Review WIF: Another ten-thousand-fold coin on Solana, what is the wealth creation strategy of the "hat dog"?

Author: Luccy, BlockBeats

If you have been following the meme space, you will notice that a common symbol has recently appeared in various meme images—the beanie. This beanie originates from the meme coin WIF on the Solana chain, featuring a Shiba Inu wearing a pink beanie.

Currently, according to birdeye data, as of the time of writing, the price of WIF has reached $1.75. In addition to the price, WIF's market cap has also skyrocketed to $1 billion, making it the fastest meme coin in Solana's history to reach a $1 billion market cap. Riding the wave of this "beanie dog" craze, WIF's 24-hour trading volume surpassed USDT, and on March 3, it directly surpassed BONK with a total market cap of $1.7 billion.

In the fierce meme competition on Solana, why did WIF stand out? BlockBeats summarizes the existing information as follows.

No Community, No Narrative: WIF's Tenfold Journey

WIF can be described as a "ground-up" project; when it comes to what narrative WIF has, one can only think of the beanie on the Shiba Inu's head. In late December 2019, images of various logos and graphics added to beanies became popular as profile pictures on Twitter among esports organizations and celebrities.

In such a context, devoid of any additional storytelling, WIF achieved a tenfold increase in less than four months.

The issuance process of WIF was quiet; according to birdeye data, WIF opened at a price of $0.00016 on November 20 last year. However, the first tweet from its official Twitter account was posted on December 29, and it was merely a retweet rather than original content.

Looking at WIF's price curve, it began to rise in late December last year, coinciding with the period when the official Twitter account emerged.

It can be seen that WIF has been on an upward trend since its launch and has not experienced significant declines. However, at the end of last year, it was the meme season for Solana, with numerous hundredfold and thousandfold coins emerging, especially with "Dumb Dragon," led by Solana co-founder Anatoly, which saw increases of over ten thousand times. Therefore, this briefly stretched WIF did not receive much attention.

On January 11, a massive transaction involving WIF resulted in a loss of 77,247 SOL (approximately $7.7 million), as at that time, WIF only had $2.7 million in liquidity. This transaction caused WIF to spike to $3.99. Just a month later, WIF's liquidity has now surpassed $14 million.

This whale, who was "squeezed," used 86,738 SOL to buy 17.22 million WIF, which, at the current price of $1.75, is worth over $30 million, still in a high-profit state. Notably, from the whale's on-chain ID, it can be inferred that "WIF is going on Binance." A week after this transaction, Binance announced on January 18 that it would launch WIF's 1-50x USDT perpetual contract. Subsequently, the cryptocurrency trading platform Backpack also launched WIF spot trading on January 24.

Additionally, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has been optimistic about WIF. In the article "Arthur Hayes: Preparing to Buy the Dip After Bitcoin Falls Below $35,000," he stated, "Once Bitcoin falls below $35,000, I will start buying the dip and continue to buy Solana and WIF."

Besides various KOLs promoting it, the real turning point for WIF's tenfold journey was on March 1, when Robinhood announced the listing of WIF. In an instant, not only WIF believers but also other crypto enthusiasts turned their attention to WIF, and on-chain smart money immediately took out millions to accumulate WIF. According to Lookonchain monitoring, a newly created wallet withdrew 16,160 SOL (approximately $2.15 million) from Binance and purchased 2.43 million WIF at an average price of $0.8871.

As a result, WIF successfully broke through $1, and Coinbase rated it as the first dogecoin to surpass $1. Subsequently, on March 2, Arthur Hayes tweeted again, expressing bullish sentiment for WIF, believing it could rise above $2.

Like DOGE, Yet Like "Wash Trading"

Due to WIF's Shiba Inu image and its skyrocketing development trajectory after being listed on Robinhood, many people are reminded of DOGE.

DOGE has served as a guide for many retail investors entering the crypto space. During the 2019 "GameStop" and AMC stock battles, Robinhood and several U.S. brokerage firms successively announced the closure of positions for stocks like GME and AMC. After being unable to buy these stocks, retail investors and large amounts of capital began to target Dogecoin.

With the introduction of Dogecoin, retail investors created history on Robinhood, which ranked first on the U.S. App Store free charts. At that time, Dogecoin's price peaked at $0.0875, with an increase of up to 1014%.

Related reading: "A Daily Increase of Up to 10 Times, DOGE Coin Climbs to the Top of Weibo and Twitter"

Perhaps the mutual success of Robinhood and Dogecoin has made retail investors pay special attention to memes on the platform, thus driving up WIF. However, unlike DOGE, WIF's development trajectory shows signs of "wash trading."

BlockBeats has roughly reviewed WIF's official Twitter. As of now, the official account has not launched any incentive programs. Although the frequency of tweets is very high, the content is merely retweets of related topics and the posting of Shiba Inu meme images wearing different hats. Not only was the first tweet posted a month after the contract was launched, but the account was also created in April 2023, leaving two blank time windows that raise suspicions that this account is merely a secondary product.

If "casual operation" is a privilege exclusive to meme projects, then the deep spike on January 10 seems hard to explain. At that time, WIF's price was still hovering around the $0.1 range, a price that had already seen a thousandfold increase since its launch. Who can be 100% sure that WIF will rise another order of magnitude? Let alone risking millions to bet on a possibility, this is also an uncommon action in the crypto industry.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, WIF's price has been on an upward trend. The listing on Binance on January 18 and on Robinhood on March 1 indeed drove the price up, but prior to this, WIF had already begun to quietly rally.

On December 18 last year, according to Lookonchain monitoring, a trader invested in WIF, purchasing 19.86 million WIF at an average price of $0.01137, making a profit of $1.47 million in just five days. Subsequently, WIF continued to rally until February 27, when, amid a general surge in meme tokens, WIF's 24-hour increase reached 62.0%.

However, for memes, when the sentiment rises, not doing excessive research and just participating is also a choice. But the fact that this project, which saw a price increase before establishing a community, has skyrocketed still raises many doubts. BlockBeats reminds readers to invest cautiously and be aware of risk identification.