The New Consensus of Young People: Labubu, CS Game Skins, and memes

"You might not believe it, but it's because I like Labubu that I became the sales champion of the store this month," said Jiani, a salesperson for a luxury handbag brand and a passionate enthusiast of trendy toys. In an interview, she openly shared her sales secret:

"Instead of complimenting how nice their bags look, you should praise the Labubu effect hanging on their bags; the customers will feel that you understand them well."

This is the sixth year of collaboration between Labubu and Pop Mart. As early as around 2020, it had already stirred up a craze in the Chinese market. However, what truly made this trendy toy explode internationally was a series of street photos last year featuring BLACKPINK member Lisa showcasing it on luxury handbags.

As a result, more and more top-tier stars have started showing off their Labubu. Five years later, this IP has swept through the fashion circles of Southeast Asia and Europe and America, even making it to the cover of foreign fashion media: "The most popular bag accessory in 2025 is LABUBU?"

Global fashion icon Rihanna hung a pink Labubu on her Louis Vuitton tote bag at the airport; pop music award collector and new generation international fashion darling Dua Lipa showcased two Labubu on her orange handbag on Instagram, becoming a trending topic; Lisa's name is well-known among young people in China, and this top K-pop group member often features a wall full of Labubu collections in her Instagram Story, making her a true wild brand ambassador for Labubu.

For ordinary people, it's okay not to be able to afford Hermes. With less than 200 yuan, you can get a celebrity's style with Labubu and even participate in the social Consensus of the top fashion circle.

If you're lucky enough to draw a hidden version with less than a 1% probability, the price can soar by more than ten times; even if you draw a regular version, hanging it on your bag, posting it on your social media, or showing it on Xiaohongshu can still provide emotional value and social validation.

"There are actually many tricks to buying different hidden styles. Is the shaking sound rustling? Does it feel a bit harder on the side? There are also subtle differences in weight." Jiani relies on her ability to identify hidden styles, allowing her to secure them for her clients when everyone else is unable to purchase or draw them.

In fact, this is not Labubu's first moment in the spotlight. Around 2020, Labubu had its first breakout moment. The blind box culture quickly swept through Generation Z, satisfying personal expression and sparking a game around "scarcity." The joy of pulling a hidden item is like hitting the jackpot. In the secondary market, certain Labubu items have skyrocketed from hundreds to thousands of yuan, and unboxing videos featuring "pulling hidden items" have become phenomenal content on social media platforms.

In a sense, Labubu is no longer a toy, but rather a financial product that can be priced, speculated on, and circulated.

Coincidentally, around 2020, during the first wave of popularity for Labubu, another financial product with a trendy cultural IP was also exceptionally hot in a more virtual space------NFT, which might be very familiar to friends in the coin circle.

The climax of NFTs came during an auction on March 11, 2021, when the NFT work of renowned artist Beeple was sold, with the price freezing at 69.34 million dollars in the last second. This NFT work became the 53rd most expensive artwork in the world, and Beeple entered the top three in the ranking of living artists by the value of their works.

The internet has also provided a perfect assist for NFTs. It is no coincidence that the two largest social platforms on this planet are simultaneously focusing on augmented reality and virtual reality ( AR/VR ). They envision the future internet as the Metaverse (, a world where the virtual and reality can seamlessly connect. The term NFT has been discussed multiple times in the context of the Metaverse, perfectly fitting as NFTs represent ownership within the Metaverse.

In just a few months, the term "NFT" has landed all over the world.

The American rapper Soulja Boy, who has 5 million followers on Twitter, released his own NFT; Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA championship team Dallas Mavericks, issued an NFT; a dunk by superstar LeBron James was made into an NFT and sold for 250,000 dollars; top football clubs like Barcelona and AC Milan also have their own NFTs.

In that round of NFT frenzy, the most representative IP is undoubtedly BAYC) Bored Ape(.

This avatar-type NFT project launched by Yuga Labs went live in the spring of 2021, initially priced at only 0.08 ETH), equivalent to about 200 USD(, and sold out within 24 hours. It then quickly became popular as a social avatar.

Jimmy Fallon showcased his ape on his talk show, calling it "the identity symbol of the next era"; Snoop Dogg and Eminem performed together at the MTV awards ceremony with BAYC imagery; Justin Bieber spent $1.3 million to acquire a rare ape; top stars like Curry and Neymar are boosting its popularity; artists like Jay Chou and JJ Lin have also displayed their BAYC avatars; the traditional finance sector has caught this trend as well: Cai Wensheng, chairman of Meitu, a Hong Kong-listed company, and Zhu Xiaohu, a partner at GSR Ventures, are both holders.

A small image can highlight identity tags and "social assets".

![The new consensus of young people: Labubu, CSGO and meme coins])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-83fcffd33ce1db0b9758c5c8a9e7190e.webp(

On the trading level, BAYC has created the pinnacle paradigm of NFT assetization: at the peak period, a single one sold for as high as 400,000 USD ), equivalent to about 150 ETH (, with the floor price breaking 100 ETH, and the total trading volume across the network exceeding 1.5 billion USD.

