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While 2024 was all about memecoins — dogs, frogs, and whatever else could be spun into a viral ticker — 2025 has shifted toward something more substantive. The new wave is about brands with real products and cult followings.

A “brand coin” is a cryptocurrency tied to a real brand, product line, or NFT project. It’s built to align fans, customers, and holders with the brand’s growth without granting equity or profit share. Unlike memecoins, brand coins connect to real-world products, IP, and cultural touchpoints, creating a loop where brand success can drive token demand and engaged holders help fuel the brand’s reach.

Ovie “OSF” Faruq coined the term itself with $REKT, though Web3-native brands were already exploring tokenized extensions of their IP. Over the past four months, a new crop of brand coins has seen a sharp market surge: $REKT is up 2,204% while $PENGU is up 628%.

AIP-596 has passed.

Congrats to the community for overwhelmingly deciding a path forward. While the DAO has sunset, the mission continues. ApeCo will come to life to push $APE to new heights.
— Cam (@HeadofApe) June 26, 2025

$APE and Origins

While the term may be new, the concept isn’t exactly. ApeCoin ($APE), launched in 2022 for Bored Ape Yacht Club’s ecosystem, was arguably the first large-scale experiment in brand-aligned tokens from the NFT world.

At the time, however, it couldn’t explicitly function as a “brand coin.” Regulatory constraints in the U.S. forced APE into the category of a governance token, used for land sales, games, and merch. That foundation has since evolved into ApeChain, a dedicated blockchain with $APE ($621M FDV) as its native token, turning a community currency into the backbone of a builder ecosystem.

In June, Yuga Labs CEO Garga’s proposal to sunset the ApeCoin DAO and create a new entity, ApeCo, passed with overwhelming support. The move essentially ended the governance experiment and realigned ApeCoin with Yuga’s brand priorities.

“It definitely led the first generation of brand coins, even if that term wasn’t used at the time,” says Cameron Kates, CEO and executive director of the ApeCoin Foundation. “Historically, $APE couldn’t be a reflection of BAYC and Yuga given the US’ anti-tech regulatory environment. But now, $APE’s future is focusing on BAYC, Otherside and ApeChain, so in that sense it’s a real-time feedback loop for expectation, sentiment and differentiation.”

When asked how APE’s trajectory compares to newer brand coins like $REKT and $PENGU, which are rooted in physical products and retail distribution, Kates points to divergent priorities.

“One of the best parts of crypto is everyone can run a different race. While some of our peers have focused on physical retail distribution, we are focused on digital retail distribution with Otherside. Yuga’s ambitions are big for Otherside and its ability to drive millions of people to spend billions on ApeChain.”

$REKT, the first ever "brand coin".

Obviously I have been making a lot of noise about REKT over the past few days. One of the most common questions I have received is:

WTF is $REKT and how does it relate to @RektBrands, @RektDrinks etc?

I will do my best to offer my…
— OSF (@osf_rekt) May 20, 2025

$REKT and the Birth of Brand Coins

The idea of the ‘brand coin’ was born with $REKT. In The Rektpaper, co-founder and CEO Ovie Faruq (OSF) laid out his vision for how sentiment and community can crystallize into tradable brand equity. This week’s Luminaries feature on OSF traces Rekt’s rise to becoming one of crypto’s defining cultural brands.

“The real definition of a memecoin is something that doesn’t have any utility or generate cash flows,” he explains. “It’s just a coin that trades on sentiment. But with Rekt, the value comes from the brand. So I thought, why not call it a brand coin?”

Rekt began in May 2022 with a free mint of 8,814 Rektguy NFTs. No proceeds or roadmap, just a brutally relatable theme, getting rekt, that landed right during a torturous bear market. In a novel move, NFT holders received equity in Rekt Brands Inc., converting them into what OSF calls “turbocharged marketers.”

“I like the whole brand concept we’ve been pushing. It’s unique,” says OSF. “We didn’t start with the token, we started after four years of building a community. People who get it aren’t just looking to flip, they want to be part of something.”

