Background

Memeland is a project by 9GAG, a Hong Kong-based company most known for its app launched in 2008 for sharing memes. The company has 40 million registered users, around 4.6 million daily users, 58 million followers on Instagram, and 17 million on Twitter.

 

The "face" of the project is 9GAG's CEO, Ray Chan (@9gagceo). Ray was already known in the space before the Memeland launch, mainly because of his investments in blue-chip and OG projects such as BAYC, MAYC, Moonbirds, Kaiju Kings, CloneX, and Kongz but as well for classic degen plays. His web3 attitude encourages holding different collections and supporting each other. He pledges not to attack other projects and to build together instead.

 

Since Memeland's launch, Ray has mostly stopped investing in other projects, focusing on Memeland. However, the official Memeland Wallet continues to buy other projects' items, such as 9 BAYC (All with Captain or Sailor hats) and The Devil Azuki #606. It was announced that the Rewards from the Staked apes will be raffled off weekly to the community. It is assumed that these prucheses are for IP purposes as well.

 

Memeland has set up 69 ETH Validators with 2208 ETH, but there is no information on how the profits will be used yet.

 

Memeland Collections

Memeland currently has three collections, each with its unique features and community involvement:

 

1. You Are the Real MVP

• The OG collection, with 420 items
• Floor price at the time of writing: 67.9 ETH
• MVP was a blind  auction and the mint was a "send 5.3 ETH to this address" tweet
• 9GAG still holds a large number of MVPs
• MVP holders get access to a private chat where Ray is very active, shares alpha, and asks for input
• Strong loyalty among MVP holders
• Slow and steady price increase after mint
• Perks include free mints of all other collections, boosts in rarity, and tickets

 

2. The Potatoz

• 9,999 items, with a floor price of 2.9 ETH at the time of writing
• Launched around July last year as a free, full whitelist mint
• Whitelist access  was granted to active members in the Memeland Discord
• Price held around 0.5 ETH after mint and started climbing slowly
• Introduced "Growing," a staking system where holders can send their Potatoz to earn weekly tickets and join a weekly raffle
• Prizes included Potatoz, MVPs, iPhones, gym memberships, one year of free McDonald's, and a collaboration with Coolermaster
• Slow reveal process with five stages over two months, maintaining interest in the project
• Rumors of three Potatoz granting the ability to mint a captain boosted the floor price to around 3 ETH before the Captains mint in December 2022

 

Instead of a hard floor price crash after captains mint, the floor held up with additional benefits added to potato holders like full crews and supercrews.

 

After the Questing for Captains launched, the Tickets that Potatoz collected have been converted into the top 3 Rarities of Valuables and continue to earn valuables weekly, you get a small boost on rare valuables if you have rare Potatoz (Galaxy, Prototype, or Yin Yang, Ghost, Gold, Alien, Golden Trait, or Ticket Trait)

 

3. The Captainz

• 9,999 items with a floor price of 7.5 ETH at the time of writing
• The main PFP collection and highly anticipated mint
• Early access for Memelist holders to mint Captains for 1.069 ETH in January 2023
• Price shot up to around 6 ETH right after mint and settled around 4 ETH
• Pairing Captains with Potatoz and MVPs for questing (staking) to collect maps and potions
• The artist and art for Captains remain a secret
• Six different rarity tiers: Human (common) to Alien (most rare, 69 total)

 

The Crews

• Pair your Captain with up to 3 Potatoz to form a Full Crew
• Increasing the chance to get rare maps with each Potato added to your Captain
• Full Crews (2454 out there at the time of writing) have a slim chance to win one of 6 Potions each week

 

The Supercrews

• A tier above Full Crew, called Supercrew, for the big investors
• To form a Supercrew, you need 1 MVP, 9 Captains, and 27 Potatoz (total worth at the time of writing: around 200 ETH or $350k)
• Supercrews earn one Potion each week guaranteed, bound to the MVP

 

Staking Rewards

At the time of writing, the following items can be earned with staking (off-chain):

 

• Maps: Earned weekly according to the rarity chart above, bound to the Captain that earned them

 

Utility for Maps mentioned on one of the townhalls in Feb:

Maps are like opportunity cards in Monopoly with four possible perks:

