Meme Chains Explained: A New Big Thing, or Just Another Buzz?
It seems that they still are, but you may have also heard of one new thing – meme chains. Let’s explore what Doge and Pepe fans have delivered to us this time.
What Are Meme Chains?
In 2020-2021, it became very easy to launch your own token on Ethereum or Binance Smart Chain. This sparked the emergence of a swarm of new meme coins, each with its own tokenomics and unique features (or without them, but with a funny name and logo). In 2022, the evolution of meme-focused crypto projects continued with meme chains – full-scale blockchains centered around memes like Doge or Pepe the Frog. It’s easier than ever to launch a new network today, so crypto enthusiasts ventured to develop their own meme ecosystems.
Memes in the crypto sphere go hand in hand with fierce trading on the verge of gambling. Maybe this is the reason why meme chains are gaining traction at this very moment – in the midst of a bear market, when crypto enthusiasts are tired from lack of movement in crypto.
Meme chains are in their very early days – of 4 networks that we will discuss, only one has launched its mainnet, while others are only testing their functionality. The nature of some of them seems to be speculative, while others aim to change the way blockchains and DeFi function. WIthout further ado, let’s take a look at the most well-known meme chains.
Dogechain – a Network for Dogecoin Hodlers
Dogecoin has always been famous for its vibrant community – millions of DOGE hodlers participated in all kinds of online and offline ventures, from coin pumps to charity. However, the functionality of Dogecoin blockchain has remained very limited: all it allows for is hodling and transacting. It would make sense if such a community eagerly embraced a Doge-related blockchain with DeFi and all sorts of dApps.
“Dogecoin holders deserve the same powers as other crypto holders”, states the official website of Dogechain – a network built “by Dogecoin holders, for Dogecoin holders.” Dogechain positions itself as a layer on top of Dogecoin, while in fact, these are two separate chains with a bridge in between – users can deposit DOGE and receive the blockchain’s native Dogechain coin (DC), or vice versa.
Dogechain front page. Image source
Dogechain introduces DOGE owners to new use cases such as NFTs, games, and DeFi. Since it’s EVM-compatible, a burgeoning ecosystem of DEXes like DogeSwap and KibbleSwap has instantly emerged in the network. It got flooded with newly minted tokens of all kinds – basically everyone can create an asset if they have some DC in their wallet. Low gas fees pushed Doge enthusiasts into trading low-liquidity tokens that could go parabolic in minutes. Instant returns on low investment serve as a relief for users tired from sluggish crypto winter – but also form a graveyard of dead tokens, a kind of waste pump-and-dump material. Nevertheless, some serious projects like FraxSwap are present in the Dogechain ecosystem, too.
One of the Dogechain’s goals was to support Dogecoin, a No.10 crypto that has been steadily declining since 2021. The community managed to pump the coin by 11% as Dogechain was launched in mid-August 2022, but DOGE couldn’t retain it – while the 24h trading volume in Dogechain DEXes has dropped from $15M to just $400K.
Dogechain was created using Polygon Edge – a service that allows building a new customized blockchain in no time. The meme blockchain doesn’t seem to have anything to do either with Jackson Palmer, the Dogecoin creator who has stepped away from crypto, or with the original Dogecoin team.
Dogechain positions itself as an “honest project” that simply wants to enable the DOGE community with dApps. The team says it gives “no big promises that we can't keep, such as 1 Trillion Transactions Per Second powered by a world-changing consensus algorithm.” But this promise is exactly what our next meme chain gives.
Berachain – How Memes Inspired a New Blockchain Model
Who said meme crypto projects have to be necessarily focused on dogs? Berachain gathers community around a different meme – Bobo the Bear, an (intentionally) poorly drawn character symbolizing the bear market, whose design is based on Pepe the Frog. The Bear is a frequent subject of discussions at the 4chan forum. But unlike Dogechain, Berachain isn’t focusing on memes only – rather, it is serious about introducing new ideas into blockchain design.
Berachain, a network that is still in development, is built using the Cosmos software development kit. It leverages Tendermint – a battle-tested, performant consensus mechanism that is used across numerous blockchains with a combined value of $150 billion. Berachain promises to be EMV-compatible – and even more, it’s implementing a conceptually new modification of the Tendermint consensus algorithm.
