The "Elvis War" in the Meme Community: Copyright Disputes, Anti-VC Trends

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BlockBeats2024/05/09 10:45

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Original title: "IP dispute, resistance to VC, "Elvis Contest" appears within the Catcoin community"

Original author: Weilin, PANews

After the last round of Catcoin replacing Dogecoin to the forefront of the market, the Meme coin market has recently staged a "Elvis Contest". First, POPCAT and Shark Cat (Shark Cat, token SC) were once FUDed by Catcoin users because of the IP copyright issue of the Logo, but later, with the help of lawyers, the Shark Cat team obtained the copyright from the cat owner, causing the Shark Cat (SC) coin price to rebound. At present, POPCAT has not solved the relevant problems, which has also prompted some users to transfer their holdings to SC.

At the same time, the recent anti-VC trend has also affected the cat-themed token, a MEME sub-segment. In this regard, users are using their own ways to support the community-based meme cat coins. Some users believe that POPCAT, MICHI, and Shark Cat represent community meme coins, while similar projects such as MEW and MANEKI are suspected of being supported by VCs, and cat-based Memecoins are clearly experiencing internal strife.

From the current market value ranking, POPCAT is firmly in the top spot with more than 45,000 holders, demonstrating a strong community force. And MICHI has seen rapid growth in market value since its deployment on April 8, which is also eye-catching.

POPCAT and SC were accidentally FUDed due to copyright

POPCAT is currently the cat coin with the highest market value. As of May 9, according to Coingecko data, POPCAT's market value exceeded US$440 million. It fell from $356 million to $120 million in market cap between late March and mid-April, but has risen by about $480 million since mid-April.

Shark Cat is also one of the best performing and mature cat-themed meme coins currently. The most recent notable growth came on the evening of May 1st, when SC rose from $0.045 to $0.1245 on the evening of May 2nd, a 176.7% increase.

Shark Cat's growth is mainly due to the Shark Cat team locking down the use of their logo. There has been a lot of FUD and drama around this issue recently, with Shark Cat's owner (real name Nala) demanding payment from Shark Cat for the IP and wanting to control the use of her cat's image.

Soon after, the team resolved the FUD problem by acquiring Nala’s intellectual property. This also means that Shark Cat may show greater growth potential and may go further.

At the same time, POPCAT also encountered FUD because it had no IP copyright. The owner of the cat from which this meme originated even expressed opposition to cryptocurrency.

Popcat’s owner Xavier said on the X platform: "My cat is my cat and I am absolutely against cryptocurrency."

But there are also users who expressed their support for POPCAT as always: "It is obvious that these people are from other cat communities and want to rotate."

POPCAT’s popularity did not decrease due to FUD. From April 21 to April 27, Google Trends showed that the interest index of the topic Popcat reached a new high, exceeding the historical peak.

However, some users chose to transfer assets from POPCAT to SC during the copyright storm. One user said: "$POPCAT was fud. The same IP problem as $SC, it is said that MewsWorld (MEW) fud, but it's a pity that the money eventually went to $SC. $SC is the only meme that has solved the IP problem of physical cats, so I moved part of $POPCAT's position to $SC."

The anti-VC wind blows towards cat coins. Has the world suffered from VC for a long time?

In the meme coin market, Eddy Lazzarin, CTO of venture capital firm A16Z, recently caused controversy on Twitter with a discussion post about the value of Meme coin. Eddy said: "Memecoin has changed the public, regulators, and entrepreneurs' views on cryptocurrency. At best, it looks like a risky casino, or a series of false promises to cover up the casino. This has a profound impact on the adoption of encryption technology, laws and regulations, and the behavior of builders. I see these damages every day."

Many users in the community immediately expressed their opposition, saying "Meme is our chance to flip big institutions. I like memes. Although most memes will cost me money, I only need to catch one to greatly improve my life. But if I invest in projects invested by large institutions, I will have to wait for several days to get a meager return."

This discussion also affects the niche field of cat coins. In the dispute with VC cats, it seems that pure community Meme has achieved a phased victory.

User @free_electron0 said: "Every time you tweet $POPCAT now you will get a bunch of robots replying with the same FUD message and telling you to buy maneki or mew. Imagine being so scared of a coin that you have to use such a lazy strategy. VCs are in trouble and Degens win again."

Through the discussion on Twitter, it can be seen that users believe that POPCAT, MICHI, Shark Cat, etc. are considered to be community meme coins, while MEW and MANEKI are opposed by many users, who believe that they represent the participation of VCs, who hold a large number of token shares behind them. Although the current level of VC participation in meme coins is not easy to verify, it is clear that the battle for cat coins is continuing to add heat to this sector and constantly affecting their respective ranking rotations.

As of May 7, the top three tokens with the largest market cap gains in the past two weeks based on trading pairs with SOL are Michi (+547%), SC (+216%), and POPCAT (+81%). The top five tokens by percentage increase in wallets in the past two weeks are Michi (+97%), POPCAT (+21%), and SC (+7%).

Among them, MICHI has performed well, with a market cap increase from $3 million to $110 million on May 8 since its deployment on April 8. As of press time, Popcat also has a staggering 45,000 token holders, and this number continues to grow.

As of the morning of May 9, the price of cat-themed meme coins as a whole has retreated. According to CoinGecko data, the top 10 cat coins by market value are POPCAT ($442 million), MEW ($318 million), MOG ($177 million), WEN ($125 million), TOSHI ($120 million), MANEKI ($54.16 million), MEOW ($35.51 million), CAT ($34.6 million), $CWIF ($28.13 million) and PAJAMAS CAT ($21.09 million).

As of 9:00 am on May 9, on the homepage of Dexscreener, many of the popular tokens within 6 hours were also cat-themed tokens or cat-related tokens, such as CATGPT, CRODIE, PUSS, CATZILLA, etc.

From IP disputes to resistance to VC coins, the narrative in the cat coin community has obviously entered the next stage. At the moment when the "Elvis Contest" is in full swing, which targets will users choose and what exciting stories will continue to unfold, we will wait and see.