Degen Digest: February 12, 2025
This week’s Degen Digest breaks down TST’s explosive rise and crash, the shifting dynamics of shorting TGE tokens, and key signals hinting at a potential crypto market reversal.
Feb 12, 2025
TL;DR – This Week’s Key Insights
- TST’s Rapid Rise and Fall – Binance listed TST, a meme coin from four.meme, leading to a $500 million market cap surge, followed by a 70–80% crash within 24 hours. Could this signal the start of a BSC season?
- Shorting TGE Tokens May No Longer Be a Guaranteed Win – $LAYER defied expectations, doubling in price after its Binance Futures listing, liquidating short sellers, and possibly marking a market trend shift.
- Potential Market Reversal Signals – The unexpected rally of $DRIFT following its Upbit and Binance listings suggests that institutional traders may be signaling a broader crypto market recovery.
1. The Rise of four.meme and TST
Binance recently listed two BSC-based meme coins—TST and CHEEMS—on its spot market. Among them, TST gained significant traction in an incredibly short period. Let’s break down how this unfolded.
A new platform, four.meme, emerged as a BSC version of pump.fun, aiming to rival it. To promote this platform, the BNB Chain team released a video tutorial demonstrating how to deploy meme coins on the BNB Chain, using a test token (TST) as an example.
For nine days, TST remained on four.meme without being bonded to PancakeSwap. However, after the BNB Chain team posted their video on X (formerly Twitter), degen traders discovered TST’s contract address (CA) in the footage and started shilling it aggressively. This led to a rapid price surge.
Initially, TST hit a $5 million market cap before a pullback. Then, CZ himself inadvertently fueled the hype. Though he later denied any intention to promote the token, his tweet contained "Happy trading" alongside a direct link to TST’s contract address—essentially a massive shill.
Following CZ’s tweet, TST skyrocketed, reaching a $50 million market cap. A classic pump-and-dump ensued, and the token stabilized around $10M–$20M. At this stage, Binance Alpha registered $TST, and within a single day, it was promoted to a spot listing. At its peak, TST’s market cap hit an astonishing $500 million.
For comparison, TRX’s meme token, $SUNDOG, topped out at $360 million, demonstrating that BNB-driven pumps wield even greater force. However, within 24 hours of trading on Binance Spot, TST crashed 70–80%. This volatility prompted CZ to critique Binance’s listing system, hinting at potential issues with current market dynamics.
As TST now stands at $141 million, the question remains: Is a full-fledged BSC season on the horizon?
For a deeper look into Solana and Ethereum trading trends, read our comparison of Jupiter vs. Uniswap.
2. TGE Tokens: Invincible to Shorts?
Recently, crypto traders (CTs) have realized that shorting newly launched TGE tokens—especially after they get listed on tier-one exchanges like Binance and Upbit—is an almost guaranteed win.
If a token’s initial market cap exceeds $1 billion, traders barely have time to react before Binance lists it on futures, allowing for highly profitable short positions.
While macro uncertainties like trade wars and interest rate policies have kept altcoins in a bearish phase, this trend has only accelerated liquidity depletion in the market. However, a key reversal signal just emerged.
Today, for the first time, a token defied this trend. $LAYER, instead of dumping post-listing, surged 2x after its futures debut, liquidating numerous short sellers.
Initially, $LAYER dropped from $1.50 to $0.77 after its Binance Spot listing. However, as Upbit listed it shortly after, the token recovered its highs within hours.
This unexpected rally was fueled by:
- $LAYER’s market cap being just $170 million at its lows.
- The listing occurring during peak Upbit degen hours.
Historically, traders avoided buying TGE tokens, instead opting to short them aggressively. But $LAYER’s breakout could set a new precedent for upcoming listings, signaling a potential market shift.
Additionally, this could indicate a broader market turnaround.
For example, on November 9, another token, $DRIFT, wasn’t a TGE token but still witnessed a massive rally after being listed on Upbit Spot and Binance Futures. This triggered a wider market surge, though Trump’s election victory also played a significant role.
Such events suggest that crypto whales might be sending signals to the market. If this is indeed a turning point, we could soon witness a broader crypto recovery.
For insights into crypto trading psychology and risk management, check out our guide on trading strategies.
Conclusion
- Always set alerts for CZ’s X (Twitter) posts and monitor four.meme and BSC ecosystem tokens closely.
- Today’s $LAYER price action could be a signal of an upcoming market trend shift toward a bullish phase.
The above is not financial advice. Trading cryptocurrencies carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. Conduct your own due diligence before making any investment.
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