According to Berachain devs’ ideas, any decentralized system should be enabled with three types of native tokens:
- A medium to ensure smart contract operation that would also be the platform’s price indicator.
- A medium to achieve consensus in the network and make common decisions.
- A stable medium for value exchange.
This model is called a Proof of Liquidity mechanism. According to this concept, the separation of token functions should raise capital efficiency, increase transaction speed, and reduce gas fees. As the team particularly emphasizes, the model should make the network more Sybil-resistant – that is, capable of handling Sybil attacks.
In a Sybil attack, malicious actors create multiple nodes to outvote the honest network members. This way hackers refuse to receive or transit transactions made by others, practically blocking them from the network. If intruders control many nodes enough, they might even perform a 51% attack.
Three Berachain’s native tokens are meant to make it more Sybil-resistant:
- BERA – gas token,
- BGT – governance token,
- HONEY – “consensus-collateralized” stablecoin native to Berachain.
Berachain’s meme art. Image source
If this model proves itself, the Berachain architecture might be implemented in other emerging networks focused on DeFi. Although this meme chain is still in development, it has already attracted 55,000 users to its Discord and over 21,000 to platform’s Twitter. That’s how far the passion for memes and tech can go!
KekСhain and FrenChain – Memes Mixed with Ancient Mythology
You won’t believe this, but our next meme chain is also not dedicated to dogs – rather, it’s centered around Apu Apustaja, one of Pepe the Frog’s modifications. Actually, Berachain also takes roots from this character. Is this some kind of a new frog frenzy?
Pepe the Frog emerged in the 2000s, when 4chan users started posting a picture of a sad frog – a new character drawn by a comic artist Matt Furie. The meme was quickly adopted by right activists – and by 2015, the internet had been flooded with pictures of Trump with a Pepe head. The meme finally turned into a mythology and ironic religion when one of the 4chan users noticed a similarity between Pepe and the ancient frog-headed Egyptian god Kek. That day, the word “kek” that initially meant a horse laugh, formed the basis of a new counterculture branch.
The prophecy of Kek as depicted by users. Image source
KekChain is a crypto project that speculates on love for frogs the same way that all dog-themed cryptos’ authors leverage the buzz around Doge. However, it doesn’t appear that KekChain is developed just as well as Dogechain. According to the platform’s sparse roadmap, KekChain took off in Q3 2022 and so far has created an ERC20 token, launched public testnet, and got listed on Coingecko. It has 3 thousand followers on Twitter.
KekChain isn’t even trying to bring any innovation – at least as follows from its description. The docs look quite unfinished and contain a minimum of tech details. Nevertheless, they pretentiously state that KekChain supports the smart contract functionality “without the scalability and privacy limitations of earlier systems like Ethereum.” KekChain emphasizes that it is EVM-compatible and one can simply drag any Ethereum-based dApp there with no need for reconfiguration. If you want to sell the KekChain token, there’s a 10% withdrawal tax.
As opposed to Dogechain with its new use cases for Doge fans and Berachain striving to implement a new consensus model, KekChain seems to have been created just for a joke per se. A few months after launch, its testnet explorer shows 16,000 transactions in total and 0 for the last hour. DEXes that were planning to launch on KekChain are starting to express outrage – FrogSwap has recently roasted the network for “not pleasing users with good updates” and promised to migrate to FrenChain if no new investors show up in another 7 days.
FrenChain, however, doesn’t appear much trustworthy at the first glance either. It’s a meme chain that doesn’t even have a website – only social media and a Telegram channel created on October 16, announcing a private token sale scheduled for October 21. In FrenChain’s Medium with a single post, the team explains that the network will “support a comfy vibe” and resist the “cutthroat and competitive, cold and corporate” environment of many other blockchains.
Meme Chains vs Meme Tokens
What’s the deal with meme tokens? These cryptocurrencies are driven by a burning interest of the community fueled by marketing. This nature makes them mostly dependent on waves of public activity – and barely on fundamental value, which explains their extreme volatility. Yet, some meme tokens manage to establish robust use cases and vibrant ecosystems, but many others sink into oblivion after a quick pump.
It is yet unclear whether meme chains will act like meme coins, but the way they position themselves is quite similar. Remember that they are made up by anonymous developers who are not accountable to anyone. Enjoy the memes, but stay safe and DYOR before taking on a meme chain journey!
