Modern game theory can teach us a lot about how trading memes is very much a net negative system 1. Zero-sum/Negative sum games where one participants gains comes at the expense of another's losses, in the trenches wealth is very much distributed and not created. Similar to the matching pennies game but more fluid and dynamic. Factoring in platform fees, gas costs, scams/rug pulls, and everything in between results in the negative sum portion. 2. Prisoner's dilemma teaches us traders can collectively win together if cooperating but it's human nature to defect for ones self interest (sometimes in fear of the other doing so before them) resulting in rapid sell offs triggering volatility and quick crashes in coins. Asymmetric information such as insider, planned dumps, market making and more teaches us unfair disadvantages that will always be there no matter what. 3. Herd behavior creates traders that follow trends, sometimes assuming another trader has better information than them (KOL tracking/copying is a great example) resulting in poorly judged decisions. This amplifies volatility as seen by the pumps of many candles by specific people and any amount sold thereafter whether big or small will cause a cascade of dumps because of borrowed conviction. 4. Speculative frenzy or as we understand it a 'bubble'. Especially with current climate of things people are very much focused on speculation rather than intrinsic value of a project (exceptions to this rule of course, HYPE is a great example but not many such cases and definitely not in the trenches). Extreme movements up and down and the more violent it goes up, the more violent the losses will be once the bubble pops. 5. Memes are very much a Schelling point to new users especially during bull markets. But usually this onboarding is also driven with the incentive of getting rich quick/greed. There's this fallacy of "if everyone just holds" or "if everyone just bought the runner" or "if people didn't pvp" we would be in a world where everyone can win but that's simply just not realistic. See Nash Equilibrium, and why such solutions is only temporary.