The first physical product was Rekt Drinks, flavored sparkling water with no alcohol, no caffeine, and under 5g of sugar. The late-2024 launch sold 222,000 cans across 32 countries in under 48 hours. The coin followed in November 2024 as a no-vesting airdrop to NFT holders, drink buyers, and community members. By leveraging crypto-native incentives and collabs with Abstract, OpenSea, and Binance, Rekt has sold more than 760,000 drinks over the past year.

“When a company acquires another company, it creates an asset on the balance sheet known as goodwill — but that’s illiquid, you can’t trade it,” he explains. “I view our coin as that same intangible brand value, except it’s liquid. It trades on sentiment alone, with millions of dollars of volume every day.”

Despite no tier-one exchange listings to date, $REKT sits at a $429 million fully-diluted market cap. The Rekt treasury holds 34% of the supply, about $72 million for acquisition, rewards, and growth. “No other challenger brand has that,” he says. “It’s only possible with crypto. That’s the idea behind a brand coin, it’s a tool for us.”

$PENGU & Pudgy Penguin NFT ETF.

First of its kind.

History 🫡 pic.twitter.com/pFoD8LsnJI
— Luca Netz 🐧✳️ (@LucaNetz) March 20, 2025

$PENGU and the Push for Mainstream

If $REKT coined the term “brand coin,” $PENGU is making the case for its mass-market potential. Born from the Pudgy Penguins IP, PENGU is designed to bridge the brand’s digital products, games, and retail presence.

The token launched via one of Web3’s largest airdrops in late 2024: roughly $1.5 billion worth of $PENGU was distributed. Today, $PENGU trades at a $2.94 billion fully-diluted market cap.

“On the Abstract side, $PENGU is a cultural liquidity layer,” says CEO Luca Netz. “On the Pudgy side, it’s a unifying token that can move seamlessly between our digital products, games, and community activations.”

That means whether you’re buying a plush penguin in Walmart, playing Pudgy Party with friends, or joining an online activation, $PENGU is meant to be the medium of exchange and reward.

“$PENGU is a proxy for liquid brand equity,” says Netz. “Market cap tells you how the market values it in the moment, but the real value comes from its integration into consumer touchpoints, brand mindshare, and utility breadth.”

The plan is full-stack integration. Plush toys and collectibles will ship with claim codes for $PENGU, bridging retail to Web3. In Pudgy Party and other games, it will be a rewards currency for achievements and unlocking exclusives. Upcoming initiatives include loyalty programs, IRL events, and collabs that make holding $PENGU “a ticket to the Pudgy lifestyle.”

Netz also points to the Canary $PENGU ETF as a strategic move to “create a steady, transparent liquidity backstop while signaling confidence in the long-term value of the token.” He says it’s designed to support market stability, incentivize partnerships, and frame $PENGU as a “cultural reserve” rather than just another speculative asset.

Brand Coin Boom?

Beyond these examples, the brand coin thesis is branching into other cultural verticals. $ANIME ($182M FDV), launched with Azuki and the Animecoin Foundation, is positioning itself at the intersection of anime, gaming, and blockchain-native fandom. Meanwhile, $DOOD ($35M FDV), tied to the Doodles ecosystem, is building around the DreamNet protocol to weave storytelling, collectibles, and community participation into a tokenized loop.

So why now? After a year of memecoin mania, traders were ready for something with deeper hooks. Rekt Drinks showed that a crypto-native brand could harness tokenized rewards to compete in consumer packaged goods. Physical distribution wins, like Pudgy Penguins breaking into Walmart and Target, proved brand IP could stretch far beyond Discord. And a broader crypto rally brought fresh capital and appetite for new narratives. Put together, the timing made brand coins feel inevitable and gave them the charts to prove it.

But the real question is whether those gains can last, and if tokens can keep pace with brand success over time. Airdrops and price runs have proved brand coins can deliver upside and fire up communities. Now the challenge is turning hype into something that sticks. For brand coins to matter long-term, they need to show a clear link between cultural relevance, consumer adoption, and lasting value, proving that brand love can fuel real economic power, not just a trading frenzy.

Editor’s note: At the time of publication, the author holds $APE, $REKT, and $PENGU tokens.