The cryptocurrency market has always been a melting pot of global culture and capital, but recently an unprecedented wave of "Chinese meme coins" has swept the globe with its unique charm, even prompting "Degens" (speculators) in the crypto world to start learning Chinese. This frenzy, which originated on the BNB Chain, was ignited by the interaction between Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) and He Yi, not only giving rise to a series of phenomenal meme coins like "Binance Life" and "Solara," but also demonstrating remarkable resilience after the significant drop on October 11, quickly spreading to the Solana and Base chains. Is this digital gold rush centered around Chinese memes merely a fleeting speculative bubble, or a profound transformation signaling a shift in cultural discourse power in the Web3 world?
- BNB Chain Ignites the Spark: The "Binance Life" Effect of CZ and He Yi
The starting point of this wave of Chinese meme coins can be traced back to a series of events on the BNB Chain in early October.
The Unexpected Ignition of "Binance Life": Binance co-founder He Yi's reply on the X platform, "Wishing you a Binance life," inadvertently lit the fuse. The meme coin of the same name, "Binance Life," was quickly deployed on BSC and skyrocketed, with its market cap surpassing $500 million within 96 hours, becoming a typical case of cultural resonance in the Chinese-speaking community.
CZ's Encouragement: Shortly after, CZ posted on the Mid-Autumn Festival soliciting the most creative memes, further sparking community interest in BSC meme coins. Subsequently, He Yi actively interacted with the community, and with the support of Binance Alpha's listing area, Chinese meme coins led by "Binance Life" rapidly swept the crypto community, with tokens like "Customer Service Xiao He," "Cultivation," and "Haqimi" featuring strong Chinese meme elements surging in popularity, with market caps reaching tens of millions and even over a hundred million dollars, attracting numerous investors to BSC for gold mining, dubbed the "BNB meme season" by the market.
Wealth Effect and Ecological Feedback: The wealth effect of this frenzy was astonishing, creating over 40 millionaires and nearly a thousand hundred-thousand-dollar millionaires. According to deBridge data, the net inflow of funds into the BNB Chain in the past week was spectacular, and Coinglass data showed that the total BNB contract holdings reached a historical high of $3.088 billion. The meme coin frenzy perfectly fed back into the value of BNB itself.
- FUD and Reflection After the October 11 Crash: The Controversy of Binance as "Referee and Player"
However, good times do not last long. After the significant drop in the crypto market on October 11, the community's doubts about Binance and its founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) surged.
Focus of Doubt: The community questioned Binance's role during the crash, including exchange outages, asset decoupling leading to liquidations, and lack of transparency. Criticism further escalated to Binance's actions in "promoting and leading the BSC meme coin craze," arguing that CZ and He Yi were "both referee and player," indirectly endorsing specific tokens through community interaction, which brought significant speculative risks to retail investors.
Market Cap Shrinkage: As a result, meme coins on BSC generally fell, with the market cap of "Binance Life" dropping from a peak of $500 million to $83 million.
Comments from Xu Mingxing: OKX's Xu Mingxing previously hinted in a post that "the platform is not neutral, and trading memes could backfire," although he later clarified that he did not oppose the development of memes but emphasized opposition to exchanges manipulating narratives for hype.
- The Second Wave of Recovery: The Cross-Chain Carnival and Ecological Integration of Chinese Meme Coins
Despite facing FUD, the wave of Chinese meme coins did not dissipate; instead, it welcomed a second peak and quickly spread to other public chains.
CZ's Continued Attention: On October 16, CZ hinted again that he would continue to focus on memes, leading to a rebound in meme coins on BSC, with tokens like "Binance Life" seeing price increases. On October 20, CZ responded on social media that the Base App had launched "Binance Life," stating, "Good discussions will lead to good results. Binance Life becomes the first Chinese ticker project issued on BNB Chain and listed on Base App. With an open mind and an open system, we focus on users."
Base Chain's Active Embrace: On October 20, the official X account of Base, the L2 network under Coinbase, announced the official launch of "Binance Life," allowing the token to be directly exchanged within the Base ecosystem. Base founder Jesse Pollak also released a Chinese tweet on the same day, supporting "Chinese meme developers" and encouraging more Chinese projects to land on Base.
Solana's "Solara": As a previous meme coin sanctuary, Solana initiated a "Chinese Name Collection" activity with its founder Anatoly Yakovenko starting on October 14, ultimately confirming the official Chinese name "Solara" late on October 20 (combining the transliteration of "Solana" and the "pulling" meme), immediately giving rise to a batch of meme coins of the same name "$Solara."
Binance's Increased Commitment: Binance also ramped up its efforts by launching perpetual contract trading for "Binance Life," offering up to 50x leverage, further amplifying market liquidity.
- Global "Degens" Learning Chinese: A Shift in Web3 Cultural Discourse Power?
The most notable cultural phenomenon of this wave is the surge in the crypto community's interest in "learning Chinese."
Cultural Counterattack: The Chinese crypto community pointed out that previously investing in English meme coins required a significant amount of time to study Western meme culture and metaphors, which had a high barrier to entry, and often, after understanding the meaning of the tokens, entry could only serve as liquidity for Western investors exiting. Now, it's the turn of foreign "Degens" to frantically study Chinese just to understand memes like "getting rich" and "all in," seizing early bird opportunities.
The Rise of Chinese Memes: On the X platform, not only meme coin investors are posting in Chinese, but even official accounts of Solana, Base, and others have started posting in Chinese, even launching "Chinese lesson" teaching posts. Relevant statistics indicate that among global meme coin holders, the download volume of tools for learning Chinese surged by 50% this month, seemingly indicating a resurgence of Asian culture in the Web3 world.
Shift in Discourse Power: This can be seen as a "cultural counterattack" occurring on the blockchain. It proves that the Chinese-speaking community is no longer just a buyer of Western narratives but can also become a powerful engine of narrative. The "Monkey King" on the Solana chain has already previewed this once, and "Binance Life" has pushed this performance to a climax in Binance, the world's largest liquidity pool. It tells the world with real money that the liquidity and narrative power of the East is a force capable of overturning the table.
Conclusion:
From early October to now, in just 20 days, the wave of Chinese meme coins driven by Binance raises the question of whether it represents a transfer of discourse power in the meme coin world from English to Chinese, or if it is merely a fleeting moment in the market frenzy. What is certain is that when Chinese first appeared in trading pairs on exchanges, it undoubtedly wrote a significant chapter in the history of the crypto market. At the intersection of speculative bubbles and the collision of Eastern and Western cultures, how the future will be written remains to be seen.
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