Memeland and MEME: the 9GAG meme ecosystem trades 99 percent below its record

Memeland is the crypto project behind the joke platform 9GAG, and MEME is its token. Three years after the launch, two figures capture where it stands: MEME trades around 99 percent below its record of March 2024, and the floor price of the project's best-known NFT collection has fallen from 9.73 Ether to 0.02 Ether. We measured both ourselves at midday on Wednesday.

This is not a report on a single day but a stocktake. Anyone coming across Memeland today finds a well-known brand, two fully minted NFT collections, a token with 64.8 billion units in circulation and no published development plan. This article sets out what of that is documented, how pricing works in collections of this kind, and what a loss on a sale means for tax in Germany. If you are looking for a venue to trade meme tokens, our overview of crypto exchanges licensed in Germany helps place the providers.

Memeland, 9GAG and the idea behind the meme ecosystem

9GAG is one of the older platforms for internet humour, founded in Hong Kong in 2008. Memeland is the Web3 arm of that house and describes itself on its own site as a Web3 venture studio and ecosystem. The thinking behind it was common at the time: a brand with wide reach issues NFT collections, the buyers of those collections form a community, and later that community receives a token.

An NFT is an entry on a blockchain tied to a single item, which is why it cannot be swapped for an equivalent piece the way one unit of Bitcoin can be swapped for another. What rights an NFT actually transfers is set by the issuer's licence alone, not by the blockchain. On that basis Memeland issued two collections: The Potatoz and The Captainz, each with 9,999 pieces.

How the token came about

MEME launched in November 2023 and reached further trading venues in January 2024. According to CoinGecko's classification, the token belongs to the Binance Launchpool and to the portfolio of YZi Labs, formerly Binance Labs. It runs on Ethereum rather than on a blockchain of its own, and the house has not disclosed an investment figure in the reports available.

The MEME token: 69 billion units and a price of $0.0005

At midday on Wednesday MEME stood at $0.000515, or €0.00046. Market capitalisation was around $33.4 million and trading volume over the preceding 24 hours around $4.9 million. CoinGecko ranks the token 617th by market capitalisation.

The supply side matters more than the price. Maximum supply is 69 billion MEME, of which 64.77 billion are in circulation, just under 94 percent. According to the token page on the Ethereum explorer, around 738,000 addresses hold it. A unit count that high against a small market capitalisation has an arithmetic consequence: every cent of price movement would be a multiple of today's level, which is exactly why price targets that the supply side rules out circulate around tokens like this. At 69 billion units, a price of one cent would imply a valuation of $690 million.

99 percent below the record: what the MEME price figures say

MEME reached its high on March 4, 2024, at $0.056324. From today's price that is a gap of 99.1 percent. Over twelve months the token is down 69.3 percent, but over the last thirty days only 2.3 percent: the large move lies further back than those thirty days.

A low from August of this year sits at $0.0004437 according to CoinMarketCap, just under today's price. The token has therefore been moving in a narrow band close to its low for months. For context, that means neither a slump nor a recovery defines the picture, but a long sideways stretch at a low level.

The Captainz: from a 9.73 Ether floor price to 0.02

The trend reads more clearly in the NFT collections than in the token. For The Captainz, the better known of the two, the highest floor price ever reached was 9.73 Ether, around $21,226 at the time. At midday on Wednesday the price tag read 0.01999 Ether, or $49.65. That is 99.8 percent less.

The collection comprises 9,999 pieces spread across 2,969 addresses. That works out at a total valuation of around $496,000 for the whole collection. Trading volume over the last 24 hours came to 0.10 Ether, roughly $250 for the entire day.

The Potatoz: same unit count, a different path

The Potatoz came before the Captainz and also comprises 9,999 pieces, spread across 2,329 addresses. At midday on Wednesday the floor price was 0.025 Ether, or $62.87, and therefore above that of the Captainz. The highest floor price ever reached was 6.78 Ether, around $16,143, leaving a gap of 99.6 percent.

The relationship between the two collections is worth noting. The Captainz counted as the higher-grade collection and held the higher record, yet today they sit below the Potatoz. Trading volume tells a similar story: 0.68 Ether for the Potatoz against 0.10 for the Captainz over 24 hours. Buying or selling today means meeting a market in which, on some days, only a handful of pieces change hands in either collection. For an overview of the venues that trade collections like these, see our comparison of NFT marketplaces.

Why a floor price is not a market price

The floor price is the cheapest active sell offer in a collection. It says at what price someone would be willing to sell, not that anyone is buying at that price. In a collection of 9,999 pieces with a daily turnover of a few units, that distinction carries real weight: the floor price can stand for weeks without a single sale going through.

A caution follows for any valuation. The calculation of unit count times floor price, which we made above as well, produces a theoretical number. If all 9,999 Captainz were offered at once, the achievable price would be lower than today's floor. The figure works for comparison over time, not as a statement of wealth.

