Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Golem (@web 3_golem)
The meme market today once again witnessed a "golden dog" legend.
On January 21 at 11:10, the official White House account posted on X platform mentioning "victory, eviction operations, and memes". One minute later, a Meme coin named memes quickly appeared on the Solana chain; 20 minutes later, the BSC chain version was also born. A Meme race between the two chains officially began.
According to empiricism, the Solana version should have the advantage—not only is the ecosystem active, but it also conforms to the consensus of "First is first". However, the result was unexpected: the BSC chain's memes surpassed in market capitalization. According to GMGN data, the BSC version's market cap reached a high of $28 million, with 7,300 holding addresses; while the Solana version's peak was only $3.6 million, with 3,900 holding addresses.
The new feature of GMGN also reveals where players' attention lies: 3 hours after the token's birth, the number of simultaneous online users for the Solana version remained below 1,000, while the BSC version once approached 3,000.
Although some questioned whether the BSC version's market cap was due to "whales pumping, aiming to harvest", the real market attention does not lie—this time, BSC indeed won.
The community often joked that BSC's Meme model was "Shandong Study in the crypto circle", where only projects related to CZ and He Yi had a way out, which once raised concerns about the ecosystem's sustainability. However, BSC's victory in this Meme race not only caused a wave of "slapping thighs" regret for missing out but also prompted the community to rethink the evolution of its Meme model. As GMGN founder Haze said: "The BSC 3.0 era has arrived." (Odaily Note: Haze holds 1.93% of BSC chain memes, ranking second on the holdings list.)
CZ and He Yi Publicly State They Do Not Support "Word-Picking Memes"
I once expressed my thoughts on the BSC Meme model at an Odaily editorial tea party, believing that CZ and He Yi were actually already "kidnapped" by the community. The current BSC Meme model, which relies on "imperial decrees" for cold start, deceives continuous interaction, gets listed on Binance Alpha, and finally gets "poured out", is actually a consensus of the BSC community. Although this model started with CZ's unintentional actions in early 2025, they actually don't like it. However,发展到如今, CZ and He Yi are also powerless to reverse the situation.
When I published this view, it was merely a conjecture, but recent public statements from CZ and He Yi have proven this to be a fact. On January 13, CZ posted saying that although he likes Meme coins, if players blindly follow the trend and buy Meme coins "picked" from his tweets, they are almost destined to lose money.
To prevent everyone from blindly chasing these "word-picking Memes", CZ's tweets have started to become cautious. Yesterday, CZ reposted a plush toy created by a user based on his image, which was an ordinary matter, but CZ still specifically noted: If you create or buy Meme coins based on my tweets, please note that I may not mention the same words again for a long time, maybe never. I do not recommend you do this. He even added a 🙏 icon at the end, showing CZ's concern for the community.
Compared to CZ's euphemism, He Yi's attitude towards the community's "word-picking Memes" is more straightforward. In the early morning of January 21, under a user's post, He Yi not only said that she would severely punish all internal Binance insider trading and bribery, but also "domineeringly" stated that she does not need to rely on Binance Alpha listing Memes that pick words from her tweets to gain pleasure, and also advised the community to focus on real building, not to regard "word-picking and flattery" as real building and be moved by themselves. He Yi also stated that she does not like eating fish, and players should not call it Shandong Study just because Binance Alpha did not list the tokens she supported.
Under the influence of CZ and He Yi's public statements not supporting "word-picking Memes", Binance's official announcements about Memes have also started to become cautious. On January 21, Binance's Chinese account posted that it will launch a new Meme product feature, but to prevent the community from finding angles to issue Meme coins, the editor特意打了超厚马赛克 (specifically applied a very thick mosaic). Although somewhat戏谑 (mockingly), it is enough to see the cautious attitude of the entire Binance team, whether towards Meme coins that pick words from CZ and He Yi's tweets, or those that pick words from Binance's official announcements.
Is BSC Meme Finally Going to Be Different?
Outsiders watch the热闹 (excitement), insiders watch the门道 (tricks). He Yi's remarks not only feel very "alive", but experienced Meme players have realized that the previous BSC Meme model is collapsing from the top down. The successfully outperforming BSC chain memes on the morning of January 21 might be an appetizer. Ironically, memes was also born from the art of "word-picking", but this time it was the White House.
Additionally, after the White House posted, He Yi reposted it (now deleted). This repost, which was unrelated to Binance and He Yi, seemed slightly突兀 (abrupt) in her homepage timeline, and the community was also confused about the reason for He Yi's repost. How much credit He Yi's repost deserves for the BSC's memes, launched 20 minutes later, outperforming Solana's memes is also worth a question mark.
Finally, we might still have to ask that unchanging question, will BSC really be different this time?
