Meme Money

Nothing written is financial or even general life advice. These essays are for entertainment purposes only --- Godspeed.

Additional Disclosure: I own some, but not all, of the coins mentioned in this essay. In no way is this endorsement or financial suggestion that one should purchase them.

the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence

Speculation is deeply integrated in the human experience. Mindshare for the term has fallen largely on notions of degeneracy, gambling, and addiction however.

Without overextending the idea, speculation in this context could be rebranded as:

• prediction

• intuition

• imagination

• thinking

Outside of investing, speculation covers who you choose to mate with, where you work, the home you raise a family in.. down to the art you make, beverage you drink at lunch, and shows you decide to watch at night.

a picture is worth a thousand words. A meme is worth 10,000 pictures ~ Balaji

Look at what happens when we add speculative-tickers to something “worth 10,000 pictures.” We get $DOGE reaching an $85B market capitalization. For further context, this put $DOGE in the top 100 most valuable companies on the planet.

This, along with $SHIB reaching a $40B mcap, is largely written off by the world. But I’m starting to feel that reaching top 100 mindshare, with zero product, utility, services, etc is not elementary or a fluke.

If we speculate on research/thoughts (words), film/tv/sports (pictures), and ownership-stock (memes), maybe these coins start making more sense than they logically should.

Another term marred by grifters, tokenomics simply means ‘fiscal design’.

The Ethereum Name Service ($ENS) token is designed differently than the Ethereum token ($ETH). Not only are supply, allocation, vesting, burn, inflationary v deflationary, staking, etc part of tokenomic design; the core philosophies of these tokens differ.

A brief overview of different tokenomics:

Recently there are two new memecoins with unique philosophies underpinning them.

A coin created and led by an independent artist named Bosch. It’s being used to engage with the artist’s personal art ecosystem.

Recently he auctioned off physical merchandise for the currency (13,000 $SWAG as the winning bid). He also gave preferential utility in his Little Swag World nft drop.

Holders were given:

• allowlist privileges

• one free mint

• reduced price on public sale

If you remember $BLOOT, Beanie’s infamous pasta should resurface. Ironically enough, we are seeing ‘history rhyme’ with $SWAG (not the rug part).

A memecoin open to public speculation, while simultaneously showing signs of tight integration with a creative’s discography.

The first ‘successful’ memecoin launched by Farcaster natives. Success here means currently avoiding the archetypal pump and dump chart. ↓

$DEGEN could be conceptualized as a community coin (like $BONK). It exists solely because of Farcaster users. It has a community-oriented tokenomic’s structure (see more). And it is using the points meta for people to earn it rather than purchase it.

Additionally, it has chosen Base’s L2 for deployment - a separate experiment with cheaper gas fees and fragmented liquidity outside of Mainnet.

This essay is not a soft shill in buying a particular token. Nor is it an endorsement in the soundness of any potential investments (most will go to zero).

Instead, it’s a bubbling curiosity in my observations of memecoins:

• evolving

• reaching deeper attention pockets (see Franklin Templeton tweeting about memecoins)

• retaining liquidity

• and possibly being the most battle tested utility in crypto

It’s common place to say “memecoins are a feature not a bug” in crypto. I’m wondering if there are ‘software updates’ on the horizon that turn them into something more.

Seeing these coins experiment with their philosophies, tokenomics, get meme’d relentlessly, sky rocket to billions of dollars, etc leaves me wondering what we may be missing here.

What is **meme money **if Jacob is correct - that crypto unbundled traditional currency?