The Niulai meme token on BNB Smart Chain rose in step with the sudden online breakout of the Chinese film of the same name, according to a PANews reconstruction that places Web2 attention and on-chain pricing on the same timeline. Before Aug. 14, the movie had been in theaters for nine days and had brought in only 7,169 yuan in cumulative box office. By midday on Aug. 19, total box office had topped 24.3 million yuan. Over that stretch, the token climbed from a market value in the tens of thousands of dollars to above $50 million, setting a fresh all-time high before retreating.
PANews frames the move as a five-stage life cycle: deployment, ignition, viral spread, nationwide discussion, and amplification through Binance Alpha. Drawing on gmgn data, the report says well-known KOLs were relatively scarce among the earliest buyers, with heavier participation arriving after the attention wave had already started to build.
Five stages and the main market-cap markers
PANews lays out the timeline this way:
- Stage 1: Deployment, from Aug. 13 to Aug. 14, with migration at roughly $45,000 in market value.
- Stage 2: Ignition, from Aug. 14 to Aug. 15, when market cap first reached $500,000.
- Stage 3: Viral spread, from Aug. 15 to Aug. 16, carrying the token to $25 million.
- Stage 4: Nationwide discussion, from Aug. 16 to Aug. 18, with a peak near $50 million.
- Stage 5: Alpha amplification on Aug. 18, when the token broke above the $50 million ATH level and then pulled back.
The report argues that the token’s path cannot be understood by looking at price alone. In its reading, Web2 created the attention shock, while the chain translated that attention into tradable value.
Stage 1: contract deployment before the movie broke out
The token’s main address, 0xbeea...7777, was created on Flap at 11:59 on Aug. 13. Migration was completed at 16:07 on Aug. 14, with market value around $45,100. At that point, the film was still an obscure theatrical release with less than 10,000 yuan in box office, and no identified KOL had entered on-chain. The report says the focus at that stage was on identifying the main wallet, the developer, and linked addresses.
The movie opened on Aug. 5. On its first day, it had 245 screenings and 3,420 yuan in ticket sales. By day nine, cumulative box office was only 7,169 yuan, total attendance was 236, and scheduled screenings had fallen to single digits. Public attention was centered on the contrast between the ink-painting poster style and the actual image quality of the film, but that had not yet turned into wide distribution online.
PANews notes that the meme contract appeared before the related topic became a major trend on the Chinese internet.
Stage 2: trending topics bring in the first wave of buyers
The second stage began when discussion of the film accelerated across Chinese social platforms. PANews says the phrase tied to the film’s box office, roughly rendered as a joke that even 7,352 yuan did not make it into the “ten-thousand” range, rose onto social media trending lists. State-backed media then increased exposure, and clips featuring rough visuals and repeated lines such as “mama” spread quickly.
On-chain action followed. At 00:15 on Aug. 15, Niulai first crossed $500,000 in market cap. PANews says Dream Traveler yz entered at around a $450,000 valuation. A tagged wallet built the position first, and about 14 minutes later the account posted an analysis discussing the film’s low box office, high discussion volume, catchy lines, and a title that could be financialized.
The report traces the spark to a complaint video posted on Aug. 14 that pushed the film’s crude modeling and visual flaws beyond the circle of actual moviegoers. It says nearly 40 Weibo trending topics related to the film appeared that day. The Beijing News summarized the first wave of distribution as a release of viewer dissatisfaction with low production quality, while The Paper used the headline that the movie had effectively been “issued” by internet users.
As official media coverage lifted exposure, short-form platforms including Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and WeChat Channels repeatedly circulated clips of the calf shouting “mama” in a rough voice, the mother cow repeating “niulai,” the calf stumbling, and duplicated cattle scenes. Screen recordings, mockery captions, and memes started looping across platforms.
Stage 3: box office and token price rise together
On Aug. 15, PANews says viewers began buying tickets just to see how absurd the film looked in person. Single-day box office rose to 484,000 yuan, while screenings increased from 21 to 359. Cinemas then became part of the distribution machine. In Guangzhou, one theater manager opened the session wearing a cow mascot suit. In Hangzhou, staff dressed as matadors and led viewers in calling out “niulai.” Reactions inside theaters, including group mockery, laughter, and applause after screenings, were recorded and posted back online.
