Author: Alan, iteye content team
The crypto circle's preference for ugly things is nothing new.
From meme veterans Pepe and Shib, to the distorted political memes on SOL (Jeo Boden, Doland Tremp), to the crying horse and even Niu Lai on BSC, it's hard to associate them with orthodox aesthetics.
But attention often has a paradox: what people generally love is often shaped by environment and habits over a long time, without an explosive attention phase; while things that shock people's eyes with ugliness, weirdness, and novelty often stir up a frenzy of attention.
"Niu Lai" is an extreme example of this paradox.
Before August 14, its cumulative box office over nine days was only 7,169 yuan; as of noon on August 19, total box office had exceeded 24.3 million yuan. At the same time, the same-named Meme on BSC has surged from a market cap of a few tens of thousands of dollars to over 50 million dollars, and has refreshed its all-time high.
The Web2 world is responsible for creating attention, while the chain is responsible for turning attention into price. Only by superimposing the two timelines can we see the complete life cycle of Niu Lai.
Full Review of the Niu Lai Meme Life Cycle
1. Stage Process Overview
Stage 1: Deployment (8.13—8.14) → Migration market cap $45K
Stage 2: Ignition (8.14—8.15) → Market cap $500K
Stage 3: Viral Spread (8.15—8.16) → Market cap $25M
Stage 4: Nationwide Discussion (8.16—8.18) → Peak near $50M
Stage 5: Alpha Amplification (8.18) → Broke $50M ATH, then pulled back
2. Five-Stage Overview Table
According to gmgn, relatively few well-known KOLs bought the Niu Lai Meme early on; the game is concentrated after the heat explodes.
3. In-depth Stage Breakdown
1⃣Deployment: Hot topic hasn't arrived, contract comes first
August 13, 11:59: Main pool 0xbeea…7777 created on Flap.
August 14, 16:07: Migration completed, market cap approximately $45.1K.
External status: The movie is still a niche film with box office under 10,000 yuan.
KOL/Funds: No identified KOLs entered yet; on-chain focus remains on main pool and Dev identification.
"Niu Lai" was released on August 5, with 245 screenings on the first day and box office of 3,420 yuan. By the ninth day of release, cumulative box office was only 7,169 yuan with 236 viewers, and theater screenings had dropped to single digits. External attention mainly came from the contrast between the ink-wash poster and the actual film quality, but it had not yet spread on a large scale.
The Niu Lai Meme contract appeared in this stage, actually earlier than the Chinese internet's trending searches.
On-chain nodes in this stage: creation, migration, main pool identification, Dev and associated address verification.
2⃣Ignition: Heated discussion attracts the first wave of buying
External: "Niu Lai box office 7352 yuan without wan" trended on Chinese social media, gaining exposure through state media, and rough visuals and catchy lines like "Mom" began to spread.
On-chain: At 00:15 on August 15, market cap first exceeded $500,000.
Action: Dream Traveler yz entered at a market cap of about $450,000, and posted an analysis 14 minutes later.
On August 14, a complaint video brought the rough modeling and clipping issues of "Niu Lai" out of the movie-watching circle. "Niu Lai box office 7352 yuan without wan" then trended on hot searches. According to media statistics, there were nearly 40 Weibo hot searches related to the movie that day.
Chinese state media Beijing News summarized the initial spread as an outlet for audience dissatisfaction with shoddy production, while The Paper used the headline "Niu Lai was distributed by netizens" - the film had almost no promotion before, and the materials after the hot search mainly came from the audience.
As state media increased exposure for "Niu Lai", participation in related topics on Chinese social media truly exploded. Short video platforms like Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and WeChat Channels showcased the visuals - the little calf shouting "Mom" in a rough voice, the mother cow repeatedly calling "Niu Lai", the little calf tripping, and the copy-paste-like herd of cows. Screen recordings, complaint captions, and memes began to circulate repeatedly on short video and social platforms.
The on-chain Niu Lai Meme price rose in tandem. Niu Lai first exceeded $500,000 at 00:15 on August 15. Dream Traveler yz's tagged wallet took a position first, and the account posted an analysis about the movie's low box office, high buzz, catchy lines, and financialized title about 14 minutes later.
Correspondence for this stage: short video spread, hot search explosion, main market cap breaking $500,000, first batch of KOLs entering and shilling.
3⃣Viral spread: KOLs and real-life plot relay
External: Single-day box office rose to 484,000 yuan, screenings increased from 21 to 359; fan creations like seat selection forming the character "牛" and rising K-line appeared.
