LBank Pulse Focus Exclusive Interview: “New Meme Godfather” Murad Reveals the Future of Memecoin Super Cycle in 2025

Every era needs its own spiritual leader, and the same is true in the meme field.

If Musk, the world’s richest man, who promoted Dogecoin in the last round is an old-school meme preacher, then Murad is a new generation of super fomo who advocates cult culture.

From a few Meme coin projects in 2017, they have grown to tens of millions by 2024, and gradually formed a huge market. At the same time, the market capitalization of many meme coins has exceeded billions of dollars, becoming an important part of the crypto market.

Murad Mahmudov , as a witness and analyst of this trend, proposed the concept of “Meme Coin Super Cycle”. In his view, Meme currency is not just a pure speculation tool, but the most powerful user popularization engine in the encryption world. He provided an in-depth analysis of the key factors for the success of Meme coins and elaborated on how to promote the growth of these projects through social media and community power.

In this "LBank Pulse Focus" column, we are honored to invite Murad, a leader in the field of Meme coins, to share his profound insights on the future of Meme coins, especially his outlook on the encryption trend in 2025 and beyond.

His sharing will help us deeply understand how the rise of Meme coins promotes the global popularity of cryptocurrency and leads the future development of the market.

LBank: Can you share with us your career experience? What was it like to go from studying at Princeton University, to working at Goldman Sachs, to becoming a well-known figure in the cryptocurrency space?

Murad: I am from Azerbaijan. I studied in the United States and then in Beijing for a year. While in Beijing, I met the fourth employee of OKX, who introduced me to the cryptocurrency field. After graduation, I entered the traditional financial industry and engaged in options trading in Hong Kong and commodity trading in Singapore. In 2016-2017, I began to participate in ICO, cryptocurrency and blockchain-related work, and realized that Bitcoin could become the next revolutionary wave. Since then, I have devoted myself wholeheartedly to this field, including trading, investment, on-chain analysis, asset management, and now developing in the field of DeFi. In addition, I personally also actively participate in Meme coin-related projects.

LBank: You have a lot of insights into the current and 2025 “Meme Coin Super Cycle”. Can you tell us in detail?

Murad: The origin of Meme coins can be traced back to Dogecoin in 2013. In each subsequent cycle, the size of Meme coins continues to expand. There was only Dogecoin in 2017, there were 5,000 Meme coins in 2021, and by 2024, the number of Meme coins has reached tens of millions. I believe that this trend will continue until Bitcoin becomes the universal currency around the world.

Looking beyond cryptocurrencies, ongoing inflation and global money supply pressures are the main drivers. This pressure drives people to constantly compete, outperform their opponents, and keep moving forward.

At the same time, artificial intelligence is replacing many people 's jobs, and competition in various industries is becoming increasingly fierce. There is also an awareness that traditional communities and institutions in the real world are losing influence and meaning. All of these factors combine to drive people toward cryptocurrencies, meme coins, and crypto communities.

From within the industry, from 2015 to 2017, people could still buy high-quality projects such as ETH and BNB, which had a market value of only US$30 million at the time. Now, once some projects are launched, their transaction market value reaches as high as 30 billion US dollars. Successful encryption projects in the past had very strong core community support. The key to the formation of a core community is that ordinary people can participate early at a lower price and gain wealth as a result.

The core concept of my strategy is: 10,000 people each holding $1,000 is far better than 1 person holding $10 million, or 10 million people holding only $1 each. The greater the proportion of such holders in a community, the more media attention, excitement and influence it will bring. This is the key to promoting the development of Meme coins.

LBank: What qualities do you think a successful Meme coin needs to have?

Murad: The most critical concept is "critical mass" - that is, the community has the conditions for explosive spread. For example, it has 100,000 currency holders, a market value of US$500 million, and has begun to be gradually listed on major exchanges. In my opinion, Meme coins with large market capitalization will usually rise steadily and have less downside risk; while Meme coins with small market capitalization have higher risks, and the probability of success may be less than 1%. In contrast, mid-cap meme coins offer the best risk-to-reward ratio, especially those with strong and growing communities, such as SPX 6900, GIGA, MOG, POPCAT, APU, and HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu.

