In the dynamic world of crypto, memecoins have carved out a niche that’s both fascinating and, at times, wildly lucrative. These digital assets, often inspired by internet culture and jokes, can skyrocket in value overnight, turning them into a goldmine for early investors. However, catching these opportunities requires timing, insight, and a bit of luck—or does it?
In this article, we'll go through strategies for discovering new memecoins early, using onchain analysis to gain deeper insights into these memecoins, and securing a competitive advantage over other traders.
How to Find Memecoins Early
The key to capitalizing on the meme coin phenomenon is to get in early before the rest of the world catches on. Early detection can mean the difference between a modest gain and a windfall. Here are the top 3 ways to discover meme coins early:
Crypto Twitter
Twitter (X) serves as the epicenter of the crypto universe. It's the platform where protocols announce updates, leading thinkers share insights, influencers promote, and enthusiasts engage. For those familiar with the scene, it's evident that unlike other industries—where news outlets typically break stories—crypto journalism frequently draws from tweets, making Twitter the primary source for breaking news in the crypto world. Following the right people and reading the right conversations can be the difference between being early to the next 100x opportunity or being exit liquidity.
At the start it can be daunting to curate your own lists of accounts and you’re not sure how to get started. I’ve curated this list of accounts that I follow which serves as a starting point. Over time, you’ll come across other accounts that are relevant for you and you’ll be able to build out your own alpha list.
Pro tip: One way to find accounts to follow if you’re new is by searching for lists curated by others. People often share lists of high quality accounts that they’ve stumbled upon and searching on Twitter is an easy way to find those threads.
CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap & Dex Screener
You’re likely already familiar with CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap, the most visited websites for checking token prices. Beyond price checks, both sites categorize the tokens they track and feature their own individual memecoin category pages—CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap. These pages offer a quick overview of memecoins and their performance over various timeframes. Additionally, they list new tokens relatively quickly, enabling you to view them soon after they go live.
Despite their speed, there’s still a delay between when a token is launched and when it gets tracked on those sites. For those looking to jump in right as the token goes live, Dex Screener is the tool for you. It tracks tokens as soon as they go live, across multiple chains and offers various data points such as a live transactions feed of DEX trades.
Onchain Activity
New tokens, especially memecoins, are typically found only on DEXs until they grow to a much larger market cap and gain traction. If you’re reading this, your goal is to be early, and getting in before these tokens are listed on a CEX is crucial. As the majority of their activity occurs on DEXs, every trade and transfer is fully visible, highlighting the immense value of onchain analytics tools.
Token Screener on Nansen
Token Screener provides a high-level overview of key onchain metrics for all tokens on Ethereum, enabling you to quickly identify tokens that have attracted the interest of Smart Money traders. It features metrics such as token flows to exchanges and wallets, the number of Smart Money holders, and transaction counts—all in a single view. You can filter tokens by the number of days since launch, select the sectors they belong to, and set limits on specific data points within each tab to further hone in on tokens that you care about.
Hot contracts
Hot Contracts identifies and highlights the contracts that Smart Money has interacted with the most in the last 24 hours. With the daily emergence of countless memecoins, it's crucial to filter out the noise and focus on those that matter to Smart Money.
When a memecoin shows potential to become the next Doge, SHIB, or WIF, Smart Money wallets are often among the first to invest. This activity causes the trading pair contract of the token to be featured under Hot Contracts.
Currently, the Hot Contracts widget can only be found on the homepage of Nansen 1. However, you’re able to set up Smart Alerts for Hot Contracts in Nansen 2. Smart Alerts are personalized alerts on onchain activity that you can configure based on your own parameters. When an relevant activity occurs, an alert is sent to your Telegram/Discord/Slack, notifying you of it.
Tracking Whales and Smart Money Addresses
Another effective way to stay on top of new memecoins is by actively monitoring smart money and whale wallets to observe their purchases. These investors are typically early to opportunities, ensuring you keep pace with the most relevant memecoins. To identify such wallets, navigate to Nansen’s Smart Money tab. There, you can view the top trades these wallets are engaging in, discover top-performing wallets, see what they’re holding, and even monitor their DEX trades live.
If you come across a wallet with a favorable profit/loss ratio that consistently makes savvy trades in memecoins, you can set up a Smart Alert. This way, whenever the tracked wallet executes a new transaction, you’ll be notified of the contract and the trade's value.
Here are two examples of Smart Money wallets that have made huge profits trading memecoins.
Wallet 1
This trader first bought DEGEN on 18 February and made a second purchase 2 weeks later, accumulating 127,546,188 DEGEN for just $189k. The trader has cashed out over $942k in profits while still holding $2.75m worth of DEGEN.
Wallet 2
Mechanism capital has bet big on memecoins, with TRUMP and ZYN as two of their largest holdings across wallets that we track. The fund holds over $2m worth of TRUMP and $560k worth of ZYN. Andrew Kang has been vocal and transparent about his thesis on Twitter - thread 1, thread 2.
If you’re keen on learning how to track Smart Money wallets, here are a few resources to get you started:
- Written guide: How to Find and Track Smart Money Wallets in Crypto
- Video Live Stream: What is Smart Money Doing? - Office Hours #109
How to evaluate the quality of the memecoin?
While investors often rely on analyzing roadmaps, utility, and the underlying technology of a new crypto protocol, this approach isn’t as applicable to memecoins. Instead, a more effective strategy is to examine key onchain metrics to understand the actions and sentiments of other traders and investors towards it.
Here are the key metrics to look at:
- Top Holders Concentration: While not a perfect rule, generally, the greater the number of holders a token has, the more stable its price will be, as the likelihood of a single large holder impacting the market by selling off their tokens is reduced. If you observe a cryptocurrency with a high percentage of its tokens held by a small number of wallets, it may indicate a higher risk.
- Quality of Holders: The caliber of token holders often mirrors the project's quality and their sentiment towards it. By analyzing and comparing the number of Smart Money holders and the volume of tokens those wallets hold, you can assess the level of optimism they have for the token.
- Who’s Buying/Selling: This provides a clear indication of the current sentiment towards a token. If the price is declining but you notice multiple large purchases and Smart Money is buying the dip, it could signal a good buying opportunity, and vice versa.
Simply hit CMD + K on Nansen and search for any token and start analyzing.
We wrote about these metrics and more in our guide: How to Analyze Cryptocurrencies Using On-chain Data
Conclusion
Investing in meme coins at the onset of their popularity can yield unprecedented returns, though timing is challenging. The market is saturated with digital currencies, and for every meme coin that skyrockets, many others fizzle out. However, by leveraging onchain analytics and analyzing key data points, you can better assess the potential of new memecoins as they launch.
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