The meme craze may be brewing the next big thing

The next big thing might start with a popular memecoin.

An emerging go-to-market strategy is to draft a memecoin that is gaining adoption and momentum. While the traditional GTM involves building a product first and then building a community through marketing and issuing memes, this new playbook is to identify a vibrant user community around a memecoin and then build a product that incorporates that token.

By launching a project that natively integrates with a popular memecoin, new applications/infrastructure can mobilize memecoin holders who can experience more utility from the token.

Here are some examples:

• BONKbot is a Telegram trading bot on Solana that originated from the $BONK token, a Solana memecoin airdropped to users in late 2022. An independent team subsequently launched the trading bot, which uses part of the transaction fees to buy and trade and destroy BONK tokens, thereby economically aligning with token holders. The trading bot recently broke $200 million in daily trading volume (for comparison, Base's daily trading volume is about $200 million).

• This strategy also works for infrastructure projects. Take $SHIB’s launch of Ethereum Layer 2 Shibarium as an example, which acts as a token receiver for SHIB by using transaction fees to destroy SHIB tokens. By merging tokens into L2, this strategy activates the existing community of holders to overcome the cold start of the new L2.

• Berachain is a bear-themed, EVM-compatible blockchain that launched its testnet in January, and its origins are in the NFT meme. SmokeyTheBera originally launched an NFT project called Bong Bears in 2021, and over time it built a community and attracted an active developer and user base.

Given the high level of engagement and tribalism in the top memecoin communities, I think this strategy of leveraging memecoin for GTM will become increasingly popular across the stack, allowing other projects to attract attention. For example, for anyone building a crypto consumer application, adding memecoin’s utility can activate token holders, who are naturally more inclined to find new ways to leverage their tokens. Drakula (a short video app) and Perl (a prediction market game) both accept $DEGEN payments in an attempt to capitalize on the momentum of this community of holders (over 44,000 wallets as of March). Increased usage and potential value of tokens could drive a virtuous cycle, with user interest in tokens and applications integrating them likely to increase.

We’ve also seen projects go the other direction, starting with a product first and then launching a memecoin (or something closely related to it) to bring more interest to the project. For example, contributors associated with Jupiter, a decentralized exchange aggregator on Solana, launched the $WEN memecoin in January 2024, airdropping it to over 1 million wallets that had exchanged over $5 on Jupiter. As the first token launched through the Jupiter LFG Launchpad, it also generated interest in the platform.

For projects exploring this GTM strategy, some considerations include: the distribution potential of different memecoin communities; the complementarity between the memecoin’s token holders and the project’s target audience; and the existing integration and saturation in the ecosystem (once a particular memecoin is accepted in 100 applications, will the 101st application get as much traction?).

It’s also worth mentioning that all of the above have clear benefits for memecoin itself, and it would make sense for the memecoin team to try to incentivize and work with projects to integrate with their token.

Using memecoin as a GTM strategy has similarities to other web3 growth strategies involving tokens, including airdropping tokens to members of a specific community or users of competing products. These strategies are made feasible by the blockchain’s open data, which can be used for granular targeting. This strategy can also be likened to strategies in the web2 world, from community-led growth (brands cultivate their customer base to increase word-of-mouth) to brand partnerships (cross-complementary user bases), such as Lyft’s partnership with Delta Airlines. However, off-chain partnerships are difficult to execute due to siloed data and systems, while crypto allows for permissionless integrations that any developer can build around memecoins. There is also financial risk in the game between communities of token holders to see their tokens grow in value, which could foster greater acceptance of partner projects.

While many people consider memecoin trading to be gambling or a strange form of financial entertainment, their growing popularity and fierce community may mean they become a viable component of a GTM strategy. For users, the new development is that memecoins as assets allow anyone to invest in and own a part of a GTM strategy, grassroots community, internet culture, and community cryptocurrency.