The long-dormant Solana meme has been buzzing for a while now, and in a surprising way. Base protocol lead Jesse Pollak, renowned crypto influencer Cobie, Solana founder Toly, and pump.fun founder Alon are all "abstracting" around a single Solana meme coin. The addition of Base, in particular, feels like a breakthrough, and in the current landscape of fierce competition among blockchains, it's a surprising development for players.

This Solana meme coin is none other than $chillhouse. It's not a new coin. Since its successful launch on pump.fun, Chillhouse has been on a six-month journey and has long been a key meme coin in the pump.fun ecosystem. So, what kind of coin is this? And what connects this cross-platform "meme abstraction show"?

Chillguy+House=Chillhouse

Chillhouse's initial inspiration came from the title of this paragraph, "Chillguy + House = Chillhouse." That's right, in the beginning, Chillhouse was simply positioned as a "Frankenstein's monster."

Although it's a "Frankenstein's monster," it possesses a rare "rebellious satire" that's uncommon in excellent Web3 memes. Chillguy experienced explosive growth during last year's meme boom, but ultimately faced a lawsuit from Phillip Banks, the original creator of the Chillguy character.

This is the first half of Chillhouse—"The creator of Chillguy is not a Chill person."

The other half comes from the coin that briefly shone in the Solana meme market after Trump's token issuance cooled down: $House. At the end of April, $House, which broke through by touting "1 $House = 1 USD" and capitalizing on the global anxiety of young people not being able to afford housing, reached a peak market capitalization of $120 million.

During the rise of $House, a new "version god" emerged: Fapital. Fapital has a group chat called "Fapital Club," and in this chat, Chillhouse deployer @VERYKOOLLUKEY said the following:

“What if we launched Chillhouse?”

Other members of the Fapital Club found the idea amusing. Eventually, @0xRacist created this "Frankenstein's monster" design—a Chillguy with a house-shaped head.

Six months later, this idea has generated nearly $169,000 USD in revenue for creators. Just one intriguing idea, creating a meme coin, has already netted over one million RMB. This is the magic of Web3.

This creator income has been accrued since July 20th, as @RiccoRosas, now running the official Chillhouse Twitter account, redirected creator income to him at the end of July. Therefore, Chillhouse is arguably the most successful case study of pump.fun's creator income reforms, ensuring the long-term viability of the meme coin.

Before I begin my review of Chillhouse's journey, let me offer one final observation: opportunities often brew during market downturns. Six months later, as I write this article, Chillhouse and neet have become the twin stars of the pump.fun ecosystem. Both have ties to Fapital—one was born directly from a Fapital group chat, while the other was recognized by Fapital very early on.

 On the pump.fun homepage, there's a section called "Gemini".

Fapital's "leading trades" are never lengthy. Looking through his tweets, you'll find he sometimes disappears for a while, then reappears with a joke, sometimes unrelated to cryptocurrency. If you haven't been a long-time active player in the pump.fun ecosystem, you might not even know who he is. To some extent, Chinese players who have persisted in the pump.fun ecosystem for a long time, despite language and even cultural barriers, have also reaped the information advantage that comes with persistence.

Other currencies recognized by the pump.fun ecosystem, such as $USDUC and $tokabu, have also begun to grow slowly since the low point of pump.fun and the entire Solana meme ecosystem five months ago.

Of course, the process of growing up is not always smooth sailing.

The process of growth

Chillhouse's start can be described as remarkably smooth. Within a week of its token's launch, it surpassed a market capitalization of $10 million. @json1444, now the Chief Content Officer of pump.fun, mentioned Chillhouse in its first week.

The Chillhouse community also took on a unique character. After the token launch, community members enthusiastically created related funny pictures. The themes of these pictures were not deliberately centered around $chillguy or $House, but rather were imaginative and abstract.

The community's efforts reaped their first major success at the end of May. Community members spontaneously and persistently sent Twitter private messages to various KOLs, each containing only one sentence: "Thoughts on chillhouse? What are your thoughts on chillhouse?"

The text bombing ultimately blew up Ansem, and "Thoughts on chillhouse?" became a meme in the Solana ecosystem. Now, you'll see players in both English and Chinese comment sections occasionally and inexplicably throw out "Thoughts?"—a simplification of the meme. The meme isn't really about asking influencers (KOLs) what they think of chillhouse; it's more of a "sticky candy" (likely a gimmick) to attract attention. It's like when a friend asks, "How's the weather today?" and I immediately fire off three "What do you think of chillhouse?" questions, regardless of the context.

Ultimately, this meme also brought out Alon, the founder of pump.fun:

This meme quickly garnered interaction from more major KOLs. @based16z jokingly mentioned Chillhouse, saying, "Hyperliquid cut KOL budgets, Chillhouse team, I'll be in touch." Chillhouse seized the opportunity, asking, "Could you arrange an interview with ThreadGuy for me?" This prompted ThreadGuy's reply, "How much?"

Following this, $chillhouse embarked on its first major upward trend, reaching an all-time high market capitalization of nearly $30 million by late June. By this time, Chillhouse had become an undeniable force in the Solana meme ecosystem, appearing not only frequently on Twitter but also repeatedly on Mitch's Telegram channel and in Rasmr's live streams.

