What opportunities will arise when Meme and TON merge

Author: Wyz_Research
Market fluctuations in July saw a rapid rebound in dominant market cryptocurrencies BTC and ETH after another price drop, signaling a new short-term bottom.
During this rebound, we observed positive performances across various sectors in the industry, including old concepts like public chains, L2, Bitcoin ecosystem, Memecoins, and AI.
However, comparing the rebound magnitude of tokens in different sectors, it can be concluded that Meme or meme-like tokens showed the strongest rebound. Projects such as PEPE, WIF, FLOKI, and even WEN, which have been eye-catching in this cycle, all experienced rapid rebounds.
In a timely manner, Forbes also released the TOP10 cryptocurrency list with a market value exceeding $1 billion in the first half of 2024, including WIF, PEPE, ASI, FLOKI, JASMY, AR, CORE, TON, BGB, and BONK. Among these tokens, Memecoins occupied 4 spots, with 3 belonging to the Solana ecosystem, showcasing the inevitable trend of the ecosystem and Meme complementing each other in this cycle.
In the last cycle, the most successful sector in the Solana ecosystem was Defi, while Memecoins were more prevalent on BSC or Ethereum. However, in this cycle, Solana’s high-speed public chain advantage has taken the lead, with the public chain founding team and key ecosystem projects embracing Meme, making Meme almost as crucial as Defi, or one could say that Solana’s achievements almost stem from Meme.
The next question to ponder is the volatile nature of Meme development, as it can impact ecosystem liquidity and user enthusiasm. For investors, seeking a public chain ecosystem that can provide a conducive environment for Meme growth and replicating past experiences is essential.
The answer to this question undoubtedly lies with TON. So how can we find opportunities in the rules of TON and Meme?
Memecoins Reign as the Hot Trend of this Cycle
The Meme sector began to emerge in the last cycle when BSC started promoting high-speed DEX on the chain. On chains with fast transaction confirmation speeds, DEX’s permissionless nature was fully utilized, leading to the emergence of Meme tokens based on personal IPs or well-known animal images. These tokens, leveraging Meme culture and the hype around cryptocurrencies, became the most prominent entities in the secondary market.
While tokens associated with “animal zoo” garnered significant attention at the time, Meme tokens became synonymous with projects that were unregulated, prone to exit scams, and associated with massive gains and losses.
As the potential of Memes needed to be legitimized, tokens like Doge, Shib, and People emerged. Through market hype, these tokens became projects with “potential” market value management entities, strong community culture, and operations, giving birth to a new Meme sector in the industry.
In the current cycle, Memecoins not only continue the aforementioned characteristics but also exhibit more mature strategies and operational approaches. Taking Solana as an example, the Solana ecosystem started in the third quarter of 2023. Unlike the growth in the previous cycle, within two years, Solana’s Defi infrastructure had become very advanced. The focus of ecosystem development shifted from the number of projects to ecosystem trading volume and popularity.
At this point, the entire ecosystem seemed to rally around Meme. Initially on Solana’s DEX, a robust Meme token issuance and trading process, liquidity supply, and various liquidity sharing platforms and DEX robot market-making tools emerged spontaneously. Additionally, Solana’s founders and team openly supported certain Memes, and projects like Jupiter conducted highly popular mass Meme token airdrops amidst the Meme hype, leading to a wave of imitations by subsequent Meme projects.
Backed by the strong branding power of Memes and the heat generated by the Solana ecosystem, Solana regained its prominence in the industry. Tokens within the ecosystem, especially Meme tokens, experienced extraordinary multi-fold gains. Most projects achieved high valuations, and now, investors are gradually shifting their expectations towards the next target – TON.
Meme Genes on TON
In the integration of Meme projects and ecosystems, Meme has always been a barometer of ecosystem heat. For instance, with Solana’s sustained popularity and high on-chain trading volume, the main reason behind this is that amidst the frequent fluctuations of BTC and ETH, Meme tokens can rebound strongly after BTC and ETH stabilize briefly. WIF is a prime example of this phenomenon.
Moreover, Meme creators continue to create new projects following new trends, consistently using the “hype” method to drive token price increases in DEX. Almost all early Meme projects can achieve multiple growth rates, continuously producing “myths,” attracting investors naturally.
It is also observed that public chain ecosystems and Meme complement each other, with the entire ecosystem’s attention and traffic often concentrated on a specific Meme for a certain period. Therefore, the fame of Memecoins is an achievement co-created by all roles such as public chain teams, projects, and users.
At this breakthrough point, the performance of Meme on TON may become more prominent in the future.
The strong community culture and widespread user base of Memecoins, coupled with the trading enthusiasm and liquidity derived from these factors, can swiftly elevate a project’s market value to the top. Leveraging Telegram’s user base, TON possesses a natural advantage compared to other public chains.
TON’s Notcoin has achieved success based on Meme characteristics. Although Notcoin is categorized as Gamefi in terms of attributes, due to its wide user base and viral popularity, Notcoin is widely regarded as a Memecoin by users. Subsequent tokens emulating Notcoin have also emerged in large numbers.
One could say that Memecoins on TON have integrated into a new trend – tokens of other types with strong Meme characteristics. This expansion has successfully broadened the boundaries of the Meme sector on TON, potentially encompassing cultural Memes, gaming Memes, conceptual Memes, and even utility Memes.
