BNB Chain’s $1M Meme Innovation Contest Is ‘Unleashing Meme Coin Creativity’

BNB Chain is aiming to foster the creativity of meme coins through a $1 million Meme Innovation competition.

With a prize pool of $1 million divided between two competition streams, the “BNB Chain Meme Innovation Battle” aims to enable meme coin developers and the community to “unleash their creativity and compete for amazing rewards.”

“This competition plays on the open and whimsical nature of meme coins to call upon developers to create and launch their coins on BNB Chain,” a BNB Chain spokesperson told Decrypt.

A dynamic prize pool of up to $500,000 will be allocated to BNB Smart Chain meme projects ranked across three categories: trading volume, market cap and meme community holders. Running through to May 9, the competition is open to projects that meet a set of criteria including security audits, total locked liquidity and community size, with public pre-sale projects ineligible to participate. A further $500,000 was allocated to a ‘Trade for Airdrop Rewards’ competition, for which snapshots were taken between April 20th and 22nd.

“Nothing in crypto exemplifies the power of community more than meme coins,” said a BNB Chain spokesperson, adding that as “vessels of collective expression, camaraderie, and sometimes, social commentary,” their allure lies in the “shared experience and identity they offer to their holders.”

As well as its Meme Innovation competition, BNB Chain is offering rewards to its community through a builder support program. This includes the DAU Incentive Program, offering up to $200,000, the TVL Incentive Program, offering up to $160,000, and the Q2 Hackathon with a $470,000 prize pool. “With a focus on ecosystem growth and accelerating the success of projects built on BNB Chain, these incentives complement the BNB Chain ecosystem growth initiatives including the MVB program,” a BNB Chain spokesperson told Decrypt.

BNB Chain encompasses multiple chains, including BNB Smart Chain (BSC), opBNB, and Greenfield. These interconnected chains provide a “unified ‘One BNB’ solution,” according to BNB Chain, which caters to decentralized computing and storage needs for Web3 dapps including DeFi, gaming and AI, among others.

Meme coins and community

Requiring minimal technical knowledge to create, meme coins are typically spun up in short order to reflect current events and internet memes. While they’ve been dismissed as novelties and rarely have technical utility, meme coins have grown to become a significant part of the crypto economy, with a current market cap of over $50 billion according to CoinGecko.

Meme coins represent “a fascinating study in market psychology and community-driven value,” a BNB Chain spokesperson told Decrypt, while cautioning that “their volatility can lead to dramatic financial outcomes, making them a risky venture for the uninitiated.” With projects of “dubious quality” littering the meme coin landscape, their role as a gateway to the crypto space for newcomers can be something of a double-edged sword, with many meme coins burning out fast.

Still, there are meme coins that have endured, notably the original Shiba Inu inspired Dogecoin, which recently saw the development of the DRC-20 standard, enabling the creation of non-fungible “Doginals” atop its blockchain.

Aiming to tap into the evolution of meme coins from “simple jokes to cultural phenomena with potential real-world applications,” BNB Chain’s Meme Innovation contest “underlines the serious potential of what many still dismiss as mere jokes,” the spokesperson said.