Special Column Author: BlockBeats

Core Thesis: This week's on-chain momentum was driven by the return of crypto KOL Ansem. The "celebrity coin" $ANSEM he launched surged sharply in the short term, shifting the narrative from opposing Pump.fun's airdrop to celebrities claiming tokens. The momentum eventually rotated from the Solana chain to the BSC chain.

Key Elements:

a. $ANSEM surged 600x from its low within 24 hours, reaching a market cap of over $100 million, marking the starting point of this cycle.

b. Leveraging his influence, Ansem attracted on-chain players through hints of an airdrop and a "soft claim." His goal was to promote his co-founded trading terminal, Bullpen.

c. The "celebrity coin" narrative involves sending tokens to crypto celebrities, waiting for them to publicly claim them. $ANSEM is the core representative of this model.

d. $TJR crashed after the KOL with the same name called for a return to $ANSEM during a livestream, preventing excessive capital diversion and solidifying $ANSEM's leading position.

e. Speculators monitored Ansem's wallet address to trade on his moves. For example, $manlet quickly surged to a $25 million market cap after being exposed.

f. Momentum shifted from Solana to BSC. $CZ was hyped after an old tweet from founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) from 2021 was rediscovered, reaching a market cap of $90 million.

g. On BSC, $TCC was seen as the "BSC version of $ANSEM" due to frequent interactions between CZ and the KOL. Meanwhile, the unclaimed $dingaling also experienced brief FOMO.

The past week may have been the most eventful one on-chain. And it all started with $ANSEM, which hit a $100 million market cap in 24 hours and achieved a staggering 600x gain within a single day.

Ansem's Return: The Beginning of On-Chain Activity

On June 9th, crypto KOL Ansem claimed he was returning to buy Solana meme coins for the first time in over a year. Recently, he repeatedly mentioned the Pump.fun airdrop, interacting with Pump.fun's tweets to suggest they issue the airdrop now, and even publicly discussed it on the Market Bubble podcast:

"If you were running Pump.fun today, what would you do first?" Ansem: "Airdrop."

Since June 21st, he has been constantly promoting the concept of "RTM (Return to Meme)."

At that time, no one anticipated the start of this trend, let alone that it would begin in the form of a "celebrity coin" like $ANSEM. Initially, Ansem's popularity was mainly due to his role as a "meme justice warrior," leading the charge in suggesting an airdrop from Pump.fun while the meme market was in a prolonged slump, believing it could revitalize market liquidity.

It wasn't until Ansem stated on X that if users retweeted his posts, followed him on Pump.fun, and left links to their Pump.fun profiles in the comments, he would randomly select lucky winners each week to airdrop a portion of his creator revenue. This "soft claim" ignited emotions among on-chain players.

At the time, many on-chain players felt it was reminiscent of when OpenSea took too long to issue a token, leading to OpenDAO ($SOS) airdropping tokens to NFT players. In both cases, KOLs led the charge, capitalizing on players' long-standing frustrations.

However, our prediction was that "it's hard to say whether Ansem truly returned to the trenches as a pure meme hero. Because Ansem is no longer just a legendary meme coin player or crypto KOL. One of his current identities is co-founder of the trading terminal Bullpen."

This prediction proved correct, judging by Ansem's later creation of a $ANSEM claim page on Bullpen. When he stepped forward to claim the token, he may have already planned for it to serve as the best advertisement for his trading platform.

Rapid Narrative Shifts Within a Week

Once $ANSEM broke through a $100 million market cap, the narrative quickly shifted from opposing Pump.fun and issuing airdrops to "celebrity coins."

Here, "celebrity coins" refer to tokens (with 60% or more of the supply, using the crypto KOL's ticker) sent to the public addresses of celebrities, waiting for them to tweet a claim. Shortly after $ANSEM hit a $100 million market cap, $TJR emerged with a market cap close to $30 million and was seen as the second-place contender.

However, TJR ended all possibilities for this runner-up during a livestream that same night. He stated that splitting attention was a bad idea, urging everyone to refocus on $ANSEM and push its market cap to $1 billion.

This caused $TJR to slump, but it also prevented further capital diversion, bringing attention and funds back to $ANSEM.

After this incident, the hype around "celebrity coin" new listings cooled temporarily, with attention turning to specific projects that Ansem favored. Projects like the U.S. stablecoin project Nest and the Solana-based game Kintara saw gains during this phase.

Next, everyone focused on Ansem's public address. $manlet appeared in a tweet where Ansem showed his wallet. After the tweet, it rapidly surged from a $3 million market cap to over $13 million, eventually breaking through $25 million that same night.

Overall, after $TJR, there was no clear trend on Solana. $ANSEM didn't generate significant liquidity spillover into other narratives. In theory, copying Ansem's holdings (like $manlet) should have been quickly picked up by the market, but his earlier tweets hadn't sparked much hype:

Since the relay of new projects on Solana was weak, it was BSC's turn to step in.

Momentum Shifts to BSC

At 5 AM yesterday, a tweet from CZ from 2021 was rediscovered. The tweet matched the "big black bull" imagery associated with $ANSEM, with CZ saying five years ago, "Everyone knows I'm a bull, but you've never seen my final form."

Thus, $CZ suddenly surged, gaining nearly 200x in an hour. Although everyone knew CZ wouldn't personally get involved like Ansem, tweeting daily and issuing airdrops, the coin still rose. It ultimately held up against a namesake rival token and a rapid pullback after the surge (from about $40 million market cap to under $6 million in just an hour), eventually approaching a $90 million market cap.

The token that more closely resembles $ANSEM on BSC is $TCC, because tokens were sent to @TCryptochicks, who actively promoted it on X. It caught attention due to CZ's frequent interactions with them on X, giving the impression that "this is CZ's endorsed BSC Ansem":

The trend of "staking out celebrities" is also playing out on BSC. This morning, $dingaling, without being claimed, was FOMO'd to a $5 million market cap before rapidly falling to under $300,000.

Currently, sentiment on BSC is stronger than on Solana, especially for primary market players. BSC moves faster but currently offers more opportunities than Solana. It's hard to say how the two chains will develop from here, but hopefully, a new narrative capable of carrying the "celebrity coin" trend will emerge.