The collective celebration of Chinese Memes—how exactly did it happen?
(Background recap: The viral meme coin trader “Ku Sitting P Youngster” made $430,000 in 30 days—how did he catch the first 5 seconds of the Golden Dog appearance?)
(Additional context: CZ Zhao Changpeng’s Binance AMA summary: Bitcoin reaching $200,000, the end of the altcoin season, don’t rely on Binance executives’ statements to hype meme coins)

Table of Contents

• 01 Liquidity War: BSC’s Counterattack
• 02 CZ and He Yi’s Meme-creating Abilities
• 03 Token Listing Expectations: Imagination Space for BSC Meme
• 04 The Cultural Code of Chinese Meme
• 05 Summary

On January 1, 2026, Binance co-founder He Yi posted a New Year tweet: “I’m here.”

Rough, direct—just like the collective venting of crypto traders after a bear market. Soon after, a Meme coin of the same name on BSC exploded, officially launching Binance Alpha on January 6, with a maximum 24-hour increase of over 800%.

This is not an isolated case.

Within just two weeks, a batch of Meme tokens with strong Chinese internet DNA, such as “Life K Line” and “Dark Horse,” erupted one after another. Coupled with previous tokens like “Binance Life” and “Haki Mi,” gas consumption and transaction counts on the BSC chain surged exponentially. Someone exclaimed that overnight, “the whole world is speaking Chinese.”

How exactly did this collective Chinese Meme celebration happen?

01 Liquidity War: BSC’s Counterattack

The story begins with Solana.

Starting in the second half of 2024, Solana, with its low gas fees and extremely fast transaction speeds, almost monopolized the Meme market. Pump.fun mode became dominant, with tens of thousands of new coins created, launched, and zeroed out daily. However, as everyone competed on the same track, “PVP” battles became highly competitive, and retail traders’ profits and losses continued to worsen.

The market began craving new narratives and new battlegrounds.

Binance keenly sensed this signal. As the world’s largest centralized exchange, it faced challenges from DEXs eroding the pricing power of long-tail assets. The launch of Binance Alpha essentially was a move to “capture” on-chain native liquidity—reducing user entry barriers via Web3 wallets and re-locking liquidity within the BSC ecosystem.

Thus, a quiet capital migration began.

A large number of traders started shifting their focus to BSC. The reason was simple: it was increasingly difficult to profit from speed and information gaps on Solana, while BSC, backed by Binance, offered a clearer “upward channel.”

This was a typical “stockpile game” capital rotation. When an ecosystem’s profit-loss ratio continues to deteriorate, smart money will seek the next battleground first. Binance Alpha just happened to provide a clear “airdrop expectation” as a baseline return— even if the token itself performs poorly, participants can still earn other rewards through a points system. This “bottom support” mechanism greatly lowered the psychological threshold for capital migration.

More importantly, this round of market activity was characterized by “Chinese dominance.” Unlike previous narratives led by Western communities like Doge or Pepe, the pricing power of Meme coins on BSC, for the first time, tilted noticeably toward Eastern communities. This was not only due to Binance’s Chinese founding team but also because, in a liquidity-scarce environment, Chinese communities demonstrated stronger organizational mobilization and cultural identity.

02 CZ and He Yi’s Meme-Creation Abilities

In the Meme coin market, attention equals liquidity.

Within the BSC ecosystem, CZ Zhao Changpeng and He Yi’s social media activity has become a market “barometer.” Every emoji, every reply they post is immediately interpreted by the community as an asset pricing signal.

He Yi is the core catalyst of this round of market activity.

The birth of “Binance Life” is a typical example. It started with He Yi jokingly posting on social media, “Enjoy Binance Life.” The community quickly interpreted it as “Binance Life vs Other Life,” and a token of the same name was born. Subsequently, OKX founder Star and Base founder Jess followed suit, elevating the narrative to “industry-wide meme.”

This is not just a joke but a form of identity recognition. Holding “Binance Life” represents loyalty to the BNB ecosystem and a desire to cross social classes through Binance. In the crypto world, “which exchange you choose” is no longer just a tool choice but a declaration of identity.

It’s worth noting that the popularity of “Binance Life” also reflects a unique dissemination mechanism: core figures interact → community creates tokens → peers follow → narrative upgrades. This chain allowed a simple joke to evolve into a topic across the entire industry within days, with market cap rising accordingly.

Although CZ has stepped down as CEO, his role as a spiritual leader remains unshakable. On January 14, 2026, he hosted a Chinese AMA on Binance Square, setting the tone for the BSC Meme ecosystem.

