The "abnormal" actions of $PING and $PAYAI: Abandoning the project or breaking the deadlock?

The most frequently asked question these past two days: What on earth are $PING and $PAYAI doing?

If they’re not pumping the price, fine. But one MEME coin insists on launching a Launchpad, while another utility token suddenly wants to migrate and change pools—these moves look like exit scams. The market is full of speculation and anxiety.

Honestly, in this bear market, no one feels confident. But looking at it calmly, I actually think both projects’ moves make sense.

Why are these actions actually normal?

Think about it from another perspective: if the market was doing better, these moves would definitely be seen as bullish news.

What’s the biggest problem for MEME coins? Lack of sustainable value creation. They rely entirely on community consensus and emotional swings—once the hype dies, it’s a long, slow decline.

What about tech utility projects? Tools like Facilitator have a very obvious ceiling and not much of a technical moat. It’s hard to create an exciting narrative.

So right now, both projects face the same issue: a lack of fundamentals to support confidence.

And their recent moves are precisely aimed at fixing their respective weaknesses:

• $PING is adding a platform token attribute through Launchpad, trying to build a positive flywheel
• $PAYAI is upgrading from a tool layer to a protocol layer, expanding its potential

Both are trying to break out of their original limitations.

What’s the logic behind these moves?

Since we’re still at the blueprint stage, let’s focus on the underlying logic.

First, $PING’s Launchpad plan.

Honestly, it’s not surprising at all. In a bear market without emotional support, relying solely on the x402 MEME narrative is likely to fizzle out. But if it pivots to a Launchpad platform token? That’s a whole new story.

They can keep incubating projects—if the first one fails, there’s a second, then a third, constantly experimenting. As long as they catch a good liquidity window, there’s a chance to transform. From this angle, this strategic adjustment is quite smart.

Now, $PAYAI’s token migration.

This move is definitely prone to conspiracy theories. Many suspect the team ran out of tokens and wants to regain control through migration.

But think about it—if they just wanted to stir things up, wouldn’t direct FUD be more effective? I’m more inclined to believe the team realized the ceiling of Facilitator as a tool and wants to upgrade to a protocol layer to keep the token valuable—staking mechanisms, reward systems, ecosystem incentives, CEX lockups, and so on. Over a longer time frame, this direction makes sense.

Why isn’t the market buying it?

Ultimately, it’s a mindset issue.

Most people entered the x402 space with a short-term MEME trading mentality. Used to quick in-and-out plays, grab a pump and leave. But the growth logic for x402 is totally different. It’s not a pure MEME narrative, and you won’t see instant results.

$PING’s Launchpad is just the beginning of the x402 asset issuance narrative. It might succeed or crash, but more Launchpads are brewing. Look at the ideas popping up in the c402 Market—a new wave of Launchpads won’t just be useless airdrop tokens; Gamefi, Socialfi, and other practical scenarios can be integrated. This is a huge leap beyond simple chat mining.

$PAYAI’s protocol layer upgrade is even more nuanced.

Word is, the team has a classic engineering mindset. In a bear market, that might actually be a good thing—they have enough time to polish the product and prove their capabilities.

Facilitator as a sector has huge potential for value capture and commercial expansion. The team’s new positioning is about continuously empowering Facilitator, ultimately changing its value in the x402 ecosystem.

Bottom line, both projects are trying to break through their bottlenecks. Success isn’t guaranteed, but at least they’re headed in the right direction. In this bear market, seeing teams seriously consider long-term development instead of just one pump and dump is already rare.