What Ether as the unit of account changes

Floor prices for NFT collections on Ethereum are quoted in Ether, not in euros. If the Ether price falls, the euro value of a collection falls too, even when its floor price in Ether stays the same. In the Captainz both directions coincide: the floor price in Ether is down 99.8 percent, and in dollar terms the figure comes out at almost the same 99.8 percent, because the Ether price today sits at a similar level to the time of the record.

No official roadmap: what the valuation rests on instead

According to CoinMarketCap's classification there is no published development roadmap for MEME, and the valuation therefore rests on the brand and on community interest. The same service lists recent activity around MemeDay events, the Meme69 Awards and brand collaborations.

That assessment comes from a data service, not from the project itself, and should be read as such. The counter-check is documented: on the official project pages of Memeland and of the token, no development plan with dates was findable on Wednesday. What is missing is not an accusation but a finding about the information available. It matters for valuing a token all the same: without an announced function or use of revenue, there is no measure against which a price could be tested.

The technical question behind it

Utility in crypto usage means the function a token performs within a system: paying fees, voting on changes, securing computing power. A token without such a function is not therefore worthless, but its price forms purely out of supply, demand and attention. More on that distinction and on what sets the segment apart is in our overview of meme tokens.

Binance Launchpool and YZi Labs: how MEME reached the exchanges

MEME entered circulation through the Binance Launchpool, a scheme in which users lock existing balances for a limited period and receive units of a new token in return. For a young project that route brings reach and a widely distributed initial supply; for the participants it brings units at no purchase price. Both shape trading in the first months, because part of those holdings is sold early.

Added to that is the classification as a YZi Labs holding, formerly Binance Labs. A stake points to a funding round, but it is not a mark of quality and not a commitment for the future. The size of the investment has not been published in the reports available, so no valuation can be derived from it either.

What separates a meme token from a network token

A network token such as Ether belongs to a blockchain and is needed there to pay transaction fees. A meme token, by contrast, is usually a contract on someone else's blockchain; in MEME's case a standard contract on Ethereum. The technical bar is low, so what distinguishes two meme tokens is not the technology but the reach behind them.

On reach Memeland had a genuine head start, namely an existing platform with a large audience. Today's figures show that the advantage did not carry the price over three years. That is the sober lesson from this case, and it holds beyond Memeland: reach generates attention at launch, but it does not replace continuing demand. How other houses of the same years have fared, we counted up in our review of the state of the Web3 gaming companies and in our review of Illuvium, Axie and Sandbox.

Tax in Germany: how to treat losses on crypto sales

Selling tokens or NFTs at a loss can be used for tax purposes in Germany, but only within narrow limits. Crypto assets count as other economic goods under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. A loss on their sale therefore reduces only gains from private disposals in the same year, not gains from shares or interest. Any remainder can be carried back to the previous year or forward into coming years.

Two points are easy to miss here. First, a sale has to actually take place: a price decline on its own creates no usable tax loss while the position is held. Second, the same one-year period applies as it does to gains. If the purchase lies more than a year back, a gain is tax-free, and consequently a loss is then irrelevant for tax too. How a complete write-off differs from that, we set out in the case of a total loss.

What belongs in the records

For every position you need the purchase date, purchase price, sale date and sale price, and for NFTs the contract address and the item number as well. For a collection traded across several marketplaces, that statement rarely sits in one place. Only the tax office or a tax adviser can give binding answers on an individual case.

Where MEME can be traded in Germany and what MiCA has to do with it

Since the European regulation on markets in crypto assets, MiCA for short, providers addressing customers in the European Union need authorisation from a national supervisor. In Germany, BaFin grants it and supervises them. The licence says nothing about the quality of an individual token: what is examined is the provider, its custody, its capital adequacy and its duties towards customers.

In practice, for a token well outside the large caps that means this: it appears in the range of licensed providers less often than on unlicensed platforms. Before buying, it is worth checking whether the chosen venue holds a European licence and how it keeps the tokens in custody, because that determines what can be recovered if something goes wrong.

MEME token: without a roadmap, attention alone decides

Memeland remains a well-known brand with two fully minted collections and a widely held token. What the figures lack is demand reaching beyond the launch phase. Three steps help in judging a case like this soberly:

1. Look at the supply side before the price. Multiply maximum supply by your target price and see what valuation comes out. At 69 billion units, one cent already means $690 million. Where a token can be traded at what cost, and which providers hold European authorisation, is shown in our exchange comparison.
2. Read trading volume alongside the floor price. A floor price without turnover is an offer, not a price. Check the number of sales over recent days and the number of holding addresses next to the floor price. Which venues generate any turnover at all for a collection is in our comparison of NFT marketplaces.
3. Document losses before you sell. Purchase and sale data for each position determine whether a loss is usable and against which gains. For pulling records together across several marketplaces, portfolio trackers with tax reporting help.

(As of October 14, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)