What would crypto be without rugs?
People + money = greed. The fancy calculations running the blockchain aren't gonna change that. Humans are the weakest link, forever and ever amen, this is why we have financial regulatory agencies.
But no, Jen, we don't need those here! We can govern ourselves and ferret out bad actors on our own! Trustless! Technology will save us! ThInK Of ThE CoMMuNItY!!!1111!!!11!!!!!1
Mmmmhmmm. I hear you. We try to self-govern and we absolutely suck at it. I say this with love. ā¤
This brings us to $NIPPY, which may or may not be an actual rug, but is also effectively rugged. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on both counts because I do have a small bag which abruptly went to zero yesterday when the team pulled all the funds out of the treasury, allegedly to move the project off of Base over to SOL.
On Twitter, the team cited low transaction volume on Base as the reason for this move. "This decision, backed by extensive consultation with market experts, is aimed at harnessing Solana's robust ecosystem. The transition promises greater scalability, increased trading volumes, and a more vibrant community engagement."
[ChatGPT has entered the room. Hi beep boop!]
I wonder if their extensive consultation with market experts was a quick read of this CoinDesk article published on May 13, 2024, discussing the sudden rally of memecoin transactions on Solana. Spoiler: if you're reading about it on CoinDesk you're too late to capitalize on the hype.
The team said a snapshot of holders was taken. Current $NIPPY holders should bridge their tokens to Solana, using a tool they will provide (but have not yet provided) by May 21. After that date, bridging will not be accepted. The launch price will be set at 0.00075, same as the last trading price on Base. People who bridged their tokens will be airdropped $NIPPY on SOL upon launch.
The team says after bridging, the team would be selling the received tokens to use the funds for SOL listing.
This last bit is a puzzlement, because they pulled the treasury already. Why would they also need to sell the tokens we're bridging?
On top of this, there is discussion in the Telegram group about trickling out the SOL airdrop to holders, 10% per day, to reduce selling pressure.
I may be a simple hugamonster but I have a feeling $NIPPY will bite us all in the ass.
And even if it doesn't, it already has.
Many moons ago, I wanted to play around with minting work on ALGO. One of my friends showed me the ropes and I minted and shared on Twitter and nothing happened except people liking my posts. When I learned the ALGO folks hung out in Discord and on Reddit, I took the time to get to know the community there, and only after doing that was I able to finally start selling art on ALGO.
The first rule of selling literally anything is: go where your people are and make friends with them before you pitch your *whatever*. If they reject you -- and they might! -- so be it. Either they don't like you or they don't like what you're doing and you pivot. But you do this AFTER you've tried the first part.
This is where $NIPPY, and so many other tokens launching on Base, are getting it very, very wrong.
$NIPPY doesn't have a presence on Farcaster. Their socials point to Twitter and Telegram. Sure, there's some overlap, but the majority of Base maxis are on Farcaster. If you're launching anything on Base, you need to be on Farcaster too.
To make matters worse, the team acknowledges on Twitter that in addition to not having a presence on Farcaster (which they refer to as Warpcast), someone has set up a $NIPPY impersonator account there.
A smart team would have been ahead of this and locked down relevant socials before launching.
A fundamentally flawed marketing strategy is what has done this project in - it's not a blockchain's fault the team didn't take the time to get to know the Base community in the spaces where those people hang out, it's the team's fault.
Will $NIPPY survive the move to Solana? I have low confidence. I'd love to see it regain its footing after this unforced error, because it's cute! Look:
This cat is freaking adorbs! The website is fun! And also I want my money back so I can run away from this project as fast as my stumpy lil hugamonster legs will take me!
But because I'm a hugamonster, I'm gonna lay out a path for $NIPPY to prove dead cats can bounce. Someone tell the team:
Demonstrate proof of not-actual-rug by following through with the bridging/airdrop of tokens. Ensure token holders are in a better position than they were in before you pulled the treasury. They don't get a token for token exchange - they get the value of their tokens plus some (lots) for having to deal with the financial hit they're taking because the team abruptly, without warning or discussion within the community, changed course.
If you move forward with the 10% per day airdrop, know that you will be preventing folks who initially supported your token from benefitting from any shiny new memecoin energy that might happen when this launches on SOL. This will keep them from turning your rug into a golden parachute that will take them far away from this mess.
Better to rip the bandage off, let the token value tank, and build back better, than to prolong the agony and have people hollering about how you're holding their bags hostage. Nobody wants to be yoked to a project that's done something like this. Letting people walk away means there's a chance they'll come back after you've rehabilitated the project, if you're able to do so.
And here's a little roadmap for Pepe on Base and Keyboard Cat on Base, two other projects who are also Twitter- and Telegram-forward:
Step 1. Get thee over to Farcaster, establish a presence, and get to know the community. Do this without shilling your token. Add value, make friends.
Step 2. Relaunch.
Pepe, there's still time to do this before the Onchain Summer you keep hyping, but not much.
As I write this I'm not sure there's an appetite in the Base community for a bunch of copypasta memecoins and the bots that follow them - we've got botsaplenty already.
Maybe it's for the best they all move to Solana and stay over there on Twitter, where this whole mess started.
Circling back to where we started, it's so easy to get sucked into memecoin hype. But more often than not, especially with the relentless firehose stream of tokens launching these days, by the time you hear about it it's already too late. Few tokens will have real staying power, setting aside the countless tokens being launched by bad actors profiting on the launch, rug, and run model.
How to avoid this?
This is financial advice: don't throw your crypto into memecoins unless you expect to get wrekt, because mostly you will, and when you don't it's a pleasant surprise. Everyone likes surprises!
Good luck $NIPPY I'm rooting for ya!
