Celebrity meme coins are becoming VC-ized again

Yesterday, we introduced the hottest new Solana meme coin, $ANSEM, "600x in 24 Hours: How Long Can This Solana Meme Last?"

And just this morning, another token surged over 20x, further fueling the meme frenzy on Solana. Let's first take a look at these new hotspots, then analyze the overall reasons behind this sudden market movement.

"Celebrity Coins" Produce a Strong Runner-Up

TJR (@_TJRTrades) is also a well-known KOL, primarily posting content focused on trading analysis. As such, on-chain meme players may not be very familiar with him. He has only 250,000 followers on X, but his following on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube all exceed 1.5 million.

Starting yesterday, TJR posted multiple tweets publicly stating his intention to help Ansem create content for TikTok, expanding his influence beyond the X platform and bringing in new, uninitiated users outside the crypto space. He also purchased $100,000 worth of $ANSEM and continued to promote it heavily.

Initially, he indicated he would not participate in leaving wallets, developer token minting, or replicating the success path of $ANSEM:

However, things changed at 6 AM this morning. He posted, "Should I get in?" signaling a shift in stance:

A few hours later, he replied to a tweet asking if he would airdrop his $TJR holdings, simply saying, "Of course." The market interpreted this as a claim signal, and $TJR began experiencing FOMO, surging from a market cap of approximately $1.6 million to a peak of $28 million. Just yesterday, $TJR's market cap was only $400,000.

Additionally, the developer who deployed $TJR is also the developer of $ANSEM. This time, he sent 79% of the $TJR supply to TJR's address.

According to GMGN monitoring, this developer sold off the token shortly after creating it 13 days ago, netting a profit of $5,500. Subsequently, over the past 7 days, he has been mass-producing tokens, frequently replicating various "celebrity coins" while building his own positions, and remains highly active on X social media, frequently engaging and creating hype.

Within 7 days, this address has created a total of 101 different Meme coins (mostly various celebrity coins with a certain fan base), of which 12 peaked at over $1 million in market cap and 3 surpassed $10 million.

To date, this deployer's on-paper profit over the last seven days has reached 82,000 SOL, approximately $6.08 million. Developer fees from just a few of the high-market-cap Meme coins alone contributed $193,000, bringing his 30-day profit to $8.77 million.

Beyond pure "celebrity coins" like $TJR, where the KOL personally promotes them, some variations have also performed well.

$TESTIBULL, a variant of the testicle-themed meme coin $TESTICLE, mimics the $ANSEM "The Black Bull" concept. The primary force behind $TESTICLE has been KOL Dip Wheeler (@DipWheeler), known for generating substantial profits on Fartcoin. He came forward to announce an airdrop for $TESTIBULL, propelling the coin from a low of $40,000 market cap yesterday to nearly $5 million today.

$dog, the narrative here is that Ansem once propelled $WIF to a multi-billion dollar market cap. Now that the market is returning, sending tokens to Ansem could create a new dog coin like $WIF.

However, the developer made a mistake and sent the tokens to a black hole address. This ironically created a combination of the "celebrity coin" token-sending mechanic with the kind of dramatic, accidental outcome seen with $SLERF back in the day, causing the coin to briefly break through an $8 million market cap.

Market Analysis

This intraday market surge came suddenly. While $ANSEM hasn't experienced a significant drop today, it also hasn't sustained the upward momentum seen over the past two days.

"Celebrity coins" are not a novel concept. Some players who dislike this trend even viewed the emergence of $TJR as a top signal for this rally, labeling it a "MELANIA moment."

Although celebrity coin rallies occur repeatedly, it's inaccurate to broadly label them as just "more of the same." Different market movements occurring at different times and under different circumstances have distinct underlying causes. This time, the factors include:

- On-chain players have been starved for too long. The meme market has been sluggish for an extended period. Solana hasn't seen a meme coin reach a billion-dollar market cap in a long time (even though a large portion of $ANSEM is still controlled by Ansem).

- Significant FOMO among those who missed out, creating a highly volatile and explosive environment. Because the market has been weak for so long, most players didn't anticipate $ANSEM reaching a billion-dollar market cap. Many sold too early or missed the rally entirely. This FOMO sentiment has now shifted to $TJR.

- The "VC-ification" of Meme coins. Players persevering on-chain have tried their best, but with exchanges largely closing new listing channels for meme coins and market makers refraining from pumping, even achieving a tens-of-millions market cap is extremely difficult. For players, fairness in meme coins is no longer about who holds more or less, but about the chance to take a high-reward gamble at a low market cap. In this context, even when a large portion of the supply is controlled by KOLs like Ansem and TJR, players feel reassured by the celebrity endorsement, believing they will eventually need to pump the price to a certain level to exit profitably.

The VC-ification of meme coins became apparent during the TRUMP coin launch. As long as there's a narrative and profit potential, few complain about large token allocations. Instead, people view the smaller circulating supply as a positive, suggesting greater upside potential. Influencers now essentially play the role that VCs did during the "VC coin" era. Their traffic, endorsement, and consensus *are* the liquidity.

Based on current observations, this "celebrity coin" rally has already attracted the return of many once-active primary market "degen" traders. Following the success of $ANSEM and $TJR, they are now positioning themselves in tokens associated with other potential KOLs who might step forward to claim them, such as bonkguy, him, and other crypto KOLs. However, whether this trend can continue depends on whether $ANSEM can break new highs. Otherwise, the sentiment could dissipate just as quickly.