Was KOTE the First Memecoin on TON?
Koté Community [🌐]
And why is this ticker more than just a ticker — but a piece of TON’s cultural code, its DNA?
That’s a question we had to ask ourselves, because the answer, obvious at first glance, turned out to be much deeper and more interesting than we expected.
It may seem that many TON degens already know the answer: the legendary and unmatched $BOLT is widely recognized as one of the earliest tokens on the chain and carries the title of the first memecoin in TON history.
So why, then, do your frens keep shilling $KOTE as the OG narrative of the first memecoin launched on TON?
Let’s start from the end.
The answer is actually pretty simple — and perhaps best illustrated by a quote from the original Kote project by Egor Zhgun:
“Why with cats?”
“Just because. Everyone loves kitties, it’s cool.”
It’s not just a random word.
“Kote” emerged from internet meme culture as a playful name for cats and became widely recognizable online.
And that choice says more than it might seem at first!
Tokens had already been launched on TON through custom smart contracts, with $BOLT recognized as the first of them.
And now, years later, $KOTÉ by Egor Zhgun has picked up where that story left off — carrying the old KOTE narrative into a new chapter.
The ticker may have changed slightly.
Today, it lives on as part of a new generation of TON culture — while carrying a piece of the chain’s early history, its language, its memes and its memecoin culture.
Sometimes a ticker is just a ticker.
And sometimes it becomes part of the Great Lore of Telegram and TON.