Ten lessons from the trenches after creating a meme token!
If you don't have a thick skin, do not attempt it.
Back in November 2024, I created RAT Escape with $50 on pump dot fun as an experiment. Three weeks later, the token was at $16 million market cap.
That caught me by surprise.
I went all in and so did many of our members. It has been a wild ride since. Time to share 10 lessons from that experience below.
RAT Escape was created to begin your escape journey. We will not stop until the escape plan is completed. You can now buy RAT on eight exchanges besides Solana DEXs!
If you want to create a meme token, go to pump dot fun and play there. It costs like $50 to do it. As the “dev” you are also the first buyer and can choose how many tokens you want to buy before anyone else. This will have big consequences later if your meme catches on.
Why choose pump dot fun over other similar websites?
Because it is the biggest meme market in crypto. It is on Solana network and that’s where 99% of memes exist. Go where the money is and Solana is second to none.
That also means if your meme explodes it will have more users, demand, and money available than on other platforms.
Now for the lessons.
99% of meme tokens are scams or rugs
Only 1% of all memes graduate from pump dot fun to Raydium, the biggest decentralized exchange on Solana. If your sole purpose to create a meme is to scam or rug, you may want to think twice about that first.
To graduate, a meme has to reach over $100,000 market cap on pump dot fun, at least that was the criteria when RAT Escape graduated. Most fail to breach that threshold.
What do meme tokens in the top 1% have that the rest don't?
A real community
If a meme is to survive more than 24h from genesis it needs a community! This community can exist before genesis or can emerge after organically.
In my case, RAT Escape was born out of YCC, a real crypto community with 10k members and graduated to Raydium within 24h.
If you plan to launch a meme token and you don’t have a community to embrace it, then it will be hard. You’re down to luck mostly at that point. Going viral is possible, but with hundreds of new memes per hour, it’s hard to stand out.
Things go fast once you're in the top 1%
RAT went from $50 to $16 million market cap in three weeks. I did not expect it. Don’t think anyone did. It simply exploded and I mentioned it in Alpha Post #46 before it did a 200x. Talk about an asymmetric bet - this was it!
The timing to create RAT in November 2024 was just right as everything was pumping back then as well. The volatility was crazy as the chart below shows it.
However, this wild ride also exposed me to a side of crypto most don't see. I already explained part of that in this thread on X. More on that next.
As soon as RAT started pumping, the vultures came
That means hundreds of messages per day from every sector in crypto. Influencers, exchanges, agents, scammers, hackers, VCs, everyone will be in your inbox.
What are they after?
YOUR MONEY!
Worse yet. Anything related to your token will cost you:
You want to add your social links on DEX Screener? $300.
You want to be listed on Coin Market Cap? $5,000.
You want to be listed by a centralized exchange? 5k to 250k.
These are actual prices and they don’t even include all the scammers pretending to be legit. This space is highly extractive. Not just of retail, but also of any actual project, protocol, or team trying to build something like a meme token.
It won’t be easy to manage everything because when FOMO takes over, things can get wild pretty fast.
Since this was the first time I did something like this, it was a steep learning curve. I also made mistakes, including trusting the wrong people. More on that next.
If you don't pay attention during the FOMO, you will get rekt
I was hacked and drained of 50k by not paying attention. It's easy to drop one's guard during FOMO. I fell for a rather basic hack where I installed a wallet drainer. That’s what happens when your attention is divided by 100.
That little hacker app also hijacked my log in sessions across my devices. The hackers then used that to access my Discord server and shill scam links. Members that warned others about it got banned. Not pretty, especially because the hackers got active while I was asleep!
This confused members and some believed I was acting malicious when in fact the hackers played me. I managed to flush them out a few hours later when I realized what was happening. No passwords were compromised. I just had to log out of all my sessions, then do a full cleanse and reinstall across my devices.
Key takeaways:
Do not use any hot wallets! Drainers will empty them in seconds. Only use hardware wallets.
If you are about to install an app, don't! It's a scam since you will be targeted by hackers.
Try to slow down, because going too fast comes at a high price!
Expect and prepare for your first major crash!
Most memes don't survive their first bear market. RAT crashed 98% during the hacking incident (see the chart under #3), but then pumped 200x after I regained control.
The crash was due to members panicking, but nobody did more damage than the people I trusted the most. Originally we created a squad team to spearhead RAT Escape. This team included several whales with over 10% of the total token supply.
What did they do when panic started? They market sold with absolutely no consideration for others. They fueled the panic instead of trying to understand what was happening. Good thing we flushed these people and it’s behind us now.
People panic easily and those you trusted will turn against you as soon as the price drops. When money is involved people will betray you like they never met you. In this case, I had members that were with us for years, but turned into villains in seconds once the price crashed.
You will see the worst in people
The worst cases were members that turned greedy. It's quite fascinating to see. They are eager to help and contribute at first, and then they turn into mobsters trying to extort you.
When lots of money is involved, people lose themselves. I was hacked, scammed, extorted, you name it. People will do anything for money and lose their humanity in the process. Once they get a taste for it, they change, and most turn into their worst version of themselves.
While I understand some folks seeing their wallet do a 100x in one week was lifechanging, that does not excuse their behavior. Prepare for surprises and make sure you limit the attack vectors against you as people will use any leverage they have to get more money from you.
99.9% of altcoins are actually meme tokens
Look at XRP, it's the definition of a meme. It has been around since 2012 and still has no real use case. The difference between XRP and RAT is that RAT is honest about what it is.
Most altcoins are not.
If you take this approach further, you quickly realize most altcoins are just memes pretending to be something revolutionary. They are not. But the worst part is that they take money from retail and place them in the pockets of VCs. This is just another way to scam people, but legally.
Community driven memes like RAT can’t do that because there are no VCs or vested tokens. If anyone gets rich on such a meme, they are a person just like you and me. That has more value than giving your money to VC coins like XRP.
Memes offer you a real chance at getting rich, all things being equal
Altcoins backed by VCs don't.
VC coins are extractive and any retail buyer is at a disadvantage as soon as that coin hits any market. That’s because the VCs buy at ZERO. For them, selling at any price means they make a profit. XRP is a great example of that.
This is not the case for tokens launched on pump dot fun where the full supply is liquid from day one, there are no vested tokens or inflation that goes into someone’s pocket. It’s a fair launch and the best tokens graduate.
Why is it a fair launch?
Because the community owns the token at 100%!
At RAT Escape, our mission is to help you escape the rat race! We are 100% community-driven and we will not stop until our escape plan is completed.
The product is the token!
Most altcoins try to obfuscate that fact by complex language and use cases.
There is no use case!
The only use case is selling you their token.
Memes do not hide this fact. This is why the meme sector will continue to explode higher. People understand memes because they don’t hide behind fancy language that says nothing.
But not all memes are made the same. There are plenty of memes that are created by VCs as well. However, platforms like pump dot fun avoid a lot of the traps of VC coins like vesting, inflation, dilution, or infinite supply.
Due to this, RAT fundamentals are closer to Bitcoin as a 100% community token. On the other hand, Solana and XRP are a prime example of a VC coin. See the differences and then you will be able to quickly spot the alpha in the future.
This newsletter is made possible with the generous support of our Patrons and partners. Upgrade your experience by becoming a Patron for lifetime access to our exclusive private alpha! Details are available on our Patrons page.
All info is provided for educational purposes only and is not financial advice.