Original author: dt
Original editor: Yaoyao, Lisa
Memecoin has always been a hot topic in the blockchain world, attracting the attention of many traders. Dreams of overnight riches and a short-term speculative mindset have driven many people to join in one after another.
In April of this year, the sudden emergence of $PEPE took the world by storm. In just 19 days, it achieved a hundred thousand-fold increase and launched on Binance, becoming the fastest token to reach a market value of $1 billion in history. The emergence of $PEPE also ignited another wave of Memecoin Season in the crypto world, with various dog-themed tokens skyrocketing and gas fees soaring. Every day, new coins with dozens of times of increase emerge. This trend lasted for nearly two months until the end of June before calming down.
Memecoin, from the meme-like attributes of token names or avatars to community culture, the influence of social media and celebrity endorsements, and the nature of low market cap and high volatility, makes it an attractive choice. But at the same time, it comes with a high level of risk. High volatility means that besides going up, it's common to see drops or even vanish. In addition, factors such as celebrity endorsements and misinformation from major holders controlling the market make Memecoin an area that is easy to participate in but difficult to master.
So as a retail investor, besides investing in Memecoin itself, what other projects are worth tracking and paying attention to? In the development of the Memecoin field up to now, in addition to numerous tokens, many projects serving Memecoins have also emerged, forming a unique Memecoin ecosystem. These projects are not subject to venture capital investment and mostly start from community projects. They generally have humble backgrounds but have persisted and become profitable entities with stable customer bases.
Today, DODO Research will introduce five tools or platforms that are closely associated with many Memecoin projects or are used by retail investors when participating in Memecoin, and analyze their sources of profit.
1. Pinksale
Project Introduction
Pinksale is a presale platform. In the dog-themed community, Pinksale is often mentioned when referring to pink presales. Its main feature is that anyone can launch a token and set presale rules. It provides Memecoin projects with the most basic technical support. With Pinksale, project teams only need to focus on community operation and community marketing and can launch a token with just a few clicks, even without any coding knowledge.
In addition, projects on Pinksale that are pre-sold ensure the deployment of liquidity and avoid the risk of funds being misappropriated, which has made many retail investors only willing to participate in pre-sales activities launched on Pinksale.
Profit Model and Analysis
Pinksale mainly generates revenue by charging a minting fee of 0.01 ETH / 0.2 BNB, as well as 5% ETH / BNB of the total funds raised in the pre-sale of tokens.
We analyzed their receiving address 0x 4 b 04213 c 2774 f 77 e 60702880654206 b 116 d 00508, and in the past six months from 2023 to now, Pinksale has made a total profit of nearly 8 M USD++++++++++ (with ETH on the left and BSC on the right) income, with the recent three months of the crazy Memecoin Season bringing them 6.4 M USD. It can be seen that the performance of the Memecoin market has a significant impact on their protocol earnings. Analyzing the two chains, ETH and BSC, it can be observed that Memecoins launched on the BSC are more popular than those on the Ethereum mainnet. The reason may be that most Memecoins on the Ethereum mainnet choose fair launch or self-built pre-sale channels.
Source: https://dune.com/owen05/account-value-flow
In addition, Pinksale also issued a governance token called $PINKSALE. According to the official documentation, this token has unlocking information and it is stated that 20% of profits will be used to buy back and burn tokens every quarter. However, no official announcement regarding the buyback and burn has been found. This token seems to be a useless governance token without value capture mechanism. Token holders do not share profits with the project team, which means that despite Pinksale's significant profits in the first half of 2023, this has not been reflected in the token price.
Source: https://www.geckoterminal.com/bsc/pools/0x53028de80b359b303178a31741ddf91969ba89ec
2. UNCX Network (formerly Unicrypt)
Project Introduction
UNCX Network, formerly known as Unicrypt or "Green Horse" in the Chinese community, primarily provides lock pool services. Generally, Memecoin tokens choose to deploy liquidity on AMM DEX. Liquidity is the sole basis of token value, so the ability to remove liquidity at any time is a key consideration for traders. This makes UNCX's lock pool service a prerequisite for almost every Memecoin.
When a project has unlocked liquidity, few people would be willing to trade, as it carries risks. UNCX, being the first to propose the concept of lock pools and the most famous platform for locking liquidity adopted by numerous projects, naturally became one of the standards referenced by retail investors. Consequently, project teams would rather pay to lock their liquidity on UNCX than choose other cheaper options in the market.
Profit Model and Analysis
The main source of revenue for UNCX Network is the fee charged for lock pool services, which is 0.08 ETH/0.3 BNB, as well as a 1% fee on locked liquidity.
Analyzing its receiving address 0x997cc123cf292f46e55e6e63e806cd77714db70f, it can be concluded that the profits from the beginning of 2023 until now have exceeded 4.5 M USD (ETH on the left and BSC on the right in the image below), and in the past quarter, influenced by Memecoin Season, the profits reached as high as 2.5 M USD.
Source: https://dune.com/owen05/account-value-flow
Furthermore, UNCX has issued governance token $UNCX and reward token $UNCL, but there is no emphasis on token model and value capture. It only has the traditional staking mining and buyback token burning mechanisms. The burning has not been recorded since April 2021. The project's profitability does not effectively benefit token holders, and this has also led to the fact that the price of governance token $UNCX has not changed with the project's earnings.
Source: https://www.geckoterminal.com/eth/pools/0xe0f0e02a16b45f949b98856b61175e63ca5f6293
3. Dextools
Project Introduction
Dextool is a website for viewing K-line charts and an aggregated trading platform. In addition to charting and trading functionalities, it also provides various information about tokens, including project introductions and community links. It also features trending searches and banner advertisements. Memecoin projects can pay Dextools to update token information, gain visibility on the trending list, or advertise.
