After listening to Big Brother @cz_binance's views on VC coins and meme coins yesterday, combined with the recent buzz in the market about alpha in meme coins, as an occasional small retail investor in the secondary market, with many coins already going to zero, I've become increasingly lacking confidence in buying. Instead, I'm now more inclined to play on-chain with meme coins.

@cz_binance I believe truly valuable meme coins should have historical or cultural significance. 90% of meme coins will go to zero, but I hope meme coins can continue to gain popularity. Meme coins don't care about fundamentals—only about consensus speed, emotional contagion, and the brutal aesthetics of musical chairs. Pure PVP, creating a bunch of mini millionaires' wealth myths. That's also why so many people get addicted, even though there are many pitfalls and it's becoming less friendly to newcomers. Still, I'm looking forward to the next alt season.

Meme culture won't disappear—it will only become more extreme, more refined, and increasingly act as a mirror exposing the truth.

In contrast, VC tokens often come with extensive KOL promotions and investment pedigree before launch, with their whitepapers boasting flawless ecosystem loops. Yet many projects see their market cap fall far below their fundraising valuation after listing, even experiencing 'valuation inversion'. As CZ said, many VC projects today are listed merely to enable institutional exits.

Project teams attract numerous 'milk-studio' operations by fabricating data (user growth, community activity). These tokens become highly concentrated in the hands of a few studios or 'wool parties'. Dumping after listing becomes the norm, resulting in impressive testnet numbers but extremely low retention after mainnet launch, and rapid collapse of community consensus. Ordinary users perceive a disconnect between effort and reward, shifting from co-builders to short-term speculators, leading to a breakdown in long-term loyalty.

Even if a project is solid, failing to give enough airdrops to studios or failing to detect sybil accounts can trigger FUD in the community and on social media; but giving them leads to massive selling pressure at TGE. The outcome is: giving studios means 'death', not giving also means 'death'.

As a web3 enthusiast, I don't want pure speculative VC tokens, nor pure memes—I lean toward products that offer real utility and sustainable revenue. This is beneficial for the industry's long-term development. Many current speculative VC tokens remain stuck in concepts without actual products.

After launch, many projects fail to match even the market cap or hype of meme coins, dousing the dreams of project teams and investors hoping to cash out quickly. They must now bear not only technical and labor costs in early stages, but also pre-launch marketing expenses and listing fees—only to find no traction afterward, with no retail investors to take over.

Moreover, the market habitually judges projects by pump-and-dump cycles. User mentality is already fixed, making it hard to shift toward long-term value investing. Projects with contracts can even collude with contract mechanisms to manipulate markets and extract funds, creating artificial hype—no one cares what they actually do, like $AIA and $coai. Meanwhile, projects without contract support and user retention will eventually fade into obscurity. Many public chain projects have daily active users below two digits. Frequent security incidents (over $3.3 billion lost on-chain in 2025) and risks of hacks or team runaways further erode trust.

The VC tokens that can truly break through need:

Prove cash flow and real economic value (not just airdrop incentives).

Build a user closed loop (great experience, high trust, strong retention).

Adapt to institutional demands (transparent governance, compliance prioritized).

Deep integration with high-certainty sectors such as AI, RWA, privacy, and payments.

Cycles will pass, but what remains is always the product, not the market trend. Prioritize avoiding projects dependent on high-risk speculation and lacking a closed loop, and shift toward directions with verifiable contributions and sustainable models.