Vitalik is Wrong, the Crypto Space Really Needs “Silly” Memecoins
If you’re a celebrity, joining the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is no longer in vogue. Memecoins are the current trend.
BAYC is arguably the most successful project, embraced by mainstream society. However, from BAYC’s floor price, it’s evident that BAYC is outdated.
Meanwhile, celebrity Memecoins have garnered cross-industry appeal, a trait most cryptocurrencies lack.
The Value of Memecoins
The notion that Memecoins lack utility is shortsighted. Memecoins are a crucial component of the blockchain, acting as placeholders for “real” economic activities that may eventually shift people from traditional financial portals to blockchain portals. To achieve this, these portals must be capable of handling transactions involving tens of thousands of people trading Memecoins with silly names simultaneously.
In this regard, even though some crypto enthusiasts are more sensitive to absurd and meaningless projects, their opposition to Memecoins might misunderstand the most active group in today’s crypto space.
Without pearl clutching, it’s hard to find flaws in this scenario.
So, it’s not scandalous for Iggy Azalea or Caitlyn Jenner to have their own Memecoins. At least, it’s not as cringe-worthy as Katy Perry’s CrYpTo ClAwS, or Kim Kardashian’s Instagram promotion of the SafeMoon clone EthereumMAX, or even Randi Zuckerberg’s WAGMI music video.
Compared to anything Jenner or Azalea’s teams have done, these stunts are more like saying, “Hey kids, how are you?”
Wealth Creation with Memecoins
Countless Memecoins have experienced spikes, crashes, and development stalls (classic “rug pull” trajectories), yet Caitlyn Jenner’s Ethereum Memecoin continues to surge.
Jenner launched on Ethereum a few days after debuting on Solana. On Solana, JENNER’s market cap soared over 1,000%, reaching over $30 million.
Reportedly, Jenner’s team was duped by a suspected serial Memecoin manipulator, and the Solana version of the token should never have been endorsed. This turned the rapidly devaluing Solana token into an unofficial, useless item.
To boost interest in the new token, Jenner promised a 3% transaction tax to Trump’s campaign team if the new Ethereum-based Jenner hits a market cap of $50 million (currently valued at $5.8 million, with the original token’s market cap at $3.6 million).
The Current State of Memecoins
Currently, tens of thousands of addresses hold celebrity Memecoins. However, it’s essential to clarify that these are not high-market-cap cryptocurrencies. Overall, the market cap of Memecoins, including Dogecoin and Floki, exceeds $52 billion but accounts for less than 5% of the crypto market (excluding Bitcoin).
Jenner’s two tokens, along with Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER and Andrew Tate’s endorsed DADDY, account for less than 1% of the entire Memecoin market.
Memecoins are often criticized by crypto enthusiasts, even Vitalik has issues with celebrity involvement in cryptocurrencies. Or rather, Memecoins make crypto seem immature and somewhat speculative, diverting attention and funding from more legitimate, technically advanced projects backed by venture capital.
For true believers, crypto means everything, from the largest value transfer in history to the solarpunk revolution and anarcho-capitalist coups.
But crypto also means nothing. It’s agnostic and chaotic, with technology giving it meaning.
The Future of Memecoins
While the warm, fuzzy community feeling generated by trading Memecoins with internet strangers isn’t rational, Memecoins do have technical utility: they stress-test blockchains in ways few other token categories have achieved.
Past NFT games like CryptoKitties demonstrated that Ethereum needs Layer 2 solutions to scale; Ordinals showed that nearly any EVM chain might crash due to a sudden surge in popularity, and Memecoin mania proved that Solana’s transaction routing indeed needs improvement.
Welcome to the celebrity crypto metaverse. These celebrities might not realize it, but their embrace of Memecoin issuance fun may actually be providing the right push for crypto, improving infrastructure in the long run.