Healing the Crypto "Downturn": How to End the Value Funnel of Meme Coins?

Written by: @0xIT4I

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

All meme coins are ultimately destined to fall; they are tokenized reflections of trends, and trends are born to be replaced.

On rare occasions, they reflect some kind of social movement, but movements in human history also have their ups and downs. Very few can stand the test of time (such as DOGE and SPX).

Ghibli-style Hype Wave March 25-27, 2025

Shitcoins are the basement of the crypto world, forever filled with pump and dump schemes, rug pulls, scams, wash trading, and insider operations—that is their nature. But these are also exactly why we love this basement: no risk, no edge, and edge is the foundation of this fiercely competitive market we’re so passionate about. This article can’t change the macro environment, but it may be able to change the ground beneath our feet.

Monetary policy and waves of innovation are the two forces that set the tone for every cycle. Policy determines how much oxygen the market has; innovation determines whether there’s anything worth breathing in. Current policy is tight, and apart from the AI chip craze in the real world, our sector lacks new hotspots (privacy and perpetual DEXs might count, but they’re far from the grassroots battlefield), so the market is performing as expected.

Before expressing your opinion, ask yourself: How much of your viewpoint comes from the fear of your holdings losing value, or the anxiety of your company’s revenue slipping? This article is not an attack on industry infrastructure providers like @Pumpfun, @AxiomExchange, etc.—I appreciate @a1lon9 and work closely with many great founders in the space we’re about to discuss.

My goal is to empower users: to provide knowledge that could become the cornerstone of the next competitive environment, ultimately pushing for fairness and repairing areas of the industry that can be improved.

The Core Issue

The fundamental contradiction in the current meme coin space lies in the huge mismatch between production costs and speculation costs.

Zero-cost token issuance has had positive effects: lowering the barrier to entry for external builders, breaking technological monopolies, and fostering a more competitive and open market.

But the chasm between production and speculation that results is unsustainable. This structure is like a system vulnerability; value leaks faster than it accumulates.

The problem isn’t just with issuance platforms or trading terminals, but runs deeper, down to the project level.

AI has smashed through professional barriers—what used to take Harvard technocrats three months, an Australian teenager can now do in a basement in a week. The decades-long link between labor and growth has been severed.

This is profound, but in the context of this article, it intensifies the same issue: production is not only cheap at the token issuance level, but also at the project operation and content creation levels.

The labor-growth link is broken, and “garbage overload” has spread to every blockchain.

Current Speculation Ecosystem

Trading terminals such as @AxiomExchange, @gmgn_ai, and Telegram bots like @SigmaTrading (I’m honored to be an advisor) and @MaestroBots all charge a 1% fee. Issuance platforms like @Pumpfun charge about 1% before tokens reach a $3-4 million market cap (most tokens never get there). Four.meme also charged 1% prior to its migration. According to @bonkfun’s website, the past 24 hours saw $2.4 million in trading volume and $23,000 in fees—a 1% rate.

So the industry standard for grassroots speculation is 2% (1% issuance fee + 1% terminal fee).

For comparison, here are spot trading fees for mainstream coins:

@binance 0.10% / 0.10%

@krakenfx 0.16% / 0.26%

@okx 0.08% / 0.10%

Of course, I know that large traders and KOLs can get rebates, and centralized exchanges have tiered fee structures. Let’s estimate generously:

The fee gap is still 10-15x.

This means that ordinary retail investors pay 10-15 times the cost to buy cheap (easy to produce) assets, compared to institutions buying expensive (hard to produce) assets?

If you don’t see this as a problem, you might as well go back to playing Fortnite.

How Did We Get Here?

There are many reasons: the network effects of competition, the early stage of the market, inexperienced young participants, or builders lacking ability or acting in bad faith.

But fundamentally, it’s about the unique culture of this space.

Most tokens represent “trends”—holding them is like joining a “team,” “movement,” or “culture.”

Participants mistakenly extend this cultural affinity to their choice of infrastructure, prioritizing sentiment over efficiency and fairness.

Project teams understand this well and capitalize on it.

It’s like a small Eastern European soccer club: fans would rather buy flags and merchandise than pay to put a roof on the stadium; they’re willing to watch matches in the rain, losing the potential audience that values comfort.

Imagine Bitcoin minimalists paying 15x fees on an exchange called “No Second Best” to prove their point—absurd, right?

Solutions

To fix the problem, you must treat the cause. There’s no perfect solution, but criticism without suggestions is meaningless.

My recommendations are twofold: for users and for providers.

Users need to act collectively: read and share this kind of content, clarify what is “better,” and actively demand it. Give new platforms a chance—test, experience, and give feedback. You might discover your next financial opportunity. Find a lower-fee competitor? Try it without hesitation. If everyone does this, the market will naturally return to fairness.

For providers, reform takes even more courage:

Issuance platforms and trading terminals’ fees will eventually align with 0.1%, matching traditional financial markets. This is inevitable, but may be premature right now. So my suggestion is:

Fees should dynamically match demand, which is standard practice in modern services:

Hotels raise prices during holidays

Electricity costs go up during heatwaves

Delivery fees rise during storms

Shipping costs rise during trade peak seasons

Short funding rates increase during volatility spikes

Gas fees soar when Bitcoin or Ethereum networks are congested

Countless cases prove: dynamic balance is sustainable.

So why are we paying 2% for illiquid, unwanted shitcoins?

A simple formula to assess “demand”: trading volume ÷ time × market cap. This reflects the trading demand for an asset at a given moment. Note: the core is trading demand, not the asset’s value itself.

If there is trading demand → charge a base premium

Demand is hot → raise the premium

Niche, potential coins → zero fees

This would have multiple effects:

Incentivize early value discoverers by letting them enjoy low fees in early stages

Reward early diggers, providing a first-mover advantage

Push project teams to fulfill roadmaps, trading results for market heat

Channel funds to higher-quality assets, making hollow hype pay its own cost

Lengthen price cycles, reduce volatility by curbing FOMO, and achieve healthy growth

For trading terminals and bots, the challenge is even tougher.

You can learn from @vnovakovski’s @Lighter_xyz transformation of perpetual DEXs: core functions are free + advanced features are paid.

Want low latency? Buy premium

Need API access? Buy premium

Multi-wallet management?

Airdrop points accumulation?

There are plenty of options—be creative.

Dear terminal providers, face reality: user loyalty to platforms is nearly zero. When most terminal revenues are down over 90% from their peak, the next wave will see either you or your competitor offering the same tech in a much fairer way.

“I’m a realist, in it not for the honor, but for the reward.”

Final Chapter

The next industry windfall will belong to those who resist greed. Charge less, earn more—that’s the inevitable law of modern markets. Platforms that meet users’ true need for fairness will win the future.

Users must demand better—and that requires a cognitive upgrade. The responsibility doesn’t lie with current providers, but with consumers who need to improve; the market will adapt.

There are more solutions than this—this is just one path I believe in.

My thanks always to Pumpfun, Trojan, and Banana Bot; they were the foundation of my growth. But times change, and so does responsibility.

My core message: recognize and drive that inevitable change.