NFT and Pop Mart are actually doing the same thing: using a seemingly toy-like medium to stimulate the desire to participate, express, and feel a sense of belonging within a certain community.

The process of their "financial productization" is remarkably similar: both have significant avatar/image recognition; both emphasize scarcity: rare editions, limited editions; both are tied to celebrity effects, triggering explosive popularity; both have formed a market structure that goes from "original price entry" to "secondary speculation."

Labubu is a tangible NFT, and NFT is a more virtual Labubu.

However, after all, there is only one Wang Ning, and the NFT circle is still not wide enough for the public. Starting from 2022, Labubu and the fate of NFTs gradually diverged.

In the second year after BAYC reached its peak, the entire crypto market entered a downward cycle, and the myth of NFTs began to gradually cool down. BAYC, once the leader in NFT growth, has now become a leader in decline—its floor price has dropped from 150 ETH to below 20 ETH, now only 13 ETH, equivalent to one-tenth of its peak value. Holders have gradually "dropped their avatars," and the once bustling community has gradually quieted down. What was once an "entry card" to the crypto world is now being mocked as a "ceiling trap indicator on-chain," with all suffering at least a loss of 300,000 USD.

However, Labubu's fire is burning brighter and brighter, firmly sitting at the top of the trendy toys list.

"The audience of Labubu surprisingly overlaps a lot with those who buy luxury bags," said Jiani. "Some customers were just browsing casually, but as soon as I see Labubu on their bags, the conversation flows and the distance fades away. We can chat for a long time, and in the end, the customers happily buy the bags."

However, Jiani revealed that there are indeed girls who want to find a more suitable "carrier" for their beloved Labubu. They walk into a luxury goods store for the first time and buy their first designer bag. With the Labubu IP, Pop Mart, in its 15th year, has surprisingly begun to reverse the sales logic of luxury goods.

![The new consensus of young people: Labubu, CSGO and memes])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-f4bf918ecdcab919f687efef3b3e6a6c.webp(

Even in the capital market, there has been a rather magical moment: the stock price of Bubble Mart has surged impressively, with its candlestick chart in recent years resembling that of Bitcoin, which grew 20 times in 2017, almost identically. Its market value even once surpassed that of luxury giant Gucci's parent company.

Looking back, the Hong Kong artist Long Jiasheng, who created the Labubu character 10 years ago, probably could not have imagined that this somewhat "weird" and furry sprite would now logically become the most profitable IP for Pop Mart, completely surpassing the veteran IP MOLLY and becoming the undisputed center stage.

The Labubu limited edition originally priced at 599 yuan can now be traded at 14,000 yuan in the secondary market, with an increase of over 20 times; the trendy sneaker collaboration with Vans has a transaction price of 2,000-3,000 USD in overseas markets, rivaling limited edition Yeezys; specific limited series ) such as "Big Into Energy" or the collaboration with Pronounce "Wings of Fortune" ( have seen prices soar due to aggressive design + regional investment limits ) such as those in Thailand and Singapore, where the exclusivity drives prices even higher.

We witnessed a generation redefine "ownership" through the lens of two parallel universes.

In addition to "on-chain avatars" and "offline dolls", there is a more hidden, more permanent, and more actively traded "Consensus asset market" ------ game skins in the larger virtual space.

Although CSGO has been remade and renamed to CS2, it has existed for more than 10 years before this, so when discussing the skins of this game, people still tend to casually use the name CSGO.

Half a month ago, the CS items market experienced a "collapse". According to a certain CS items sector index data, after about six months of a prolonged bull market, the CS items market fell by 30% within a week from its historical peak, which is roughly equivalent to a "312" crash in the coin circle.

According to a certain report, by the end of April this year, the total market value of CS items exceeded 4.5 billion USD. According to some data, in the first four months of 2025, over 113 million item cases were opened in the CS game. If we calculate based on each item case key costing 2.49 USD, players contributed nearly 300 million USD in revenue to the game developers just in the first four months of 2025 due to opening CS items.

Like Pop Mart, the CS accessory market also took ten years to enter the public eye.

"When CSGO was first launched, there were no in-game items or market mechanisms for items, and it can be said that skins saved this game." Cookie, who is both an NFT and an old player of CSGO, said: "Although this sounds a bit like hindsight, many people who don’t play CSGO now know about this game because of the skyrocketing of items, so this game, which started to become popular in the internet café era, is still thriving today."

In August 2013, CSGO first introduced the skin mechanism, and a certain platform also supported the trading of CSGO skins. During the later period when NFTs became extremely popular, the CSGO skin market also gained attention and was highly sought after due to its similarities with NFTs. However, looking back at the design of the skin mechanism at that time, one can't help but admire that game developers, in a sense, are the pioneers of rarity design.

The items in CS are distinguished by rarity levels, and the randomness of wear and pattern templates leads to certain items being able to sell at the highest prices in the market, even if their probability of acquisition is not the highest rarity level.

"Wear level does not refer to the player's skin being worn down with use in the game, but rather the integrity or glossiness of the item skin." Cookie explains.