6 Marketing Lessons From the Memecoin Boom

The utter insanity of the latest crypto moment reveals several key lessons about building brand attention, relevance and loyalty in a chaotic media landscape 

This is ostensibly a newsletter about memecoins.

But it's really a newsletter about the language of the internet today, and what marketers need to know about how to speak it.

So let’s dive in. (And no, this newsletter is not financial advice).

First, what are memecoins, anyway?

Simply put, they’re cryptocurrencies inspired by online trends, characters, ideas, and yes memes.

They’re aggressively lacking in any sort of “utility.” (Utility is is crypto-speak for “useful.”)

Perhaps the most potent example of this was the first memecoin to gain notoriety: Dogecoin.

It launched in 2013, based on the wildly popular Doge meme which featured photos of a Shiba Inu dog covered in multicolored Comic Sans font.

In the decade-plus that has passed since Doge’s inception, countless memecoins have popped off.

But over the past year, memecoins have gone completely bonkers.

Today, they’re the fastest-growing sector in crypto.

Forbes values the memecoin space at $117 Billion–and that’s only the top 99 memecoins.

As of September, only 43 tokens in the top 300 of CoinMarketCap had outperformed Bitcoin this year. And 13 out of the top 20 of those were memecoins.

Like Dogecoin, many memecoins are actually based on memes. Case in point: CHILLGUY, based on the Chill Guy meme, which recently hit a 500M market cap.

In a nutshell: Memecoins are having a moment.

If this is conjuring some serious déja vu for you from the NFT bull run a few years’ back, you’re not alone.

But it’s different in a few important ways.

The first is the presence of AI: Many of the tools that are being used to launch new projects are relying heavily on AI technology, and a subset of memecoins is actually fully AI-generated.

The second is the emergence of the platform Pump.fun which launched in January 2024, and made it insanely easy for new users to launch new coins.

Every 24 hours, 10,000 tokens are launched on the platform, including one launched by Hailey Welch (a.k.a. ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl) just last week (obviously).

At this point you’re probably asking: Why should I, a marketer, bother to pay attention to what is essentially gambling being driven by self-described degenerates?

A fair question.

But here’s why:

Because this moment encapsulates some critical social and cultural dynamics shaping young consumers today–and the communities they are forming around the shared belief systems borne directly of these dynamics–that can directly inform how you can and should build your brand.

Below are 6 lessons I learned by studying the mechanics of memecoins–and the broader memecoin moment we’re in–that have important implications for brands looking to generate attention, relevance and loyalty today.

Lesson #1: The meme is the message

Before we can understand the dynamics of memecoins, we need to understand the dynamics of memes, especially among Gen Z audiences.

“Memes are a language,” says Amanda Brennan , a Meme Librarian (ex-Tumblr, ex-Know Your Meme).

“The sharing of memes can really be about sharing concepts or feelings or ideas that you might not have full words for. But because these things are condensed into the archetype of the meme, you can say ‘yeah, this is this thing I believe in, because it stands for XYZ.’ And it can often be something totally absurd.”

Lesson #2: Feelings prompt buying decisions

In a sea of sameness, the feelings triggered by memes can act as sorting mechanisms.

Given crypto’s intangible nature, says Brennan, it’s easy to understand how one might gravitate to a certain coin because it triggers a specific feeling. As in: “I’m going to choose this coin because it’s funny.”

And what is humor if not a trigger for a set of feelings?

“The decision to buy into crypto assumes that you’re already there for the purpose of financial gain,” explains Jack Bronson , Managing Partner of West Coast Ventures, a leading crypto advisory based in San Francisco who has been deep in the memecoin trenches for several months.

Bronson, who also advises brands looking to get smarter about the crypto space, continues:

“You are already in the store. So the question is: what are you gonna buy? When there’s thousands of options, and new ones forming every day, people are making both a financial decision and an emotional one.”

Lesson #3: It’s all about the belief, baby

According to prominent crypto world figure Murad Mahmudov:

“Memecoin is a misnomer. These are tokenized communities which use the meme as their symbol, banner [and] philosophy.”

Mahmudov made this comment in ‘The Memecoin Supercycle,’ a talk he gave at the TOKEN2049 Singapore conference in October in which he also referred to memecoins as “financialized vessels of faith” and “emerging mini religions."

His comments may seem like hyperbole.

After all, isn’t “belief” in this context simply a belief in future financial gains?

Yes and no.

The reality is that belief–in a specific crypto network, in a founder’s philosophy, in an idea, a story, an aesthetic, a fun vibe, and yes, a meme–drives people to purchase specific memecoins, which in turn drives up their value.

In fact, the entire value of a given memecoin hinges on the belief system created around it, and the communities forming around that belief system.

The belief system therefore is the source of its value.

"The whole idea is: if you’re going to put your money [somewhere], believe in something. And younger people believe in Internet jokes and memes and pop culture," says Bronson.

You may be thinking "huh?" But the same logic applies to purchase decisions about brands, especially in our ever-more-chaotic media landscape.

A perfect example: Nutter Butter's viral success using this exact strategy.

The upside for brands: If a highly valuable asset can be created out of thin air because of a belief, imagine all you can do if you can unite a belief with your tangible product or service.

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