Chillhouses appeared frequently in Rasmr's livestreams, sometimes used to ask strangers "Thoughts on chillhouse?" directly, and sometimes seen on other shows with a chillhouse on their head. Chillhouses also appeared in other top pump.fun livestreams, such as Based DD.

Chillhouse gained a foothold, but the price couldn’t keep rising forever. After first approaching the $30 million mark, Chillhouse entered its first sharp correction, falling by approximately 75% in 12 days.

Subsequent ups and downs haven't been driven by clear positive factors like this time, so it's been a "painful process"—the community has always been there, and Chillhouse's content remains high-quality, but short-term sentiment and attention won't always be on a nascent meme coin. Like meme coins like SPX, Mog, and BITCOIN, which have long endured the test of consensus on the Ethereum mainnet, Chillhouse has also entered this difficult and unavoidable test.

During this period, Chillhouse released an NFT series called "Lil Chillers," which saw its floor price surpass 7 SOL, demonstrating its influence. Currently, the floor price of this NFT series is approximately 1.1 SOL.

But before discussing this "gathering of heroes", let's first solve a problem:

What is pump.fun founder Alon's true attitude towards Chillhouse? If he likes this coin, why didn't the pump.fun token backing fund, Glass Full Foundation, buy it?

I believe this was done intentionally by alon. First, pump.fun has changed its Twitter profile picture several times in the past few months, and each time it has featured the Meme coin it supports, with Chillhouse always included.

Secondly, looking through alon's tweets, at first glance it seems like there's a beef between Chillhouse and alon:

 alon: "The organic tokens in the pump.fun ecosystem (meaning the community grows naturally and well, without relying on KOLs or conspiracy to drive up prices) will make big news, but Chillhouse is not organic." 

 alon: "Can you remove Chillhouse from the picture?"

But in reality, Chillhouse's style itself is akin to a schizophrenic "brain-dead child." Alon's tweet of "disdain" and GFF's refusal to buy into the idea are actually a different kind of CP.

To be honest, they're really treating Chillhouse like a mini-Jack Ma.

All-Star Abstract Show

The price of Chillhouse hit a record high yesterday, briefly exceeding $30 million, representing a roughly ninefold increase from its low in just four days.

The reason lies in this thought-provoking "all-star abstract show." Why do people think that Chillhouse was just lucky to get in? We need to organize the complete timeline.

On October 21st, Coinbase spent $25 million to purchase the UpOnly NFT from Cobie. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong later confirmed the authenticity of the news in a statement. Brian stated, "Holders of this ticket (NFT) can force Cobie and Ledger Status to perform like monkeys for eight episodes of 'Up Only TV.' This ticket does not confer any sponsorship rights, and we reserve the right to call you a 'stupid idiot for buying this' or completely ignore you—not even mentioning you for the entire eight episodes. We choose our guests at our discretion, but if we find you interesting, we might consider your suggestion."

UpOnly TV, a podcast hosted by Cobie, was canceled in December 2022, primarily due to the FTX crash, which led HBO to cancel its television contract for the show. The program was initially sold to HBO in December 2021, but was terminated in December 2022 following the FTX incident. The final episode was also uploaded to YouTube shortly after the FTX crash.

Cobie minted an NFT in May of this year called "ADMISSION: 1 SEASON OF UP ONLY TV". Facing calls on Twitter to relaunch UpOnly TV, Cobie resisted, stating that people just wanted the crazy bull market of 2021 in the crypto world to return, not that they actually wanted UpOnly TV to come back. When comments suggested that Cobie underestimated his industry influence, Cobie retorted:

“You claim I can create 2021 buzz by doing a crypto podcast that was one-tenth the size of The Moon Carl, Bitboy, or CryptoManRan at their peak. That’s simply not based in reality. The only way to create 2021 buzz is to fix market structure, not fix market commentary. Doing Echo right would be 100 times more impactful than doing a podcast for that purpose.”

Cobie then minted this NFT and listed it on OpenSea for 10,000 ETH. On October 7, Cobie changed the price to 5,000 ETH.

On October 10, the NFT was listed on Manifold by Cobie, with an asking price of 25 million $USDC.

On October 21, Coinbase actually spent that much money to buy this NFT, and at the same time spent $375 million to acquire Echo, Cobie's startup project that he believes is much more meaningful than podcasts.

On October 22, alon retweeted a tweet Cobie posted in 2015. Cobie's original tweet read, "In this sinful life, all I need is myself and my Pump team." alon's quote read, "That's what I'm doing now."

Since Cobie's return was a hot topic in the cryptocurrency circle, no one took Alon's tweet seriously at the time. After all, Alon is also a famous Twitter surfer.

On October 25, Chillhouse’s official Twitter account continued its usual crazy style, “Fuck your Jesse Pollak, I fuck your Base.”

Unexpectedly, this tweet actually triggered a backlash from Jesse. Cobie then joined the fray in the comments, saying, "What the hell? I'll teach you how to properly respond to this nonsense." Chillhouse continued his rant, "Cobie, you're a freak too." Cobie responded, "You little brat, you're in trouble once the Coinbase communications team approves my firing."