On-chain: Broke $5 million at 19:00 on August 15; broke $20 million at 03:15 on August 16.
Capital: KOL principal increased from small trial positions of a few hundred dollars to thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
On August 15, audiences began buying tickets to "see for themselves how absurd it is". Single-day box office rose to 484,000 yuan, an increase of over 6000% from before; screenings increased from 21 to 359. Cinemas also shifted from receiving traffic to participating in the spread: a cinema manager in Guangzhou wore a cow mascot costume to open the show, and staff in Hangzhou dressed as bullfighters, letting the audience shout "Niu Lai". The collective complaints, laughter, and applause at the end of screenings were also filmed as reaction videos. Watching the movie transformed from consuming content to offline team building, with the cinema scene itself becoming a new content source.
The seat selection maps on ticketing apps became another form of fan creation. Because "Niu Lai" naturally aligns with the "bull" market and rising trends in financial markets, some A-share investors bought movie tickets to arrange the character "牛", rising K-lines, and support patterns in the cinema, then posted screenshots back to Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and short video platforms. Each new screening addition, box office milestone, and cinema stunt generated new spread material.
On-chain crossed two milestones in the same period: first exceeding $5 million at 19:00 on August 15, and first exceeding $20 million at 03:15 on August 16.
From identified wallets, the initial capital of smart money increases with market cap: early on it's mostly a few hundred dollars, rising to thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars at the $5M–$20M stage.
Corresponding relationships in this stage: box office and screening schedule reversal, market cap breaking $5M and $25M, and KOL relay in the middle-to-late phase.
4⃣Whole-network buzz: price starts to create attention
External: A-share Luoniushan hit the daily limit, "Niu"-related stocks entered the hot list; various commercial brands' second creations like "Mi Lai" and "Xue Lai" appeared.
On-chain: Market cap surged from $25M to nearly $50M.
KOL/Propagation: At this stage, early KOLs' profit, gainer list, and volume screenshots reverse-FOMO attract new buyers.
On August 17, the first A-share trading day after the movie went viral, Luoniushan hit the daily limit, Jinniu Chemical briefly touched the limit, Tongniu Information rose about 8% intraday, and Bulls Group rose over 2%. On Tonghuashun's individual stock popularity list, Jinniu Chemical ranked first, with Bulls Group and Tongniu Information in the top five. These companies have no business relationship with the movie; the market is just trading the "niu" in their names.
By noon on August 18, the cumulative box office of "Niu Lai" had exceeded 18 million yuan and entered the top ten of China's domestic animation box office in 2026. The social news that initially focused on "quality controversy" began to be rewritten by financial media into box office growth, screening increases, and market heat.
Meanwhile, major commercial brands also began to reuse the phrase: Tmall Supermarket changed it to "Mi Lai", Mixue Bingcheng to "Xue Lai", and Miniso to "Ming Lai". "Niu Lai" transformed from a movie title into a propagation template where the first character can be replaced.
On-chain, this is now a game period, not a straight-line rise. Because weekend news said Chinese theaters would fully ban "Niu Lai", the Niu Lai Meme market cap once pulled back from about $29 million to about $10 million, then showed a V-shaped recovery; 24-hour volume once reached about $37.6 million. By August 17–18, as theaters screened normally and buzz continued, the intraday high approached $50 million.
Price, KOL profits, and volume screenshots then flowed back to social media, forming a complete, closed-loop Meme propagation chain:
External events → Main pool buying → KOL and price confirmation → Profit and gain screenshots → New attention → (loop back) Main pool buying
Corresponding relationships in this stage: box office enters the tens of millions, A-shares and brands relay, market cap heads toward $50M after a deep pullback.
5⃣Binance Alpha: ATH and top-1 distribution happen simultaneously
Platform catalyst: On the afternoon of August 18, Niu Lai officially entered the Binance Alpha display and trading portal.
Price: Niu Lai's short-term market cap broke $50 million and refreshed ATH; but as of around 17:50, the main liquidity pool's corresponding market cap had returned to about $37.3 million.
Chips: The top profit address Qwerty@Quanterty sold continuously during the price surge window, but still retains more than half of its position.
The on-chain behavior of Niu Lai's top address Qwerty can be summarized into three sets of numbers:
Corresponding relationships in this stage: centralized entry expands accessibility, price refreshes ATH, top profit address distributes simultaneously, and Niu Lai moves from attention expansion to high-level turnover.
