According to BroadChain, at 21:16 on April 22, after Elon Musk briefly replied to a post about the space commemorative doll Asteroid on the X platform, the Ethereum-based Meme token $ASTEROID, which had been dormant for nearly 19 months, surged over 1000% within 6 hours. A case of an early participant exchanging 1 ETH for $470,000 within 3 hours spread widely on social media, quickly igniting market sentiment. Driven by this, the Ethereum mainnet Gas fee soared from 0.052 Gwei to around 0.6 Gwei, an increase of over tenfold. The number of Uniswap V2 trading pairs surged, and the trading volume of the Meme sector temporarily surpassed that of mainstream DeFi protocols.
In this wave of frenzy, the mascot concept with a "real-world anchor" has become one of the core narratives. $ASTEROID gained attention due to its association with a real space mission commemorative item. Subsequently, a batch of tokens capitalizing on official images emerged, such as $RISE, which claims to be the "official NASA mascot," with a market cap exceeding $900,000. $CLUTCH, which capitalized on the 2026 FIFA World Cup U.S. team mascot, saw a 24-hour increase of over 43,000% at one point. Additionally, the hedgehog image Rizo, used multiple times by Musk himself in Tesla-related materials, also spawned $RIZO, with a market cap nearing $200,000.
Derivative narratives of classic internet IPs also performed strongly. $MYSTERY, derived from an early character by Pepe frog creator Matt Furie, adopted the slogan "the second chance after missing PEPE" and has a market cap approaching $1.9 million. $FLORK, derived from the webcomic "Flork of Cows," surged nearly 6000% within 6 hours, with a market cap nearing $10 million, and spurred derivative tokens like $FLORKY and $BABYFLORK. Political-themed Memes, such as $MAGA (Make Aliens Great Again), which grafts onto the alien narrative, and $BRITAIN, derived from a British political slogan, rely on identity recognition within specific circles to build stable communities.
Observers point out that, unlike the short-lived and highly speculative Memes on Solana, Meme projects on Ethereum tend to focus on building sustained narrative density. Currently, with the Ethereum mainnet's Gas fee threshold lowered after the implementation of EIP-4844, but with Layer2 diverting traffic, mainnet flow has become scarce. Once a high-heat narrative emerges, the capital concentration effect becomes more pronounced. Although most projects may eventually disappear, the narrative construction logic and community-driven models they demonstrate have become important observation samples in the current market phase.