana in March 2024, the project planned to airdrop tokens to thousands of presale buyers who had collectively contributed over $10 million in SOL. On launch day, the developer made a catastrophic mistake: they accidentally burned the entire airdrop allocation and the LP tokens, permanently destroying about $10 million worth of SLERF.

The dev publicly admitted the mistake on Twitter within hours, saying he had accidentally clicked the wrong button. The presale buyers had no recourse — there was no way to recover the burned tokens. By any rational measure, SLERF should have been dead. The presale was unfunded. The team had no remaining supply. The token had no marketing budget.

And then SLERF pumped. The story went viral on Crypto Twitter. Traders rushed to buy SLERF specifically because the disaster had become its narrative. Within days, SLERF had a market cap exceeding $500 million. The token reached major exchange listings within weeks. The accidental burn had created a perfect memecoin: scarce supply, viral story, no team allocation. The catastrophe became the marketing.

SLERF taught an unexpected lesson about memecoin economics. In a market driven by stories more than fundamentals, a disaster could be more valuable than a smooth launch. The narrative of a developer destroying his own project by accident was the perfect meme for a market full of carefully orchestrated launches. SLERF was real chaos in a sea of staged absurdity, and the market rewarded the realness.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android

JEO BODEN — a deliberate misspelling of Joe Biden — launched on Solana in 2024 as a political memecoin parody. The mascot was a cartoon version of the US president drawn in the style of a confused, bumbling old man, with the kind of typo-laden text that defined Solana memecoin culture. Within months, BODEN had a market cap exceeding $700 million.

The token launched alongside a wave of political memecoins as the 2024 US presidential election heated up. TRUMP and BIDEN parody coins competed for trader attention. BODEN was the most successful Biden coin by a wide margin. The branding leaned into Biden’s public image as a gaffe-prone elderly politician — the same image his political opponents pushed and his supporters defended.

BODEN demonstrated something important about memecoin politics: the market did not care which side you were on, only how memetic the candidate was. Trump generated more meme energy because he was more polarizing. Biden generated meme energy because he was easy to parody. Both candidates produced multi-hundred-million-dollar memecoins in the same cycle. The market was politically agnostic — it just wanted attention.

When Biden dropped out of the 2024 race in July, BODEN crashed almost immediately. Without an active candidate, the meme lost its narrative. The token never recovered to its previous highs. BODEN became one of the cleanest case studies of how a memecoin’s value is tied to the relevance of its source meme. When the cultural moment ended, the financial moment ended with it.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android

In May 2024, Australian rapper Iggy Azalea launched her own memecoin on Solana called MOTHER. Unlike most celebrity tokens — which are typically launched by anonymous fans hoping to capitalize on a famous name — MOTHER was officially endorsed and actively promoted by Iggy herself. She tweeted about it. She did promotional videos. She built a community around her own coin.

The launch was controversial. Crypto Twitter immediately questioned whether MOTHER was a serious project or a celebrity cash grab. Skeptics pointed out that Iggy’s music career had cooled, and a memecoin with her name attached looked like a way to monetize her remaining fame. Defenders argued that she was at least more transparent than the dozens of celebrities who silently shilled tokens through paid endorsements.

MOTHER pumped to a market cap exceeding $300 million within weeks. Iggy continued to promote it actively, tweeting price updates and engaging with the community. The token became a defining example of “celebrity memecoins” — tokens where the entire value proposition was tied to one person’s ongoing willingness to talk about it.

The MOTHER experiment revealed both the power and the fragility of celebrity-driven memecoins. As long as Iggy stayed engaged, MOTHER had attention. The moment her interest waned, the token would lose its central narrative. The success or failure of MOTHER ultimately depended on whether Iggy treated it as a long-term commitment or a quick monetization. By the end of 2024, it had become a cautionary case study either way.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android

HOPPY launched on Ethereum in early 2024 as one of the dozens of frog-themed tokens that emerged in the wake of PEPE’s success. Unlike PEPE, which used Matt Furie’s controversial cartoon, HOPPY featured a generic, cute, original frog mascot — bigger eyes, gentler expression, less ironic. It was the wholesome alternative to PEPE.

The token reached a market cap exceeding $100 million by mid-2024. The community positioned HOPPY explicitly as the “kindness frog” — a place for crypto holders who wanted frog-themed exposure without the political baggage that had clung to Pepe since 2016. HOPPY became the gateway frog for traders who didn’t want to explain their PEPE bag at family dinners.

The HOPPY rise was part of a broader pattern: every successful memecoin spawned imitators that captured slightly different audience segments. PEPE was for ironic, terminally-online traders. HOPPY was for traders who wanted the upside of frog memes without the edge. Both could coexist because they served different niches. The memecoin market was big enough for two frogs.

HOPPY also illustrated how derivative memecoins could succeed. The strategy was simple: take a proven format (frog memecoins), file off the rough edges (political controversy), and offer the same upside with less risk. It was not original. It was not creative. It worked precisely because it was so unoriginal — a safe way to get frog exposure in a market that loved frogs.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android

RETARDIO launched on Solana in early 2024 with one of the most provocative names in memecoin history. Built around an established art collective of cartoon characters, the token deliberately embraced a slur as its identity — a choice that was either brilliant counter-culture trolling or genuinely offensive, depending on who you asked. Either way, it worked: RETARDIO reached a market cap exceeding $200 million within months.

The Retardio brand predated the memecoin. The Retardio Cousins NFT collection had been a Solana art project since 2023, with its own loyal community. When the team launched the memecoin, the existing NFT holders became the founding holders of the token. This NFT-to-memecoin transition became a template that other Solana projects copied.

The community went hard on the bit. Retardio holders embraced the name proudly, treating it as in-group identity for people who refused to take crypto culture seriously. The token became a flag for traders who saw the entire memecoin economy as a joke worth participating in. The more controversial the name, the more committed the community.

Retardio also illustrated a critical lesson about modern memecoin marketing: offense is attention, and attention is liquidity. Tokens that polarized audiences often outperformed tokens that tried to please everyone. The memecoin market rewarded extreme positioning. Retardio took that strategy to its logical conclusion and was rewarded with one of the most loyal niche communities on Solana.

Trade memecoins safely on Memeshot — iOS / Android