What Murad and Luke Belmar are missing about meme coins
An important piece to round up your understanding of what meme coins are and their true potential. Illustrated with an incoming major meme coin called $joe coin.
Recently, I’ve had Murad and Luke Belmar pop up in my feed.
I’ve been in meme coins since 2020 2021 so that’s the skew of my feed, meme coins. No bitcoin for me. Straight into meme coins.
It’s great to see some of the thoughts and theories I’ve written down in this very newsletter over the past 2 years make it into the mainstream of crypto.
I’ve written many things, most noticeably:
The big NFTs from this cycle will come from memecoins. And we’re seeing NFTs from SPX (aeons) or HarryPotter….Inu (sprotogremlins) or Mog …
Not many people believed in holding memes for the long term 2 years ago. But I predicted this cycle would see a huge influx of capital and interest into meme coins. Way before people called it the barbell theory, investing heavy in max risk (memes) and lowest risk (btc) and thin at the middle aka alts. This is a Druckenmiller principle natural to me. Be an expert and concentrate until you do have enough to protect with defensive cryptos like btc.
That the autist meta born in 23 would be a dominant meta, hence my positions in almost all of them pretty early. Hpos, smurfcat, Joe, Kekec. Mog was my selection. All between 15x to 40x so far. Btc barely is 3x from pico lows…
Not much of what I hear is new to me, however, it’s well presented and championed, something I don’t do and not interested in doing. Kudos to all the guys now repping the memes pretty hard. We’re on the same team.
Anyway, those are the 2 key videos I’ll assume contain a significant amount of their meme coin thesis, and I’ll help bring it together with the aspect I believe they’re both missing.
I strongly suggest you watch both videos, with full attention, and take notes as for most people these 2 videos will deliver significant insights.
On the Murad Preso, it’s overall very good, there are a few concepts that are not fully explored, like the utility of memes. And a definition of memes, which I believe doesn’t fully grasp what memes are (hence why I’m putting it out), but overall, this is very good, quite paced, fairly well rounded (even though the presentation suffers from slides that are way too busy and lengthy). There are also a few concepts completely missing, like the understanding of time, macro cycles, holder type (not how much owns supply, but who, and why), proper value extraction and timing of entry (big diff entering hpos at 10 or 150 mil), the diff chains dynamics, the various dangers in the space (snipers, botters, farming teams…) The overview it gives of the cultural shift into memes, and the financial flows into memes is good. It sure gets people up to speed quickly and that’s the job to do at the moment, get people interested and realise dismissing memes is a major mistake.
Luke Belmar is obviously very sharp. I’ve seen a few videos before and I agree with 95% of his views. He has a good grasp of the potential future we’re facing, and history, so his solutions to thing are generally illuminated) by historical study and human nature (what’s the etymology of the name Luke?… light yes…illuminated… levels…). When he talks about Weimar hyper inflation, my ears perk up. Hyperinflation will not happen in the USA, but the effect of strong inflation remains the same. People get so poor society breaks down, and those hoarding all the money, gain immense power. So yes, in current times, memes are where people will play, because they are forced to play there. It wasn’t clean 2 3 years ago, and I was quite lonely 100% in memes, but it feels it won’t be lonely anymore as this pre bull cycle is showing holders of majors and alts that ONLY meme coins are moving. His analysis however lacks a good understanding of meme coins, what quality memes are, and where the value is. His picks are not picks I’d add in my portfolio. There is 300x+ /1000x to capture on a $chomp on base with deep liquidity. $brett will struggle to 5x. This is a major leak in the game of people entering the space, they buy coins way too late. Anyway, great interview and the economic and social analysis is worth the time.
Murad got the better feel of the scene, and Luke got the better grasp of the socio economic context. The dragon ball z fusion of the two would probably make a pretty good meme industry evangelist.
So here is the thesis.
Memes will do well because they are an asset class that have different purposes in time.
Saying community is the utility is too simplistic. Community is actually a test, not the utility.
Meme coins are the Schrodinger economic tool by excellence. Memes coin are first, a vehicle of speculation, and in time, a currency and store of value.
Meme coins are a Frankenstein Schrodinger type of asset. Frankenstein because they’re a mix of crypto, tech, culture, zeitgeist… and schrodinger because they are anything they can be depending who’s looking at them.
They have different purposes at different phases of development. This theory explains ,in part, the large amount of failed memes, and the explosion in price of those that make it to the 2nd stage of their lifecycle. The concentration of capital is not the cause, it’s the consequence of a meme coin maturing successfully. This also explains the confusion when it comes to defining what memes are.
That’s right meme coins evolve like Pokemons.