Although there are already many alternative and free platforms in the market, Dextools, as the oldest and most established charting and aggregated trading website, still maintains its leading position. Paying Dextools is an important indicator for Memecoin players to determine whether a project is marketing with sincerity. Therefore, project teams still choose to pay Dextools to update token information in order to attract people.
Profit Model and Analysis
The main source of revenue for Dextools is the fees charged to project teams for updating token information, which is 1300 DEXT, 3 BNB, or 0.5 ETH. Unlike Pinksale and UNCX, Dextools token $DEXT has a stronger value capture capability. Dextools dynamically adjusts the payment method in $DEXT to ensure it remains the cheapest payment method. The revenue generated from payments in DEXT will be regularly destroyed for permanent deflation.
Based on our analysis of Dextools' charging address 0x997cc123cf292f46e55e6e63e806cd77714db70f, we found that in the past six months from early 2023, it has received a total revenue of approximately 6 M USD (the left side of the graph represents ETH, and the right side represents BSC). Since the Memecoin Season ignited by $PEPE in April, it has earned nearly 4.7 M USD.
Source: https://dune.com/owen05/account-value-flow
Nearly 1/3 of the revenue comes from payments in $DEXT, benefiting from its deflationary mechanism (with an average of about 15 k $DEXT destroyed daily). $DEXT has seen the highest increase this year, reaching up to 6 times, and currently has a 4 times increase even after the pullback. It is a token with a remarkably strong performance in 2023.
Source : https://www.dextools.io/app/cn/ether/pair-explorer/0xa29fe6ef9592b5d408cca961d0fb9b1faf497d6d
4. Maestro
Project Introduction
Maestro is a Telegram chatbot that provides retail investors with quick coin buying and various stop-loss and take-profit order functions. Users can recharge money into the wallet address provided by Maestro and trade coins through conversations with the chatbot on TG. Due to its high volatility, the speed of trading greatly affects the profits of Dogecoin. Therefore, rapid trading, even purchasing as soon as the project is deployed, can often bring significant gains. Maestro is designed as a tool for professional Memecoin players.
However, users should be cautious when using such tools and avoid investing large amounts of money to prevent losses due to concerns about private key leaks.
Profit Model and Analysis
Maestro's profit model is to collect a 1% commission from the amount of each user's transaction. When the user accumulates a fee of 0.01 ETH, it will be automatically transferred from the user's address to Maestro's receiving address.
According to Defillama's data, its cumulative revenue in 2023 is close to 12 M USD, and in the past three months, Memecoin Season has quickly generated about 10 M USD in revenue, making it one of the most profitable projects this quarter.
Source : https://defillama.com/protocol/maestro
Despite the relative decline of Memecoin this month, Maestro still ranks eleventh in Defillama's fees and revenue leaderboard, surpassing many well-known DeFi protocols such as Metamask, Compound, and Curve, as well as public chain projects such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, and Polygon, which can only watch it from behind.
Source: https://defillama.com/fees
5. Unibot
Project Introduction
Unibot is similar to Maestro in terms of business content, as they are both TG trading robots with no functional differences. The only difference is that Maestro does not issue tokens, while Unibot has its own token of the same name, and it has a token dividend mechanism. Retail investors have the opportunity to share the value captured through the protocol with the project party, and Unibot also has a referral system, so it has relatively high visibility in the Twitter community. The next phase of product updates on the team's roadmap will involve collaboration with GMX and Dopex, allowing the use of GMX's perpetual contracts and Dopex's options products in TG robots.
Compared to the four projects mentioned above, Unibot is relatively young, having only launched in May of this year, with both its product and token going live at the same time. Its token was launched through a fair launch method and achieved a maximum increase of 400 times, making it a hot coin for this quarter.
Profit Model and Analysis
The profit model of Unibot is the same as Maestro, which is to deduct 1% of the user's transaction amount as a fee. However, thanks to the token mechanism of Unibot, $Unibot itself is a taxable token, and a 5% token needs to be paid as a tax for buying or selling in transactions. This portion is also considered project revenue. Since its launch, the accumulated revenue has exceeded 1630 ETH, or about 3 M USD, of which 166 ETH (300 K USD) comes from fee income.
Source: https://dune.com/whale_hunter/unibot-revenue
And the dividend bonus was implemented from two weeks ago, 6/14, with 40% of the project's earnings being distributed to token holders. As of now, approximately 200 ETH (about 380 K USD) has been distributed in dividends, causing $Unibot to surge nearly three times.
Source: https://dune.com/whale_hunter/unibot-revenue
Source: https://www.geckoterminal.com/eth/pools/0x8dbee21e8586ee356130074aaa789c33159921ca? utm_source=coingecko&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=searchresults
Summary
The five projects mentioned above may seem insignificant, without a strong background or innovative mechanisms that catch the eye. However, their earnings analysis is impressive. When the on-chain Memecoin market is thriving, the earnings of these projects can far surpass many Defi and even public chain projects. Having astonishing profit potential is a common characteristic of these five projects.
However, it is important to note that a good product does not necessarily translate into a good investment target. From the examples of the tokens in the projects mentioned above, high profitability alone is not sufficient if the token model is lacking. Being unable to share project earnings with token holders renders it futile. Conversely, projects with profit-sharing token mechanisms and such strong profitability are highly likely to be good investment targets.
References
* Please refer to the official documentation for the project analysis source