• You receive a portion of land.
• You have the potential to receive a token drop.
• You receive a staking boost for the token.
• Some NFT prizes and allow lists may be included.
• Valuables: Earned weekly by each Potato, with unclear utility at this point, Valuables are bound to the Potatoz
• Potions: Bound to the MVP if won by a Supercrew and to the Captain if won in the weekly raffle, with types matching the Potatoz traits and alpha hinting at "Potions = Perfection

 

MAP RNG based on Crew Setup

 

Raids

• New feature for fun with Captains
• Send one Captain per Discord account on raids
• Raid rules: 45% chance to win a Special or Extraordinary map, 6.9% chance to burn a map, 48.1% chance to lose a map to the person you raid
• Beta tests: 72 hours, 30,000 maps won, almost 1,000 individual holders joined raids
• Season 1 is currently live
• A price pool of 40k$ is spitted between all raiders evenly, the more raid points you have the more you get
• Raid points stay with captains when you sell them (Reset each season)
• Captains earn EXP, not clear for what yet

 

Upcoming Land:

• 69% of Land allocated to Captains holders, the rest to partner projects and investors
• No intention to build the next big metaverse, but offering exposure opportunities for brands and projects through land.

 

Products:

• $Meme as the currency of the Creator Economy
• Planned products: GMGM.com, Holders.com, PFP.com, Stakeland, and Petsland
• Launch of $Meme scheduled for this year, alongside products

 

GMGM.com (Web3 OnlyFans, clothes required)

• Limited information, seems to be focused on content creation and earning

 

Holders.com (Tripadvisor for your Web3 journey)

• Personal profile with holdings, write reviews about projects and founders
• Mockup of the website available

 

PFP.com

• Domain bought for around $100k
• Onboarding website for Web2 companies into Web3
• Providing tools and help to brands for onboarding
• Memeland holders to benefit from allowlist spots for future projects
• Ray talks about the products a bit in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUpOSTctKY4

 

Stakeland (Making crypto staking fun)

• Limited information, assumption is a website for staking with $Meme assumed to be involved

 

Petsland

• Limited information, seems to be pushed back

 

$Meme Tokenomics

 

The launch of $Meme is announced to be still this year. Ray mentioned in a podcast that he would like to launch the token first or at the same time as the products, to give motivation to use the products with the value of the token. We don't know much more about it, but here are some bullet points that were shared on the $Meme Twitter:

 

• DAO - [REDACTED]
• INVESTORS - [REDACTED]
• COMMUNITY - 69%
• KEY PERSONS - [REDACTED]

 

Update 05/18

Ray said that (probably) 23% go out in the first round as an airdrop to holder, he also hinted that rarity (probably) will matter in this distribution.

 

The other 46% will go out in 2 waves as well announced later on, it's not known for now what effects those allocations, but they will go the the community in some way or another.

 

Personal Thoughts

 

I have been holding and staking Potatoz since the beginning, and I am now holding my remaining items (5 Captains and 9 Potatoz) for free. I have been staking these items since the start and am waiting for the launch of $Meme in order to cash out. Ray, the CEO of 9GAG, has mentioned several times that they are not an NFT project, but a DeFi project. They launched the NFTs first to create a core community that understands the projects, and the next step is the coin and the products, so people can be a part of Memeland even with a small investment by buying the coin.

 

Ray has emphasized his desire to reward loyal holders, and so far, he has delivered. Holders have consistently received benefits like raffles, Memelist spots, and more. Since I was able to derisk, I can now ride it out and wait for the $Meme drop. There are various calculations floating around about how much $ value each Captain will get with the airdrop, ranging from $10k to $3M by 2027. Of course, these numbers are speculative, but considering the current market trends, I believe that if you have a Captain with decent maps at the current prices and stake it until the $Meme drop, you will get your money's worth back. This is not financial advice!

 

In my opinion, Ray will continue to provide reasons not to sell NFTs, either through staking or rewards for long-term holders, and I doubt that this will suddenly stop when $Meme is released. I personally think that the airdrop will be rolled out slowly, with more gamification to keep everyone interested. Ultimately, the success of Memeland depends on the quality of the products; if they're not good, $Meme won't have any value and the scheme could collapse. So, I am hopeful that the products will be good and that we can cash out when the masses enter with $Meme. I am painfully bullish, to be honest.