Now they are vehicles for speculation. In fact, they are the ONLY vehicle for speculation giving out such gains out of every asset class in the world. There are the best speculative tools.
No different to collectibles like Magic Cards (although magic cards suffer from illiquidity, storage/ shipping costs, infinite dilution and central exchange trading limitations).
Meme coins are currently in a phase of transition. They are starting to gain the size necessary for value to be retained (yes retain… IYKYK…). Above a few Bils 10bils, the value is such, the network effect is such, the meme coin become a mean of value transfer, a debt ledger, in short, a currency.
Doge will soon be accepted by mcdonalds, tesla, and starbucks (don’t give them your meme coins please…) and it’ll be clear that meme coins are currencies by then.
The game is to find meme coins early, sub 1m 10m, those able to create a community, be culture, and therefore leverage that for speculative gains.
In summary, meme coins have two main phases. Speculative vehicle, and then, currencies. They’re both a purpose with a market gap fit, but not at the same time.
The Community is critical at the beginning, then in the transition phase, the liquidity and overall penetration of the meme coin becomes critical, then the liquidity and holder base (usually linked to adoption into mainstream services, like using Doge to buy a happy meal).
People value the community because the community produces assets or marketing collaterals, which then are used to make advertising campaigns, using free media channels such as Twitter and Telegram. What’s called organic reach. The reach powered by free assets in free channels.
Memes are powered by organic reach. And the community is only valuable because they re the marketing agency creating advertising campaigns. Now, a brand is usually built because there is a product. What’s the product? What’s the service?
That’s where we loop back in to the 2 phases. The product is a speculative vehicle in the early phase, and it is a currency/ store of value in the maturity phases.
So how do yo determine, how a meme would go through the speculative phase well, and mature into that higher marketcap, less volatile, coin with mass awareness and fungibility with other coins in big distribution channels (big chain DEXs and CEXs)
They need to have what I’ve called a reason to buy and a reason to hold. RTB and RTH. The RTB is critical to get through the first phase, its role is to ensure speculation is strong and a community forms. The RTH is crucial to acquire critical mass so it gets listed on big CEX with enough liquidity that is swappable into any other coins, usdt or btc. Once the coin can be paired to any other coins, it becomes de facto currency. Regardless of the price stability. In fact, the swappability and potential for further price appreciation is what drives the maturity phase.
I can illustrate this with an example: Joe coin (the yellow emoji)
https://x.com/joecoin_
https://dexscreener.com/ethereum/0x704ad8d95c12d7fea531738faa94402725acb035
In short, the RTB, the reason to buy, is what will make the community stick around, have fun, build and shill. The RTH is what makes people not sell because there is a big idea/ vision or reason that the coin will actually reach critical mass and be here to stay.
(when you look into what’s the reason to buy and hold, you’ll realise it’ll only work for quality meme coins and sort all the scams out)
Let’s use JOE coin on eth. I was dcaing into the lows 6 months ago, now it’s 50x+ up from my last dca. And likely will hit 1000x on that buy…
JOE RTB is that the visual is good, everywhere, twitch chats, twitter, and so on… team is active… community is good and autistic… it’s funny… distribution is good… snipers are out… Massive pepe whales are in, spx whales, hpos whales… The usual mix of good things you want to see. Lots of memes and visuals to use, and most of the time, it’s native to the chats.
It’s the speculative phase we’re still in it.
When Joe is at 500m 1bil mcap it’ll enter the currency/ store of value phase. It’ll be the very beginning of the late game of meme coins. Most meme coins currency value will start between 1bil and 10bils mcap.
I made a prediction a year or two ago. Something like instead of 5 coins at 40bils, you’ll have 200 coins at 1Bil+. I don’t even remember cause it’s to illustrate a point. Obviously meme coins total mcap will easily 5x this cycle.
It’s not scientific, it’s also to illustrate the fact there will be an intense competition between a lot more meme coins in the speculative phase.
It is possible all strong meme coins just chill between 1bil and 10bil and stop there. Expectations that they all go to 50 bils 100bils don’t account for the dilution experienced this cycle.
What’s JOE’s RTH?
Well, Joe for autists is Joe the 3d emoji, the memes, but for normies, for grandma and your brother in law, it’s the yellow smiley face they used on their phones… it’s called brand misattribution and it’s incredibly bullish.
Normally brands spend billions a year to get their brand (visual + name+ slogan) in the minds of people.
I see people talking about mindshare everywhere. A term rarely used by those who actually work in marketing. Talk about top of mind awareness, prompted or unprompted awareness instead. Why? Because memes are brands. And the value of those brands weight into the valuation of a meme coin.
