The strategic pivot of PING and PAYAI: from MEME narrative to infrastructure upgrade

Recently, the topics I've been repeatedly asked about are these two: what exactly are PING and PAYAI doing? One claims to be a Launchpad MEME coin, while the other is a practical tool coin for token migration and pool switching, which makes it seem like they are about to rug pull, leaving people truly baffled.

To be honest, no one has a grasp of the market under these conditions, but it's still worth discussing the logic that can be clarified.

The actions of these two are actually quite reasonable

A better market environment can make these measures completely beneficial. The biggest pain point of the MEME coin is the lack of continuous value empowerment, relying entirely on consensus and popularity; once the heat cools down, it can easily crash. While projects that operate at the tool layer are practical, the ceiling is indeed set there – the threshold is not high, and the space for imagination is limited. Both of these projects currently lack trustworthy “fundamental” support.

PING and PAYAI's recent actions are actually addressing the symptoms:

PING is going to do a Launchpad, which essentially means stripping away the pure MEME attributes to establish a positive ecological cycle. The token migration of PAYAI is an upgrade from a purely tool-oriented position to a protocol service layer — these are upgrades that can truly open up imaginative possibilities.

It can only be viewed logically, as the story is not yet finished.

The expected results have not yet materialized, and we can only see whether each logic holds.

It's not surprising that PING is doing a Launchpad. In a bear market, there's no emotion or consensus to maintain prices, and the x402 narrative ignited by PING is too easily dragged down by its pure MEME attributes; once the heat dissipates, it's gone. However, if it turns into a Launchpad platform token, it's different – it can empower itself by continuously pushing new projects and trying out one after another, ultimately connecting to a quality liquidity node. From this perspective, this strategic adjustment is indeed quite smart.

The token migration of PAYAI is more likely to cause misunderstandings; many people say that the project side has no chips left and is using migration to control the market. But if it were truly a conspiracy, wouldn't direct FUD be more effective? I tend to believe that the team has indeed realized the bottleneck of the tool properties and wants to upgrade to the protocol layer to provide continuous value support for the token—staking mechanisms, reward systems, ecological incentives, CEX lock-up, etc. are all possible. Looking at it over a longer period, this decision is not bad.

The market doesn't understand, it's a problem of thinking framework

Many people enter the x402 track with the mindset of speculating on MEME - the old trick of just grabbing a quick profit doesn't apply at all in this track. The growth logic of x402 is completely different from MEME, and there cannot be immediate results.

The PING Launchpad is just the starting point for the x402 asset issuance narrative, which may succeed or fail, but more Launchpad projects are still in the pipeline. Looking at the signals revealed by those proposals within the x402 ecosystem, the new batch of Launchpads is not simply issuing useless coins; tracks like GameFi and SocialFi with actual application scenarios can also participate in token issuance. This has progressed several levels beyond mere social gameplay.

The protocol layer upgrade of PAYAI is a bit more subtle. I heard that this team has quite an engineering mindset, but a team with this background actually has an advantage during bear markets—having enough time to prove themselves. In the niche segment of tool types, if operated properly, the value capture and business extension space can actually vary greatly. The team's new positioning is a signal that they are starting to continuously empower the tool ecosystem, which may ultimately change the tool attributes' ecological niche and the way value is reflected in the x402.