From "I'm f***ing coming" to "Binance Life": An Attention Finance Experiment

Written by: Clow

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

Rugged and direct, it resembles the collective venting of crypto traders after experiencing a bear market. Subsequently, the meme of the same name on BSC began to explode, officially launching Binance Alpha on January 6, with a maximum 24-hour increase of over 800%.

This is not an isolated case.

In just two weeks, a series of meme tokens with strong Chinese internet gene, such as “Life K-line” and “Dark Horse,” erupted one after another. Coupled with previous tokens like “Binance Life” and “HakiMi,” gas consumption and transaction counts on the BSC chain surged exponentially. Some exclaimed that overnight, “the whole world is speaking Chinese.”

How did this collective celebration of Chinese memes 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 popular, with tens of thousands of new coins created, launched, and zeroed out daily. However, as everyone competed on the same track, the “PVP” game became highly competitive, and retail traders’ profit and loss ratios 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 was essentially a move to “incorporate” 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 is simple: competing on speed and information advantage on Solana is becoming increasingly difficult to profit from, while BSC, backed by Binance, offers a clearer “upward channel.”

This is a typical “stocking game” of capital rotation. When the profit and loss ratio of an ecosystem continues to deteriorate, smart money will seek the next battleground first. Binance Alpha just happens to provide a clear “airdrop expectation” as a baseline return— even if the tokens themselves perform poorly, participants can still earn other platform rewards through a points system. This “bottom support” mechanism greatly reduces the psychological threshold for capital migration.

More notably, the prominent feature of this round of market activity is “Chinese dominance.” Unlike previous narratives led by Western communities like Doge or Pepe, meme tokens on BSC are, for the first time, clearly tilted towards Eastern communities. This is not only because Binance’s founding team has Chinese roots but also because, in the context of liquidity exhaustion, Chinese communities have demonstrated stronger organizational mobilization and cultural identity.

02 CZ and He Yi’s Meme-Making Power

In the meme coin market, attention equals liquidity.

In the BSC ecosystem, the social media activity of CZ (Zhao Changpeng) and He Yi has become a “weather vane” for the market. Every emoji, every reply from them is instantly 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. The story started with He Yi jokingly posting on social media, “Enjoy your Binance life.” The community quickly interpreted it as “Binance Life vs Other Life,” and a token of the same name was born. Soon after, OKX founder Star and Base founder Jess reposted, elevating the narrative to a “industry-wide meme.”

This is not just a joke but also 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 to choose” has long been more than just a tool choice; it is a declaration of identity.

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

Although CZ has stepped down as CEO, his status 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: “Truly successful meme coins need to have a historical story and cultural reference.”

This statement is highly instructive. It directly negates projects that lack cultural core and rely solely on hype, and affirms memes that can carry broad cultural consensus and evoke collective emotional resonance—whether through rags-to-riches narratives, identity recognition, or subcultural symbols.

03 Token Listing Expectations: Imagination Space for BSC Meme

But just the founder shouting about listing is not enough to sustain a sector’s continuous rise.

The reason BSC meme tokens have room for imagination is primarily due to a clear token listing pathway: Binance Alpha → Binance Contracts → Binance Spot.

What does this pathway mean?

For on-chain native tokens, being listed on Binance Alpha is already the first step to official recognition; if they perform well, they can be listed on Binance Contracts, gaining greater liquidity and trading depth; ultimately, the goal is to land on Binance Spot—almost earning a “graduation certificate” from mainstream exchanges.

This clear upward channel provides continuous price expectations for BSC meme tokens.

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 phase. On-chain data shows that many tokens experience sharp turnover after the Binance Alpha listing news, indicating substantial funds are pre-placed ahead of the announcement.

The brilliance of this mechanism lies in breaking 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 opportunities; for retail investors, it means “there’s always a next positive event to look forward to.”

Investors’ logic is simple: as long as there is an expectation of listing, someone is willing to buy in.

In contrast, meme tokens on Solana lack such a clear “exit pathway,” relying more on community-driven dissemination and short-term emotional hype, resulting in very short lifecycles.

04 Cultural Passwords of Chinese Meme

Of course, not all BSC meme tokens succeed.

Looking at this round of market activity, tokens with real vitality often have some cultural core supporting them. Take “Binance Life” as an example; its ability to stand out is precisely because it hits the collective psychology of the Chinese 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 passwords of this round of Chinese memes can be summarized into several dimensions:

Identity Recognition: Binding the holding of a token to a specific identity, forming a “We vs Them” group division. Holding equals taking a side, taking a side equals belonging.

Emotional Catharsis: Carrying the collective emotions of crypto traders after market fluctuations—whether the urgency after missing out, the joy of getting rich quickly, or self-deprecating humor after being trapped.

Subcultural Breakout: Using external traffic such as anime, cute pets, and internet memes to enable meme coins to reach audiences outside the crypto circle, gaining broader dissemination.

The common point of these tokens is that they are not just code or symbols but carry some form of cultural consensus or emotional projection. As CZ said, truly successful memes 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 personal influence of He Yi and CZ. Once they reduce interaction or regulatory pressure forces silence, the value support for these tokens will collapse instantly.

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

Third is liquidity fragility. Although BSC meme tokens attracted a large amount of funds in the short term, most of these are speculative and lack long-term holding intentions. 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 avoid crossing the red lines of global regulators while promoting the meme craze. If Chinese meme tokens are classified as unregistered securities issued through 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-financialization” experiment jointly built by exchange infrastructure empowerment, elite narrative guidance, and grassroots cultural resonance. In this cyber casino composed of algorithms, points, and Twitter, the real winners are always those who build the stage and those who hear the music earliest.

Most latecomers chasing hot topics may ultimately only experience an expensive “life K-line.”

After all, in the crypto world, meme prices are highly uncertain, but platform commissions are certain.