When foreigners start playing with Chinese meme coins: A cross-Pacific collision of meme coin cultures

In the past two weeks, if you haven’t heard of a certain Chinese Ticker rocketing onto a top-tier perpetual contract exchange, you might not truly be immersed in the crypto world.

The story started simply—an exchange founder casually replied to a message, and the entire crypto universe exploded. First, CEOs of various exchanges jumped into discussions, then the Tron and Solana communities began creating crazy Chinese meme coins, followed by the founder of a prediction market project publicly dissecting the “listing loopholes,” ending with the Layer2 head saying in Chinese, “Starting the XX life mode on XX.”

But behind this, it might not just be about a single Ticker’s victory.

Confusion of the Polish Brother: Up, but Can’t Understand

Barry, co-founder of WOK Labs, is a Polish trader running a community of a few hundred in Europe. When he first saw a Chinese-marked coin reaching a $20 million market cap, he was stunned.

“At the time, I thought these conspiracy coins were still playable, but it shot straight up to $60 million, then $100 million. Many in our group were rapidly topping up on BSC just because the price was rising—why was it rising? No one could really explain.”

On-chain data was even more exaggerated. On October 8, BSC’s daily trading volume hit $6.05 billion, directly matching the frenzy of the 2021 mechanism coin boom. But this time, the protagonists were a bunch of Chinese Meme coins.

Over 100,000 new wallets flooded in that day, nearly 70% of which made money. Active addresses surged by nearly one million compared to last month. Many “foreign friends” were educated by these Chinese land dogs.

The problem is, cultural differences are huge.

Western players are used to following internet memes—self-deprecating, rebellious, dark humor. Suddenly, Chinese narratives appeared, leaving them utterly lost. Barry had done some homework—having worked with Chinese teams on projects earlier, he understood a bit. He started explaining the logic of Chinese Meme culture in communities, telling foreigners: This isn’t what you’re familiar with.

From an operational perspective, European traders prefer playing conspiracy schemes, relying on the Ethereum ecosystem, following the rhythm controlled by big KOLs or teams. This community develops slowly, but the risk is: big players can dump the market and you can’t escape.

Chinese communities, on the other hand, develop faster. They are more receptive to “emotional resonance” and “storytelling.” Project teams tell stories in WeChat groups to attract popularity; when emotions rise, they push. In theory, this kind of relatively “fair” emotional-driven momentum can sustain a community longer.

Especially in this cycle, Chinese players played too smoothly. Seeing trending IPs, they buy in; a retail investor rotates through 65 Chinese Meme coins on BSC within 7 days, each time throwing in $100-300 to test waters, increasing positions for promising ones. After a week, net profit was $87,000.

This high-frequency “casting net” approach is typical of Chinese community speculation. Meanwhile, Western players are adjusting strategies—they’re abandoning small caps under $500,000 and shifting toward more certain targets starting from $5 million.

Agents connecting China and the West like Barry are becoming increasingly active. Helping Asian projects gain Western trust, and helping European teams penetrate Asia. He believes that behind this cultural collision, there are new cross-community cooperation opportunities.

From Doge to Chinese Land Dog: Meme as Ideology?

Looking back, the Western Meme coin ancestor is that dog from 2013. Two programmers mocked Bitcoin’s serious vibe with it, but with Musk’s hype, by May 2021, its market cap reached $88.8 billion.

Pepe is similar. The frog born from 4chan communities exploded early 2023, surpassing $1 billion in market cap. The project explicitly stated: no pre-sales, no team allocations, no roadmap—“completely valueless, just entertainment.”

This nihilistic value dominated many Solana Meme coins later—names like Fartcoin, Uselesscoin carrying black humor. Using image memes and rebellious spirit to grab attention, they long occupied the attention economy.

But this also caused players in Chinese regions to lack “cultural value judgment,” often misjudging.

Chinese Meme coins follow a different path—resonance and identity projection. Coins like “Humble Little One” or “Customer Service Little He” self-deprecate the struggles of workers. The “Cultivation” series reflects escapist fantasies. A certain famous Ticker directly embodies the dream of getting rich quick in the crypto market.

Their commonality is: all are linked to “official” entities.

This is a difference in mindset. Chinese see this as “broadening the road,” while Western players see it as locking the ceiling within the “system,” reluctant to drive the price up.

But the explosion of a Chinese Ticker benefits precisely from this emotional resonance. It compares itself to the previously hot “life of a certain tech company,” appealing to loyalty and sentiment, quite different from Doge’s satirical route.

