The Memecoin starter, unit by unit

Never bought a coin and not sure where to begin? This page explains the Memecoin starter, seven short units that teach memecoins in a set order. After reading it, you can open the starter, say what each unit teaches and why, and know what happens when you finish.

What is the Memecoin starter?

The Memecoin starter is seven units from the Crypto road, set in a teaching order for people who have never bought a coin. The road is a course's path of lessons: sections hold units, and units hold levels, the short lessons you play.

Easy to mix up: the starter and the road. The starter is not a separate course: its units are the road's own, so a level done here is done on the road too.

What is a memecoin? Until your first unit is done, the computer's starter card answers in three lines:

• A memecoin is a crypto asset tied to a meme, character or cultural theme.
• Most trade on Solana, a network that runs on its own coin, SOL.
• A familiar picture and a busy community prove nothing about the coin.

Memecoins are attention markets: money goes where attention flows. But a view is not a trade: people looking at a coin are not buying it, as the first unit shows.

Its 58 levels come from Sections 1, 19 and 21 of the road.

Why this order? Units 1 and 2 teach what a price is and what a trade really got, so you can try practice trades early. Units 3 to 5 follow a coin's life: how it launches, how it can fall and who buys when you sell. Unit 6 keeps your own wallet safe, and unit 7 gathers the earlier ideas into one written check.

How do you open it?

Open trenches.academy/learn?starter=memecoins on a computer, or trenches.academy/app?starter=memecoins in a phone's browser.

• New, on a computer: the link asks no questions and opens the first starter level. Without an account you can finish one level. The next asks you to make a free account, and your progress comes with you.
• New, on a phone: the Bull, the Academy mascot, says "Let's make your free profile. Your first memecoin lesson is next!" After your profile, the first starter level's start card opens on the road. Tap START.
• Already learning on Trenches: the link adds the starter to your road, and nothing you have finished changes. On a computer, your next starter level opens at once.

On a computer, the starter card sits on the right of the Learn page. It shows "Memecoin starter, 1 of 7", the unit's title, a check mark per unit and the next level. A slim row pinned above the road shows the same count and next level, and both have a Continue button.

On a phone, a slim line under the road's header reads "Memecoin starter, 1 of 7". Its Continue button opens the next level's start card.

Each unit's levels open in order, and Continue always takes you to the first unfinished one, in starter order.

Does the starter use energy?

Energy is what answering costs: on the website you get 30 a day, and answering a new question normally uses 1. In the starter's seven units, answers use none. A hint still uses 1 the first time you open it.

Levels still pay paper cash, the app's practice money. How lessons work: the road, energy and paper cash has the rest.

Units 1 to 3: a price, a trade, a launch

1. Why a coin has a price at all. The price you see is what the last trade paid, not a promise of the next one. A bid is a live offer to buy; an ask, a live offer to sell. Market cap, the price times the coins in circulation, is an estimate, not a pile of cash. When few coins are offered near the price, the market is thin, and a big order can fill at worse prices.

Start with Finished trades and live offers. Why a coin has a price, and why thin coins slip goes further.

2. Read a practice trade. The quote estimates what your order would get, and the fill is what it actually got. Price impact is the move your own order causes. The app's fee is 1 percent on memecoins and 0.25 percent on major coins such as Bitcoin. Selling a memecoin pays the fee and impact again, so a sale pays less than the value on screen.

Start with A paper trade uses real prices and virtual cash.

3. Launchpads and creator fees. A launchpad is a service where anyone can launch a coin, and it stands behind none of them. Anyone can copy a name and picture, so a coin's identity is its mint address, its own address on Solana. A creator address shows which account launched the coin, not who runs it. A fee schedule says who gets a share of each trade's fee.

Start with Three parties in a launch. How a coin is made: the curve, graduation and the pool goes further.

Units 4 to 7: a collapse, an exit, a wallet, a check

4. Different mechanisms behind a token collapse. Token is the app's other word for coin: the unit asks why one crashes. The same falling chart can come from a pulled pool, one big sale, new supply (more coins created) or many small sales. A chart shows prices, not the process behind them, so the unit teaches you to read the history behind each fall.

A pool is a pot of a coin and SOL that a program swaps between. Pulling it takes out a large share of both.

Start with Same chart, four stories. Spotting scams and low-quality tokens goes further.

5. Who buys your exit. Your exit is your sale, and a sale needs a buyer right now. For a coin in a pool, what pays you is the pool's SOL. Past volume (what already traded), a holder count and market cap are not buyers, and other sellers draw on the same SOL.

Say your coins are worth 30 SOL at the last price, and the pool holds 60 SOL. As the unit works out, selling them all gets 20 SOL before fees, a third less, because each coin you sell lowers the price for the next.

Start with A sale needs a buyer now. Sizing and risk on thin coins: who buys your exit goes further.

6. Recovery information stays private. A wallet is the app you use to see your coins and send payments. Its recovery information, most often a seed phrase of 12 to 24 words in a fixed order, recreates its keys: the secrets that approve those payments. Whoever reads it can control your funds, so nobody else ever needs it: not a support agent, not a game, not a rescue offer. Practice on Trenches needs no wallet.

Start with Recovery information restores control. Wallets, keys and the seed phrase goes further.

7. Run a complete preflight check. A preflight is a written list of a coin's key facts, each with where you found it, made before any decision. Its six lines:

• Asset: which coin.
• Venue: where it trades.
• Control: who can change the coin, such as create more of it.
• Supply: who holds how much.
• Depth: how deep its pool is.
• Unknowns: what your sources do not show.

The tenth of its ten levels completes the preflight card. On the road this unit is Unit 1 of Section 21, so that level is called Unit 1 review. The card lists facts and does not decide. Your own rule, written beforehand, decides which facts mean a trade or no trade, and waiting is a valid choice.

Start with What a preflight is. Reading token stats: holders, volume, age and depth explains the numbers on its lines.

What happens when you finish?

When the last of the seven units is done:

• The card reads "All seven units done" with a "Go to the road" button, and the row above the road says "Token powers is open." On a phone, the starter line goes away.
• On a computer, the finish shows "Memecoin starter complete" and "You can read a launch, check a coin and size an exit. Keep practicing on paper." Its "Practice on the board" button opens the Trenches board.
• Token powers opens early: Section 20 of the Crypto road, Inspect token powers, distribution and evidence. Its first unit opens at once, and the rest open in order. Most lessons named in the Trenches board's hover notes sit there.

The card's own advice: "After these seven units the sections on the road get harder. Take them in order." From here, the road's next step is the first level you have not done, from Section 1 on.