National Day Meme Coin Roller Coaster: 100,000 people $600 million Get Liquidated, the ultimate gamble of emotional capital

During the National Day holiday, you are looking at the crowd in the scenic area, while the players in the encryption circle are watching their account numbers plummet.

A few days before the festival, several wild Meme coins emerged in the ecosystem of a leading exchange — their names sound like jokes, and their price increases look like bugs. Meme4, PALU, and another thing called “Some Exchange Life” saw their market value multiply several times in just a few days. Those who invested heavily early on easily made over a million dollars in paper profits, and the big influencers on Twitter collectively went wild, with the comments section filled with the four characters “Wealth Code.”

Then? Starting from October 9th, these coins began to perform free fall.

Some plummeted by 95% in a single day, with over 100,000 traders being liquidated, totaling $621 million—this amount is enough to buy a building in a third-tier city. The myth of overnight wealth quickly turned into a lament of retail investors, with the community instantly changing from “Charge! Charge! Charge!” to “Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!” at a speed as fast as changing faces.

I am too familiar with this play.

Have you heard about the GameStop incident in 2021? Retail investors on Reddit banded together to take down short-selling institutions, driving the stock price of the struggling game store to the sky, leaving Wall Street questioning their existence. The chairman of the SEC in the United States said at the time that this was a “milestone in behavioral finance”—the prices may be absurd, but as long as the trading is real and the information is transparent, then it counts as “part of the market.”

Americans have a logic when it comes to finance: bubbles will come when they should, because bubbles can spur new gameplay. If the meme coin craze happened on Nasdaq, Wall Street would have already packaged a “social sentiment ETF,” turning Twitter buzz into an investment factor; The Wall Street Journal would hold special discussions on “the victory of retail capitalism”; the SEC might take a long time to conclude – this is not fraud, but a “collective financial response” facilitated by algorithms through group sentiment.

What about switching to the A-shares? Regulatory warnings about risks, media calls for rationality, and the event characterized as “speculative fluctuations” ultimately become a case for investor education. Two markets, two ways of living.

Meme coins exist under the third set of rules.

The magic of the encryption market lies in the fact that it is not governed by anyone.

Not bound by the SEC and not under the regulation of the CSRC. This is a no man's land, a gray financial experiment formed by self-organizing code, liquidity, and narratives. The American-style social speculation mechanism ( information diffusion + collective momentum ) and the grassroots wealth psychology of the Chinese community ( grassroots resonance + community participation ) converge here, turning exchanges from neutral platforms into narrative creators, KOLs from bystanders into price amplifiers, while retail investors indulge in a cycle of algorithms and consensus, also consuming themselves.

The most absurd thing is: the price is no longer determined by cash flow, but by the speed of narrative and the density of consensus.

This is a new species - “emotional capital”. No financial statements, only meme images; no fundamentals, only consensus curves; not pursuing rational returns, only chasing emotional spikes. The token price is just a game of passing the buck, and whoever takes the last stick is the one who suffers.

Data does not deceive, emotions do.

In the first nine months before 2025, 90% of the top Meme coins' market value collapsed; in Q2, 65% of new tokens evaporated over 90% of their value within six months. This is the gold rush of the digital age—most prospectors lose everything, and only those selling shovels profit effortlessly.

But the core of the problem is this: when currencies start telling stories, the underlying logic of global finance is being rewritten.

In traditional markets, prices reflect value; in the encryption market, prices create value. This is both the ultimate form of decentralization and possibly the abyss of deregulatory responsibility. When narratives replace cash flow and emotions become assets, each of us is a little mouse in this experiment, with some holding the experiment report and others serving as the control group.

Stay alert, don't get carried away

The Web3 industry is at a crossroads. Should we continue to indulge in the short-term frenzy of “emotional capitalism,” or should we move towards the long-term construction of a “value-driven ecology?”

What is truly useful should be: strengthening community governance, introducing a transparent regulatory framework, and establishing an investor education mechanism. Decentralized technology should empower global financial fairness, rather than becoming an ATM for a few.

The next time you see a big influencer frantically promoting “100x coins”, ask yourself a question first: Am I participating in financial innovation, or am I paying for someone else's financial freedom?

When currency starts telling a story, what you need most is not the FOMO( of missing out), but the ability to think calmly. After all, the numbers in the account can lie, but the liquidation notice will not.