The TON official team is continuously advancing Meme development.
Since 2024, the TON Foundation has been using an open league format to reward users with TON tokens for trading tokens on applications and using Defi, among other activities. Following the third open league (second season), Memecoins accounted for over 30% of the trading projects listed. Therefore, the TON Foundation has also singled out Meme tokens as an important incentivizing category in the league rules.
During the entire duration of the open league, the Foundation has distributed approximately $40 million worth of TON tokens. In the final list of top projects, Meme tokens accounted for over 40%. The participation of Memecoins and other types of tokens continues to rise. In the ongoing fifth season, Memecoins make up nearly 50% of the league.
The rampant growth of Memes on Solana is driven by a combination of ecosystem heat, technical infrastructure, and user base, and the same applies to Meme on TON. Under the guidance of the TON Foundation, once applications are developed on TON, Memes will flourish. Additionally, with a high number of small to medium-sized projects on TON, these Meme projects are starting to utilize ecosystem partners, tools, platform projects, and middleware platforms to support project operations.
The Meme Target Pool on TON
Although there are already many Memes on TON, filtering based on the characteristics of successful Meme projects in the market can help in selecting projects. Here are a few main considerations to filter projects:
Firstly, projects related to the TON official team or major projects.
About three weeks ago, an application based on the concept of TON’s founder’s pet was launched. The application airdrops tokens to users based on their joining time on Telegram. Similarly, many official projects’ Memes, such as Jupiter’s mascot cat Memecoin WEN, have shown impressive liquidity and price performance post-launch.
Secondly, star projects from the open league.
After the launch of Notcoin, it consistently ranked high in the league in terms of trading volume, and few projects could surpass it. Similarly, in the seasonal competition metrics, tokens ranking high in growth and trading volumes are considered excellent projects.
For instance, in the first open league, apart from Defi and Gamefi tokens, JETTON and Fish are typical representatives of Meme tokens. JETTON is named after the TON token contract, possessing a certain native advantage in ecosystem culture, while Fish is a well-designed Meme token. Both tokens have shown good price performance since the season began.
JETTON has consistently achieved good rankings in all subsequent open league seasons, and as the season progresses, JETTON’s price performance shows clear rotational characteristics.
Lastly, the continuous emergence of new stars.
In a growing ecosystem, the advantages of new Meme projects are unparalleled compared to older projects. New projects can swiftly rise to become star projects of the season. In other ecosystems, new projects exhibit a continuous forward momentum in terms of expectations and community hype, confirming the hype-driven nature of the market. For example, with various Meme projects emerging due to the recent US election, the price myths continue.
Looking at the top ten projects in the ongoing fifth season on TON, Notcoin is currently the hottest TON project, ranking 54 in terms of cryptocurrency market cap. Other tokens like JETTON, WALL, DFC, HYDRA, and COFE have been star projects in recent open league seasons. These projects are relatively new, gaining attention and support in the league, and their recent price performance data has been impressive.
For instance, the third-ranked token (previously second) TONG has already achieved approximately a 3x increase in price during the latest season, with commendable metrics promoting on-chain TVL growth.
For Memecoins, projects that issue tokens through IDO and then manage liquidity in a refined manner have achieved excellent results. Projects like Jupiter’s WEN, the first IDO project on Jupiter, opted for full circulation and managed liquidity directly through DEX and CEX.
Similarly, projects like Bakerswap, launching IQ50, PUMP, and others, set distribution rules during the IDO launch and provided early liquidity support and later liquidity management.
The number of Meme projects continues to grow, with new projects constantly emerging. While the sheer volume of projects may not allow them to reach the scale of tokens like Doge, for Memecoins, hype equals value, and attention equals value. Factors that enhance user purchasing power could be the most significant influencing factors for successful projects.
Moreover, for projects participating in the league, all the driving forces in the ecosystem are concentrated in a short period, allowing projects like TONG to maintain data on par with early excellent projects like JETTON and WALL. With a good competition record, these projects may break the propagation threshold, ultimately becoming high-quality Memes.
In Conclusion
The popularity of TON does not require validation, but for the Meme sector, the characteristics of TON will propel Meme projects to new heights.
Under the defined rules of the Meme sector, TON serves as an excellent ecosystem where Memes can flourish. However, unlike other public chains, the technical infrastructure and the explosive potential of Memes on TON are interdependent. Memes require attributes like token issuance, liquidity supply, wallet tools, etc., on TON, aligned with Telegram’s front-end. This is currently hindering the widespread development of Memes on TON.
TON’s technical aspects and development tools need to be simplified and developer-friendly. We have already witnessed the launch of token contracts like Jetton and platforms like DEXSTON, Dedust, as well as middleware platforms like TonUP and LayerPixel, which can simplify the overall complexity of token operations. Once the difficulty of token operations is simplified, Meme projects can be launched faster, entering the mature stage of liquidity supply more quickly, resulting in more defined opportunities.
Therefore, if you are seeking Memes on TON as you would on Solana, the aforementioned approaches are viable. However, the viral nature of Memes and the hype-driven market must be kept in mind. Only by leveraging the heat of TON and the viral advantage of Telegram can you find timely targets and opportunities for success.