LBank: How important is community engagement to the success of Meme coins? Are there any specific strategies?

Murad: Community activity is crucial, and indicators to measure community health can be analyzed from two dimensions: the supply side and the demand side.

On the supply side, I focus on several key factors: first, the proportion of “diamond hands” (the proportion of long-term holders), and second, the degree of decentralization, fairness of the distribution of currency holdings, and early performance. I would like to see a higher percentage of holders holding tokens above $1,000 or even $3,000, as they are the "core force" most motivated to drive the project. From the perspective of on-chain behavior, I would prefer these currency holders to be more determined rather than engage in frequent speculative transactions.

On the demand side, price is a key factor, and rising prices indicate that the community is actively attracting new members. At the same time, you also need to pay attention to distribution channels, cross-chain bridges, partnerships, and exchange launches.

Finally, the influence of social media cannot be ignored, especially X and TikTok. In fact, the role of YouTube, Reddit and Facebook is gradually increasing. A successful Meme coin must have extensive exposure on these platforms and continue to expand its influence through these platforms. Meme coins that perform well usually invest a lot of effort in this area and achieve significant results.

LBank: How do you think crypto trends will evolve in 2025 and beyond?

Murad: I think we need to distinguish between long-term storage trends and short-term hot trends, especially those "meme cultures" with lasting vitality. For example, memes like Doge, Pepe or GIGA have existed on the Internet for many years. At the same time, there are also some hot spots that will only be short-lived. Taking TikTok as an example, the key is to determine whether a meme will survive for many years or simply disappear in just a few months.

My overall point is that the crazier and more inspiring memes are, the better. Because the stronger the inspiration, the more money, time, energy and labor invested by community members will be. I believe that crypto trends in 2025 will be different from those in 2024, but still full of opportunities.

LBank: Do you think Meme coins will drive the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies?

Murad: The core of crypto assets will be Bitcoin (BTC) as the primary store of value, with other Layer 1 projects, such as Ethereum and Solana, playing a relatively small role. Stablecoins are expected to continue to exist for the next 20-30 years.

Before the rise of Meme coins, the positioning of altcoins had always been vague. The rise of Meme coins has divided crypto assets into two categories: one is tokens with cash flow, gradually evolving into "stocks" on the chain; the other is based on crypto culture, community, speculation and belief. of tokenized assets.

LBank: Do you personally think Meme Coin can promote the popularity of cryptocurrency around the world?

Murad: In this cycle, Meme coins will become the biggest driving force for the popularity of cryptocurrency. Many people are first introduced to cryptocurrencies through Phantom, Metamask or exchanges, and Meme Coin appeals to people of all ages and cultural backgrounds due to its simplicity and accessibility - no white papers, complicated technology or cumbersome re-staking concepts. It has become the best entrance to the crypto world with its universality.

Users will then gradually come into contact with core assets such as wallets, DeFi exchanges, cross-chain bridges, stablecoins, and BTC. Meme coins serve as entry points to attract users into the crypto industry, and these further explorations will encourage them to stay in the ecosystem for the long term.

LBank: Looking forward to the next five years, do you think Meme coins will still exist?

Murad: Dogecoin and other meme coins have proven that meme coins can go through multiple cycles and persist. They keep hitting new highs. I do think Dogecoin will rise to $1 during this cycle and hit new all-time highs again. In addition, some Meme coins will launch ETFs in the future.

LBank: Do meme coins need real-world utility to survive in a bear market, or can they remain purely speculative?

Murad: In a bear market, practicality is a positive factor; but in a bull market, practicality may become a constraint. In a bull market, purity will make Meme coins perform better; in a bear market, utility can provide support for the price, but it will also limit the upside. Projects like Shiba Inu and Floki have proven this by adding utility in bear markets. In the future, Meme coins will add DeFi functions, develop into DAO investments, and even create fashion and lifestyle brands.