He explicitly stated: “A truly successful Meme coin needs to have a historical story and cultural reference.”

This statement is highly instructive. It directly dismisses “local dog” projects that lack cultural core and rely solely on hype, and affirms Meme coins that can carry broad cultural consensus and evoke collective emotional resonance—whether through counter-narratives, identity, or subcultural symbols.

03 Token Listing Expectations: Imagination Space for BSC Meme

But just the founders shouting out is not enough to sustain a sector’s continuous rise.

The reason BSC Meme has room for imagination lies in a clear token listing pathway: Binance Alpha → Binance Contracts → Binance Spot.

What does this pathway imply?

For on-chain native tokens, being able to enter Binance Alpha is already the first step recognized by the official; if performance is excellent, they may be listed on Binance Contracts, gaining greater liquidity and trading depth; ultimately, the goal is to land on Binance Spot—almost equivalent to obtaining a “graduation certificate” from mainstream exchanges.

This clear upward channel provides continuous price expectations for BSC Meme.

From a market microstructure perspective, this listing pathway creates a “step-by-step unlocking” game mechanism. Each listing announcement triggers new buying waves, as investors anticipate larger liquidity injections in the next stage. On-chain data shows many tokens experience intense turnover after the Binance Alpha listing news, indicating large funds are pre-positioned ahead of the announcement.

The brilliance of this mechanism is that it breaks down the originally one-time “listing positive” into multiple stages, each capable of generating a new wave of FOMO. For market makers and early holders, this means more exit windows; for retail investors, it means “there’s always a next positive event to look forward to.”

The investor logic is simple: as long as there’s a listing expectation, someone is willing to buy in.

In contrast, Meme coins on Solana lack such a clear “exit route,” relying more on community-driven organic spread and short-term emotional hype, resulting in very short life cycles.

04 The Cultural Code of Chinese Meme

Of course, not all BSC Meme coins succeed.

Looking at this round of market activity, tokens with real vitality often have some cultural core support. Take “Binance Life” as an example: its success lies in precisely hitting the collective psychology of the Chinese-speaking crypto community—desire for financial freedom, imagination of social mobility, and identity recognition within the “圈内人” (insiders).

From a broader perspective, the cultural codes of this Chinese Meme wave can be summarized into several dimensions:

Identity Recognition: Linking holding a certain token to a specific identity, forming a “We vs They” group division. Holding equals allegiance, allegiance equals belonging.
Emotional Venting: Carrying the collective emotions of crypto traders after market fluctuations—whether the urgency after missing out, the joy of getting rich, or self-deprecating humor after being trapped.
Subcultural Breakout: Borrowing from otaku, cute pets, internet memes, and other outside traffic to enable Meme coins to reach audiences beyond the crypto circle, gaining broader dissemination.

What these tokens have in common is that they are not just code or symbols but carry some form of cultural consensus or emotional projection. As CZ said, truly successful Meme coins need to have “historical stories and cultural references.”

05 Summary

However, in this feast, retail investors must stay alert.

First is the “single point of failure” risk. The valuation logic of the entire Chinese Meme sector heavily depends on the influence of He Yi and CZ. If they reduce interactions or regulatory pressure forces silence, the value support for these tokens will collapse instantly.

Second is the “good news exhausted” effect. Data shows many tokens tend to peak shortly after launching on Binance Alpha. Early profit-taking traders will use this opportunity to distribute chips to retail investors who bought chasing the listing expectation. It’s a brutal but real game: when you see the “listing” positive, smart money may already be exiting.

Third is liquidity fragility. Although BSC Meme attracted a large amount of capital in the short term, most of this capital is speculative and lacks long-term holding intent. Once market sentiment shifts or more attractive new narratives emerge, funds may withdraw rapidly, causing prices to plummet.

Finally, the shadow of regulation. CZ repeatedly mentioned compliance and risks in the AMA, implying that Binance must carefully navigate the regulatory red lines while promoting Meme hype. If Chinese Meme coins are classified as unregistered securities issued via centralized platforms, the entire sector will face severe challenges.

Returning to the original question: what exactly is this Chinese Meme frenzy?

It is an “attention finance” experiment jointly built by exchange infrastructure empowerment, elite narrative guidance, and grassroots cultural resonance. In this cyber gambling arena composed of algorithms, points, and Twitter, the real winners are always those who build the stage and those who hear the music first.

Most later followers chasing the hype may ultimately only gain an expensive “Life K Line” experience.

After all, in the crypto world, Meme prices are highly uncertain, but platform fees are certain.