Seat maps on ticketing apps became another form of user-generated content. Because the word “niu,” or bull, naturally overlaps with the language of rising markets, some A-share investors bought tickets and arranged seat selections into the Chinese character for bull, upward K-line charts, and support patterns, then reposted screenshots to Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and short-video platforms. Each increase in screenings, each box-office milestone, and each in-theater gimmick became new distribution material.
On-chain, the token cleared two levels in the same phase. It first moved above $5 million at 19:00 on Aug. 15, then crossed $20 million at 03:15 on Aug. 16. Based on identified wallets, PANews says the principal committed by smart money rose along with the valuation: early entries were often only a few hundred dollars, while positions taken in the $5 million to $20 million range grew to several thousand dollars and, in some cases, tens of thousands.
Stage 4: price starts creating attention of its own
By Aug. 17 and Aug. 18, PANews says the direction of influence had started to flip. At first, outside events were driving token demand. Later, screenshots of gains, ranking tables, and turnover began generating their own round of attention.
Aug. 17 was the first A-share trading day after the movie went viral. Luo Niu Shan hit limit up. Jinniu Chemical at one point touched its upper price limit. Tongniu Information rose about 8% intraday at one stage, and Gongniu Group was up more than 2%. On the Tonghuashun popularity rankings, Jinniu Chemical ranked first, while Gongniu Group and Tongniu Information were both in the top five. PANews adds that these companies have no business connection to the film itself, and that the market was trading only the “bull” element in their names.
By midday on Aug. 18, the film’s cumulative box office had exceeded 18 million yuan and entered the top 10 list for Chinese domestic animated film box office in 2026. At the same time, large commercial brands began copying the wording pattern. Tmall Supermarket turned it into “Milai,” Mixue Bingcheng used “Xuelai,” and Miniso used “Minglai.” In PANews’ telling, “Niulai” was no longer just a film title. It had become a template that could be remixed by swapping the first character.
On-chain, this was not a straight-line climb. PANews says weekend talk that Chinese cinemas would fully ban the film briefly pushed the token’s market cap down from about $29 million to around $10 million before a V-shaped recovery followed. Twenty-four-hour trading volume at one point reached about $37.6 million. By Aug. 17 to Aug. 18, with normal screenings continuing and discussion still running, the intraday high had approached $50 million.
The report summarizes the loop as follows: outside event, buying in the main pool, confirmation by KOLs and price, screenshots of profits and gains, new attention, then a return flow into the main pool.
Stage 5: Binance Alpha access coincides with the ATH and visible selling
On the afternoon of Aug. 18, Niulai was added to the display and trading entry point of Binance Alpha. PANews presents that as a key catalyst because it widened accessibility through a centralized platform interface.
The token then moved above $50 million in short-term market value and set a new ATH. By around 17:50, however, the market value implied by the main liquidity pool had already fallen back to about $37.3 million. PANews also says the top profit-taking address, Qwerty @Quanterty, sold repeatedly during the push higher while still keeping more than half of its position.
The article says the on-chain behavior of that top-ranked address can be reconstructed through three sets of figures, but the numerical breakdown is not included in the input provided here. Even so, PANews uses the combination of Binance Alpha inclusion, a fresh ATH, and synchronized selling by the leading profit address to mark a shift: the Niulai meme had moved out of the pure attention-expansion phase and into a high-turnover period at elevated levels.
How the Web2 and on-chain timelines were stacked
The broader point of the PANews review is not simply that a movie became a meme coin, or that a token rallied with a viral topic. Its argument is that the full sequence only becomes visible when both timelines are read together: an obscure film turned into a fast-moving internet topic, while the same-name meme token on BNB Smart Chain moved through deployment, ignition, circulation, and centralized-platform amplification.
In PANews’ account, early participation by prominent KOLs was limited, and much of the aggressive positioning happened only after the topic had already broken out. As short-video clips, social media trends, official media reports, in-cinema participation, A-share name trading, brand parodies, and Binance Alpha access lined up one after another, the token eventually broke above the $50 million market-cap level on Aug. 18 before pulling back.