"The Meme of Living" PAIN: A Crypto Culture Experiment from Pain to Prosperity

Author: Alex Liu, Foresight News

Pre-sale timeline: 48 hours to attract US$38 million, 80% refund,

triggering market controversy

On February 2, 2025, a pre-sale of Meme coins that has attracted attention from the crypto community kicked off. The PAIN project incubated by Memeland won 186,000 SOLs (about 38 million US dollars) in 48 hours, ranking among the largest pre-sales of Meme coins in history. However, the project party then announced a disruptive decision: 80% of the fundraising was refunded and only 20% were retained for startup and liquidity. This operation not only triggered discussions about the project party's "sincerity" and also made PAIN quickly become the focus of traffic.

Origin: From "Strong Face and Smile" to Encrypted Symbols

PAIN is inspired by the classic network meme "Hide the Pain Harold" and its prototype is Hungarian photographer András Arató. In the early 2000s, his expression "his pain behind his smile" in a photography equipment advertisement became a symbol of Internet culture due to the strong sense of contrast. In the past ten years, Harold's image was widely used to express the helplessness and strength in life. Even Arató himself accepted his identity with a humorous attitude and became a "living meme."

Memeland's "Motivation": Celebrity Endorsement and Community Fission

As a project incubated by Memeland, the outbreak of PAIN cannot be separated from the resource tilt of the parent platform. At the end of October 2024, after the official PAIN Twitter account was established, Memeland quickly paved the way for it:

Celebrity Effect:

On Binance Blockchain Week in October of the same year, a photo of Harold prototype Arató and Binance founder CZ was widely circulated . Memeland token MEME has been launched on Binance long ago, and the group photo is indispensable for Memeland's efforts behind the scenes.

Community linkage:

Memeland's official account forwarded PAIN updates many times, including pre-sale tweets , forming traffic resonance. (The pre-sale has been completed, please do not send funds to the address in the picture)

Memeland founder and Harold prototype Arató attended the offline blockchain event.

Refund incident: Sincere marketing or risk transfer?

After the pre-sale is over, the project party announced that it would refund 80% of the funds and only retain 20% (approximately US$7.6 million) for start-up, provide liquidity, and pay CEX currency listing fees (if any). Officially explained that the move was "reducing the burden on investors and showing long-term commitments", but controversy followed: supporters believe that the refund reflects the "anti-cutting" attitude, which is formed by most Meme projects "funding funds" Comparison; skeptics pointed out that the returned SOL has depreciated due to market volatility, and 20% of the retained funds are still far beyond the demand for launching similar projects.

According to rational analysis, 80% of the refund amount is the largest for similar projects, and this part of the funds can be regarded as potential buying after the token is launched, and it can indeed be regarded as protecting the returns of existing investors.

Regardless of the motivation, this incident objectively created secondary transmission for PAIN, and it was a great victory in traffic.

Future Challenges: Meme Coin’s “Breaking the Circle” Paradox

PAIN's short-term success depends on Memeland's community potential energy and the natural communication power of Meme culture (of course, it is also inseparable from Meme traders' hype), but long-term development is facing tests: Harold 's "pain" core may be eliminated if it is over-commercialized. Native charm ; and Meme coins rely on market heat, and will be the first to bear the bear market.

The specific launch time of PAIN tokens is not yet clear. Let’s first observe the performance in the future and then make a conclusion.

Conclusion

From Harold's wry smile to the success of PAIN token pre-sale, this experiment confirms the absurdity and creativity of the crypto world. When "pain" becomes a tradable consensus, perhaps the real meme has long gone beyond the screen and embedded in the collective emotions of this era.