Author: Nancy, PANews
Upright walking cattle herds, sudden bursts of inspirational quotes, utterly absurd plots... The domestic animation film "Bull Arrives" ("Niu Lai") unexpectedly trended online over the weekend. Despite its rough production and abstract storyline, its box office surged from an initial few thousand yuan to over ten million yuan.
Even more dramatic is that after theaters nationwide hastily pulled the film, this viral meme craze didn't fade. Instead, it rapidly spread from the silver screen to social media. Frenzied user-generated content and meme-making kept the hype alive, directly invading the stock and crypto markets.
Absurd Animation Jumps from Screen to Blockchain, Homonymous Meme Coin Soars Thousands of Times
In the era of the attention economy, meme coins have become the most direct on-chain vehicle for capturing market sentiment. Within just a few days, the homonymous meme coin "Niu Lai" (Bull Arrives) on-chain staged a myth of thousands-fold gains. According to GMGN data, since launching on the BNB Chain on August 14th, the market cap of the "Niu Lai" token rapidly climbed from around $10,000 to once exceed $47 million.
This on-chain frenzy was fueled by a combination of catalysts: the film's explosive popularity, frenzied community meme creation, and an on-chain accidental "burn" incident.
First, the massive attention created by the film "Bull Arrives" blowing up in reverse. This domestic animation frequently trended recently, even entering the top ten 2026 Chinese animated films by box office. Its spread wasn't based on traditional high-quality content, but rather on a strong sense of contrast, curiosity, and spectacle. From the huge gap between the initial exquisitely crafted traditional ink-painting style posters and the rough 3D modeling and absurd plot in the actual film, to behind-the-scenes stories like "a renovation company transitioning," "five years of handmade production," and "mom funding her child's dream," "Bull Arrives" continuously generated talking points, sparking waves of spread on social media.
After its abstract breakthrough into mainstream awareness, the film rapidly transformed from a screen product into a widely participatory emotional totem and social currency. Some remade classic movie posters into "Bull Arrives" versions, others used AI to generate derivative content, some combined it with gaming videos and internet memes, and even Yiwu merchants started selling lookalike dolls. Massive amounts of user-generated content turned "Bull Arrives" into an internet symbol that could be endlessly replicated, modified, and spread.
Simultaneously, an "accidental burn" incident involving CZ's address dramatically added fuel to this frenzy.
On-chain monitoring showed that CZ's publicly known donation address had an operation that appeared to "burn" "Niu Lai" tokens. Although the token contract address (starting with 0xD043B6) was merely a homonymous token different from the hotly traded one (starting with 0xbee), it was initially interpreted as CZ's proactive cleanup. In fact, on-chain data confirmed this was not CZ actively burning tokens; it was the token creator utilizing contract privileges to first send a large number of tokens to CZ's address, then forcibly transfer a small amount from that address to a black hole address, simulating a burn. CZ's address had not granted any authorization to this token or its deployer during this period.
Afterwards, CZ announced he would deactivate his public address to avoid misinterpretation of operations. Nonetheless, the incident itself had already achieved a magnification of attention.
Get-rich-quick stories also significantly amplified the meme coin's spread effect. According to Ai Yi monitoring, the total single-token profit for the "Niu Lai" top-earning address 0x31f...ef337 exceeded $585,000 (including partial profits from another address), with a return rate of 7882.9% on an initial investment of just $7,188; a trader spent $16,552 buying 22.1 million tokens, now worth $663,000, with an unrealized profit of $646,000 and a return of 39x; another trader spent only $120 to buy 19.1 million tokens, later sold 9.1 million for a profit of $25,900, with total profits reaching $205,800, a staggering return of 822x. In a sluggish market, these almost lottery-like windfall stories are particularly eye-catching.
Furthermore, the film's title "Niu Lai" (Bull Arrives) naturally forms a homophone with "Niu Shi Lai Le" (the bull market has arrived), hitting the crypto community's collective expectation and self-deprecating sentiment for a bull run, providing a natural emotional outlet for the entire narrative.
Stock Investors Team Up "Seeking Good Luck," "Bull-related" Stocks Trend
Not limited to the crypto circle, the "Bull Arrives" craze quickly spread to the stock market, with many retail investors joining the banter, even calling it a "must-watch movie for A-share investors."
To many investors, "Bull Arrives" seems tailor-made for them. Netizens discovered the director follows accounts like "Tonghuashun Investment," and the film itself is filled with a sense of contrast similar to capital markets. The promotional posters feature exquisite, elegant traditional ink-painting, somewhat reminiscent of the flowery packaging seen in research reports and financial statements. Actually entering the cinema reveals rough animation and absurd plots, mirroring the huge gap between reality and performance/K-line charts in the market. Some investors thus quipped, "Don't blindly enter the market out of curiosity" — a phrase that sounds like advice for potential moviegoers and a stock market investment warning alike.
One scene from the film was turned into a financial meme by investors. In the movie, the protagonist, a yellow abstract calf, trips over a stone, falls flat on its back with its feet in the air, yet wears a bizarrely calm smile. Netizens screenshotted this moment, calling it the "stumbling body" style, a homophone for "semiconductor" ("Ban Dao Ti"). Coinciding with the recent weak performance of the semiconductor sector, this prone calf was quickly dubbed the "semiconductor ancestor" by investors.
Even after Chinese K-pop idol Zhou Anxin, active in South Korea, shouted in Northeastern Chinese dialect, "Who wouldn't want to eagerly watch 'Bull Arrives'?" the topic spread to South Korea, where retail investors also started heated discussions. Additionally, in "Bull Arrives," the calf "Niu Lai" has a leopard friend named "Bao La," which investors imagined as "Bao La" (explosive surge).
Some investors even formed groups to watch the movie in theaters for good luck, explicitly stating "Bull Arrives equals the bull market arriving," hoping the film would drive up bull stocks. In some cinemas, audience seating charts were tacitly arranged to spell out the characters for "Bull Arrives" or the pattern of a stock's limit-up intraday chart, while others formed the character for "bull."
In the secondary market, multiple "bull-related" stocks surged onto hot stock lists, with discussions about movie concept stocks and "touching 'bull' means rising" appearing on stock forums. According to Sina Finance, four A-share stocks with "Niu" (bull) in their names saw rapid spikes in popularity: Jinniu Chemical, Tongniu Information, Gongniu Group, and Luoniushan. Except for Gongniu Group, the other three opened higher in the morning session. At the time of writing, Luoniushan in the pork sector hit the limit-up, Jinniu Chemical in the chemical raw materials sector rose over 5%, and Tongniu Information, a computing power leasing concept stock, also showed notable gains. However, such movements are still largely driven by sentiment and thematic plays. Whether the热度 can be sustained ultimately depends on the market's own capital flows and fundamentals.
Perhaps the biggest "Easter egg" of "Bull Arrives" isn't in the film itself. The film's nearly blank narrative and highly abstract expression instead left immense space for imagination and interpretation. As different groups—moviegoers, stock investors, crypto players—continuously memed, created derivatives, and assigned new meanings, they also gained a sense of participation, fun, and resonance through each act of recreation. In the attention economy era, this very act of mass participation might be the most unexpected, and most brilliant, Easter egg of this film.