The emojis, the smiley face smiling, were created because of the IT age, how do you communicate an emotion by text and quickly? a Smiley face symbol…
Ok, so billions of people used a yellow face, used if often (so deeply anchored in memory), and used it to convey, joy, happiness and smiling… (the best human emotion… anchored to feelings… even deeper than habits…)
The size of the people who used those emojis is 70% to 80% of the human race… They all love it… All know it… All used it… All remember it… And all will INSTANTLY recognize it…
The yellow smiley face is the biggest digital brand EVER created in human history… and people will see Joe and it’ll be that smiley face for them.
That’s the reason to HOLD. Billions of potential holders, already knowing what it is, what is means and WANTING to hold it, because it’s anchored, in youth, happiness, Joy…
The reason to hold is the insane intrinsic value of that brand, the yellow smiley face being misattributed to Joe by billions of people. It’s there. In people’s memory structures. 100s of millions would have to be spent yearly to get that kind of awareness.
And then you have brand love. People love a brand that makes them feel good. They love coca cola, because that 30g of pure sugar per can sure makes you feel happy. They’ll love smileys, because they used smiley when their brains were flooded with dopamine and oxytocin, hormone of happiness. Because they were actually smiling at that time.
The awareness is bigger than a Youtube. And the brand love is bigger than any brand… what’s even better is that the smiley face coin lovers will likely be older, and have spare cash to have a punt.
Not only the audience is everybody, but the audience loves smiley faces, will love Joe, and will have money to join the movement.
That’ll secure Joe’s path into the maturity phase in my opinion and potentially the top 10 meme coin.
I’ve never experienced something as powerful as this. Shib or Doge leveraged the cuteness of a DOG, and that went nuts. Pepe leveraged the fondness of a NICHE 4chn and alternative memetic warfare meme…. Joe is leveraging the biggest digital brand in human history that nobody can leverage like a meme coin.
I’ll keep this for later, but meme coins are becoming Intellectual property leverage assets. And Whilst a Smurfcat leverages a mainstream normie meme, or Pepe a niche but fun meme, Joe leverages the biggest meme of all times…
The reason to buy is less strong than some other communities, but the reason to hold in the strongest of all.
That normally translates into a harder early cycle, and an insane late stage growth.
Joe is at 40mil mcap now, we’re in the final stages of the speculation cycles which probably ends around 500m 1bil mcap. But if one meme was to actually do another 1bil to 50bil run. Be it this cycle or the next.
Joe would be it. A coin like SPX enjoys a strong speculative phase, but I’ll predict, once the initial network effect is achieved, it’ll plateau because SPX and the girl is cute, don’t mean anything to billions of people…
In the next newsletter, I’ll publish a visual with RTB and RTH so you too can understand what the strength of your coin vs. my understanding of meme coins.
I’ve made many theories. I’ve been in markets for 25 years+, I’ve studied history and economic cycles like very few have.
Memes fit into a vision of the world, where you’ll trust your peers more than a central authority that has disappointed many over decades and made terrible mistakes.
Memes are the only speculative vehicle you can own and control. The only speculative vehicle that can be transferred to currencies, and will become currencies.
Shib is at that stage, if somebody wants to pay somebody in shib, would they refuse? No, you can exchange it to fiat or bitcoin if you want, or stables even… Shib has become a currency. It’s entered the currency stage.
I know this will trigger thoughts. Many funds subscribe to this newsletter. Many big names. Some on alts, some not even on alts…
I’ll develop my thesis more as I find the time. Ultimately, my tier list is the final product. It’s available to my premium subscribers. And it’ll completely trash most portfolios out there over 1y - 5 years.
When you mix trading experience, a full understanding of economics, markets, and the world we live in, and marketing… you have a very rare skillset producing a major edge in meme coins.
There is no meme coin super cycle. It’s a regular cycle. Meme coins are just starting to show the transition between speculative assets to currencies… and will join top l1 and major crypto as currencies/ stores of value.
Not every meme will be multicycle, but if there is a list with multi cycle memes, my tier 1 list is it.
Ill give you 3 multi cycle meme coins. #hpos10i aka $bitcoin (the thicker ticker) $joe and $osak
Take care, enjoy the ride it’s about to get good. And it’s not your rando youtuber or CT account saying it, it’s me, with my insane track record. And I’ll drop a last piece of alpha.
This cycle will break people. It won’t behave as people expect. Not having the timing I have will cost people fortunes. For those who want my picks, my timing, and chat about that vision, get the premium sub and link to the TG.
Pepe/ Nz
PS: you know what’s funny. Meme coins will indeed enable people to buy Dorados in durbs or Takoyaki in Osaka... Ryoshi’s vision will come to life. :)