It's worth noting that this wasn't Jesse's first time hearing about Chillhouse. In fact, back in July, Chillhouse's daily spree had already blown Jesse's mind:

 Chillhouse: "Hey Jesse, give us 1 Bitcoin and we'll bridge to Base." Jesse: "Welcome you with open arms." As for the money? Hey, I won't give it to you.

Back to the present timeline. After exposing Jesse and Cobie, Chillhouse pressed their advantage:

Chillhouse: "Cobie, bring Jesse and I to UpOnly TV so we can resolve this civilly." Cobie: "OK, sounds good."

On October 26th, Chillhouse suddenly went crazy, saying, "I want to bridge to Base!"

A few hours after the tweet, Chillhouse called out Cobie again, saying, "Cobie's been so active in Chillhouse's Telegram chat." Cobie then shared a screenshot of a text message with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. Brian said he loved the "Chilled House" joke and suggested Cobie post, "What's under Chilled House? BASEment! Base belongs to everyone!" Cobie replied that he wouldn't, and Brian suggested asking Jesse.

Then a few minutes later Jesse actually posted:

On the evening of October 26th, Chillhouse made a news appearance on the pump.fun mobile app. The headline, "Chillhouse and Base Rug Again After Sleeping Together," was a rather abstract title, but the content recounted the interactions between the Chillhouse and Base camps.

The official Twitter account of pump.fun also tweeted, "Chillhouse, if you see this news, it's never too late to come back."

On October 27, Chillhouse went on a tantrum, posting, "Fuck your Toly, fuck your Mert (Helius CEO), fuck your Solana Foundation."

This sparked a discussion on Toly's post: "Reject modernization, return to Boden, Biden will make a comeback in 2028." Chillhouse replied, "What era are you living in, buddy?"

Then, Chillhouse released a video. The video was very funny. The plot was roughly that Chillhouse and Alon used to play together every day, and then Alon disappeared, and Jesse appeared and captured Chillhouse's heart. After that, Alon tried to get back together via text message, but Chillhouse was already with Jesse and Cobie.

Then alon appeared and immediately went all out, saying, "Fuck your Chillhouse." Chillhouse replied, "Missed out?", to which alon responded with an image that said, "I never want to play with you again."

At this point, the timeline is almost complete. It can be said that Chillhouse, single-handedly, brought together the forces of Base, Solana, and pump.fun to complete an incredible "all-star abstract show."

Just as the x402 protocol was gaining popularity, and everyone subconsciously assumed that Base would seize the opportunity to promote it, Base bosses unexpectedly interacted with the Solana meme coin. Coupled with Alon's tweets before the "All-Star Abstract Show," the entire timeline gave players room for imagination—how could such a coincidence happen?

Jesse's public purchase of a bag of Solana meme coins on October 26th further fueled this association. On that day, Jesse tweeted, "I love trenches and Trolls," and when someone asked him if he had any Solana meme coins $troll, Jesse replied, "Now I do," and included his Solana address.

According to on-chain data, Jesse purchased the following Solana meme coins: $chillhouse, $troll, $neet, $trencher, $house, $tokabu, and $chillguy.

So what are Jesse's real intentions? If we're not relying on speculation, judging solely by public tweets, Jesse's goal is to attract Solana's high-quality meme community and developers. Looking at the tweet below, you can see that while Chillhouse is acting out, Jesse has diligently shared the Base cross-chain bridge's Github page in the comments section:

Conclusion

Regardless of whether there is "big news" brewing from multiple parties, Chillhouse's influence has been significantly enhanced this time, and it has drawn attention back to Solana and the pump.fun meme coin.

This continuous crazy style makes Chillhouse's positioning increasingly clear - it is no longer the "stitched weird" positioning of the early days, but has found and established its own positioning as a "Web3 fun person" by persisting day after day, which is in line with the wildness and subculture style of Web3 meme.

Whenever something happens in Web3, people always think of Chillguy, the guy with the house on his head, and try to cue him and get him to come out and show some humor. Chillhouse's significance to Web3 has surpassed Chillguy itself—though it was born from a patchwork, it has become a signature, native meme within the community. It's not a simple IP transplant for hype, like Chillguy, but rather a symbol of the community's joy and emotions.

Although the Solana meme market no longer has the glory it had last year, the past six months have seen the emergence of meme coins that can compete with the great meme coins on ETH in terms of quality and positioning. This is Solana's progress - the community and culture have begun to form, and truly excellent meme coins should stand the test of time. A chain must first have meme coins that survive in the long term and prove their sustainability, and then players will truly feel a sense of belonging, and "P Junior" will gradually transform into a new batch of "Diamond Hands".

Although the excellent meme coins on Solana are still far from comparable to the star meme coins on ETH in terms of market capitalization, nor can they be compared with the old meme coins on Solana, and they have not even reached the heights of last year's hot spots, I have never felt that these new coins were "born at the wrong time."

Because truly excellent meme coins will create a new era of their own.