Every crypto cycle produces thousands of meme coins. Most disappear within weeks. Yet a small number keep attracting active communities long after the hype fades. Why?
According to community leaders with experience across BabyDoge, FirstBroccoli and Turbo, it comes down to trust, organic participation and a story people want to preserve.
In the latest ChangeNOW X Space, we welcomed back Ekin, formerly known as Pug and former Head of Content at BabyDoge. He was joined by Brody from FirstBroccoli and Homs from TurboToadToken.
This time, the speakers looked at what happens after the initial attention disappears and why certain communities remain active for months or even years.
Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to the complete ChangeNOW X Space
How Can You Tell If A Meme Coin Will Last?
How can you tell if a meme coin will last? No checklist guarantees survival, but lasting projects share clear signs:
- A recognizable origin that gives the project its own identity
- An active community during quiet market periods
- Transparent liquidity and token distribution
- No history of coordinated dumps or hidden deals
- Consistent communication from community members
- Activities that extend beyond price speculation
- Members willing to contribute their own time, skills and resources
These signs may help users evaluate a project’s community and track record, but they cannot remove financial risk. Meme coins remain highly volatile, and even projects with active communities can lose most or all of their value.
Examples Of Meme Coin Communities That Lasted
BabyDoge, FirstBroccoli and Turbo show how meme coin communities can remain active after the initial hype through real-world impact, community-led work and a recognizable identity.
| Meme Coin Project | What Helps The Community Last | Example From The X Space |
|---|---|---|
| BabyDoge | Activity beyond price speculation | Animal welfare initiatives give members a shared cause outside trading |
| FirstBroccoli | An active, self-organized community | Members create content, organize partnerships and contribute their own time and resources |
| Turbo | A recognizable origin and personal relationships | The project began as a $69 AI experiment, while community members continue promoting it and meeting in person |
From animal welfare to community contributions to personal connections, all three projects depend on one essential factor – trust.
Why Is Trust Important For Meme Coin Communities?
Trust helps a meme coin community stay active after viral attention fades. Members need confidence in the project’s identity, history and behavior before they commit their time to it.
Ekin, former Head of Content at BabyDoge, now speaks about the meme coin sector independently. Memes existed long before crypto, he said, and blockchain later made them tradeable.
“Meme culture is also Web 2.0. People share memes on Web 2.0. It’s a matter of operation that they get minted as a coin or whatnot.” – Ekin
Tokenization adds financial incentives to a culture that already exists online. It also introduces rug pulls, coordinated dumps and projects created to profit from a passing trend.
Ekin used Chill Guy as an example. The Web2 meme quickly became a token, but market attention later moved elsewhere. In his view, repeated attempts to monetize every viral moment have made trust harder to earn across the sector.
“And that financial instrument, I think, is abused a little and it became something to know, distribute to wealth, pump and dumps and so on, and rug pulls, of course, the notorious ones. And that kind of damaged the community trust there. Then community, because you cannot just erase memes out of people’s cultures right away just because of this kind of stuff. So they get to be trustworthy memes, right? Like, people here for now, they have a brand, right? They have a community that trusts them.” – Ekin
Repeated pump-and-dumps have raised the standard for credibility. A meme coin that wants to keep its community needs a recognizable identity, a visible history and consistent behavior after the initial attention fades.
How Does A Strong Community Help A Meme Coin Survive?
A strong meme coin community keeps a project visible after the initial hype fades. Members create content, organize partnerships, welcome newcomers and continue contributing when trading activity slows.
FirstBroccoli is a community-driven meme coin without a traditional central team. Brody, Community Manager at FirstBroccoli, explained that members contribute to development and launch their own initiatives without waiting for instructions.
“We don't have a team. We have a whole bunch of community members sort of self-organizing ourselves.” – Brody
Members produce memes, join X Spaces, discuss industry news and stay active in community chats. This regular participation gives people a reason to return even when the chart is flat.
Community activity alone cannot sustain a meme coin. People also look at liquidity, token distribution and launch mechanics before deciding whether they trust a project. Brody believes market participants have become better at identifying rug pulls and hidden arrangements.
“People can see that these days and you know it's kind of that stickiness that keeps everyone around like there's no rugs not happening and no sort of background you know back door or sorry back back room deals and things like that that might happen with other projects.” – Brody, Community Manager at FirstBroccoli
For Brody, this stickiness comes from knowing that other members are genuinely committed. One FirstBroccoli community member paid $6,000 to acquire the Telegram username Broccoli. No paid campaign can produce that level of involvement on demand. People continue showing up because the project has become a place for shared jokes, regular conversations and a sense of belonging.
What Makes A Meme Coin Stand Out?
A recognizable origin can help a meme coin stand out from similar projects and give its community a story that remains relevant after the initial hype fades.
Turbo began in 2023, when digital artist Rhett Mankind asked ChatGPT to create a meme coin with a budget of $69. Its community describes Turbo as the first AI-created meme coin. Homs, a Turbo community member, sees this history as an important part of the project’s identity.
“We are the first ever AI-created meme coin. This is nothing that can be taken away.” – Homs
That history remains specific to Turbo. As more AI-themed tokens enter the market, its creation gives community members a common reference point.
Turbo has no centralized marketing budget or corporate structure. Referring to Homs, much of its visibility comes from the people who create content and promote the project themselves.
“There is no paid advertisement or anything, because we don't have this money somewhere banked and don't tell anybody. This is real and honest communication. We are just a lot of people that are loving the TurboToe token.” – Homs, a TurboToadToken community member
For some members, participating in the Turbo community has also led to friendships outside crypto.
“I got to know a lot of great friends now. I have met some people in real life because some people are based in the European Union.” – Homs
People may first notice Turbo because of the $69 AI experiment. Homs’ experience helps explain why some remain: the story has led to real friendships and a community they want to return to.
What Is The Future Of Meme Coins?
The future of meme coins will increasingly depend on whether projects can earn trust through transparent structures, consistent communication and activity beyond price speculation.
Brody observed that on some chains, meme coin lifecycles now last only a few hours. Projects have less time to prove who stands behind them, how their tokens are distributed and whether the community will remain after the first burst of trading.
Ekin pointed to BabyDoge, a meme coin known in part for its animal welfare initiatives, as an example of how real-world activity can keep a project relevant outside the market.
“Its life cycle needs to have this loop. It needs to come back to the life impact part. If you can't trust something, you cannot guess what it's going to be. And if you cannot guess, then it means that you cannot invest in it.” – Ekin, former Head of Content at BabyDoge
BabyDoge’s charitable work gives its community something visible to support and discuss when price is no longer the main source of attention.
Rug pulls, copycat launches and manufactured hype will remain part of the meme coin market. Trust is easy to claim, which makes a public track record more useful. Transparent liquidity, clear token distribution and consistent behavior give communities something concrete to evaluate, although none can guarantee that a token will survive or retain its value.