When this impression is accepted by enough people, the Ticker becomes tied into the system. Officials “have to pump,” or risk losing face. Many who hold after shakeouts do so thinking this way.

Moreover, this Meme craze wasn’t purely spontaneous. From a co-founder’s joke, to his reply, to a series of official interactions, and the launch of a Meme platform by an exchange—step by step, phased positive signals were released, maintaining high market cap Meme coins’ visibility, liquidity in mid-term, and sustainability later.

Originally chaotic Meme coin issuance was integrated into the official system, making the celebration organized. Market attention was locked on BSC for a long time, spreading from a single project to the entire ecosystem. This “staircase” wealth effect prevented obvious liquidity siphoning.

This is a structured listing expectation driven by joint efforts of officials and communities. Months ago, it was unimaginable.

In contrast, Western Meme coins are more luck-driven community carnivals or driven by conspiracy groups. This time, with the combined influence of founders, platforms, and communities within the BSC ecosystem, the carnival turned into an obvious “wealth creation movement.”

Exchange Public Feuds: From Confrontation to Reconciliation

This incident also triggered intense PR battles among trading platforms.

On October 11, Jesse, head of a Layer2, tweeted opposing centralized exchanges charging 2%-9% listing fees. Three days later, CJ, founder of a prediction market project, exposed that to list on a major exchange, projects must pledge 2 million platform tokens, pay an 8% airdrop and marketing share, and deposit $250,000.

He compared two exchanges, believing one values project quality, while the other is just a “listing fee.”

A top-tier exchange quickly denied, claiming the accusation was “completely false and libelous,” emphasizing “we never charge listing fees,” and threatening legal action. Later, they issued a more restrained statement, admitting the initial response was overboard.

Coinbase also responded swiftly. Jesse publicly stated: “Getting projects listed on exchanges should be zero cost.”

But public opinion started to shift. Coinbase suddenly announced support for platform tokens in their future support list—marking the first time they directly supported tokens from a competing mainnet. A founder of another exchange welcomed this on social media and encouraged Coinbase to list more BSC projects.

CJ, who originally had “exposure” clauses, began to show goodwill. Jesse’s attitude also did a 180°, posting a demo video of the Base App, where they surprisingly used a “Chinese Ticker” as an example, jokingly saying “Starting XX life mode on Base App,” with the founder replying on Twitter: “XX life + Base life = the strongest combo.”

This series of moves was interpreted as a thawing between the US and Chinese crypto camps, and also as an effort to bring the Base chain back into the spotlight with the long-missed little golden dog.

It can be said that when the trading volume and attention in the Asian market reach a certain scale, Western exchanges have no choice but to actively approach the Chinese community. Exchange competition and cultural narratives are intertwined.

Are Foreigners Learning Chinese?

Mainstream Western media are highly attentive to this incident. Many Western retail investors in groups lament, “Coin prices went up but we don’t understand,” with most rushing to buy only after prices soared.

Even Barry, who has deep exchanges with Chinese systems, often finds himself “knowing the meaning but not the significance” when predicting a Meme coin with internal cultural implications. For overseas investors, Chinese elements once became a new barrier to entry.

Some Western community members developed tools for Chinese-to-English translation of land dogs. The recent viral “Foreigner Learning Chinese to Buy Meme Coins” series is a true reflection.

This wave emphasizes that “language is opportunity”—the cultural emotional information behind different languages is itself a resource. For the first time, Western investors need to understand Chinese culture to participate fully.

Barry’s view is: “I think the Chinese Meme wave is approaching its end. The longer it lasts, the more PTSD traders will suffer. We can see these Meme coins are starting to evolve into smaller caps with quicker sector rotations.”

But he also says: “English and Chinese are already the main components of the Meme market, and this won’t change soon. China’s market is bigger and more emotion-driven. Europe often lags behind. I believe English Tickers may return, but they will become more integrated with Asian culture—more Chineseized: humor, symbolism, aesthetics—all will be incorporated due to this Chinese Meme wave.”

Final Words

To seize the next Meme coin wave, relying on luck alone is no longer enough; a deeper understanding of the languages and cultures of different communities is essential. AI might help with cross-language dissemination—automatically generating Chinese meme images, translating social media posts, and so on—but AI cannot replace deep cultural contextual understanding.

We may see a more polarized crypto world. Chains like Base, Solana will see more Chinese Tickers with “Golden Dogs.” Between Western and Eastern communities, there are trends of integration and mutual learning, but also potential partitioned ecosystems.

And within these cultural gaps, there may well hide new opportunities.