Before I get into today’s piece, let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
Excuse me?! Jk, I understand, I really do. However, the reality is memecoins are now a dominant theme in the crypto/web3 zeitgeist and they should not be ignored nor dismissed.
Similar to how NFTs were silly digital collectibles to many and ignored at first in early 2021, it seems like we’re seeing something similar play out again where a certain vertical is being dismissed as X and eventually evolves into more than the box it was confined into.
My last piece about TRUMP
I wasn’t satisfied with my TRUMP piece I published last week as I was scatter-brained and sleep-deprived from the week’s hectic sequence of events and announcements. The overall summary of events that unfolded as Trump’s team launched TRUMP was fine, but the insights and ‘so what?’ (besides the fact that there are now a bajillion scam memecoins from hacked accounts) part of the piece were lacking.
One theme that did stick was a subtitle I wrote and the opening sentence for that section:
Driving attention with intention
If the legal gloves are off with memecoins, what could a person or entity do with it if they got more creative?
I knew I was on the right track, but I didn’t have a concrete example of a more ‘creative’ application. Fortunately, the leading example of this was under my nose the whole time and mentioned in that piece: VINE.
What is Vine? Who is Rus? What is VINE?
What’s Vine?
Vine is a social media app launched in 2013 that allowed content creators to record short videos up to 6 seconds long. Since TikTok wasn’t around yet, Vine was the platform for short-form video creators and the app flourished, with over 200 million monthly active users by late 2015.
Creators like Logan Paul, Lele Pons, King Bach, Shawn Mendes, David Dobrik, and others built their foundation on Vine before moving to other platforms and ventures.
Unfortunately for Vine, the app was shut down in January 2017, as its parent company Twitter went through a restructuring to become more profitable.
And that was that…until last week, 8 years later.
Who’s Rus?
Last week, Rus (Vine co-founder) launched the VINE memecoin, with video proof that this was the real deal.
Who’s Rus, someone whose last post before this one was on October 26, 2023?
After Rus left Twitter in late 2015 he launched an app studio, and created the viral game show app, HQ Trivia. Players had to answered a series of rapid-fire trivia questions, and winners got to split the prize pool at the end.
At its peak, the app had a record 2.38 million concurrent players. During HQ’s heyday, I was one of those players, rapidly tapping answers alongside colleagues. Good times 🥹
Why is this a brief background on Rus helpful context?
He gets consumer. He gets social. He gets virality (attention).
And what are memecoins?
They’re all the above, financialized, and on steroids.
So if someone like Rus is popping back on X launching a memecoin, chances are it’s not a scam and he likely has something up his sleeve. He doesn’t need to launch a memecoin to make a quick buck like your average anon 16 year old, and it certainly isn’t worth risking his reputation to do so.
So why launch a memecoin?
What’s VINE?
VINE is a memecoin and it is a unique one when we categorize it.
Taking a visual from a previous post on memecoins, VINE is cross between a ‘companycoin’ and a ‘culturecoin’.
Even when bucketed into those two categories, VINE is unique. It’s not a company coin in the way that we’ve known them. As the website states, it’s “the only official” Vine memecoin and it’s not a parody.
VINE is certainly a culture coin, but it’s one that is steeped in years of lore and history that no other culture coin currently has, thanks to all the content created on the platform.
Why is VINE interesting?
Unlike many memecoins, for VINE:
We know who the creator (or the ‘dev’) is: It’s Rus, cofounder of Vine
Rus is now active on X, posting daily making clear references to the memecoin, and even suggesting price targets (thankfully in a humorous way). I guess this kinda stuff is allowed now in this new era for memecoins?
X (which still owns Vine) team members are openly mentioning and asking questions about Vine. All this chatter from the X team suggests something bigger is happening behind the scenes, these aren’t degens shilling their bags.
Last week, big boss Musk even publicly mentioned that the team is looking into bringing back Vine
Thanks to the constant teasing, VINE currently sits at a whopping $261M market cap at the time of this writing. Not bad for a week-old memecoin!
Have you watching a viral video before? If so, share or subscribe!
Memecoins as a marketing channel
Is Vine coming back? Nothing’s for certain, but the facts are lining up. In addition to the public employee chatter about Vine, code sleuths have been digging into X’s front and backend in the search for more concrete clues about the Vine integration, and it seems like something is brewing.
On top of these recent code releases, a VINE waitlist opened up this morning, a sign that this isn’t your average memecoin.
With all this, I believe we’re seeing the first instance of a memecoin being used as a marketing channel by a major company.
Memecoins are typically focused on themselves, promoting the meme, character, message, or movement.
However, we’re seeing a memecoin that is part of a larger effort. VINE is part of the GTM plan to bring attention to Vine coming back and its integration into X.
Based on the rollout we’ve seen so far, my gut tells me this is closer to days or weeks than months. Rus has lived and breathed the social/consumer space so he understands how to leverage attention and virality, which at the end of the day is fleeting and has a short half-life.
The best marketing campaign of 2025 (so far?)
Why is VINE the best marketing campaign of 2025 so far?
Awareness at scale
Rus’ posts have yielded millions of views, and the token has over 137k onchain holders (not including those holding on centralized exchanges). Assuming it will come back, Vine has an army of evangelists with an aligned incentive to promote it.
Rus also joined a Spaces last week which peaked at 20k concurrent listeners (303k total listeners).
All the online chatter has led to traditional media outlets beginning to report on VINE and Vine’s potential comeback.
Creator acquisition and re-acquisition
Because of the nostalgia capital (yes, I made the term up, v appropriate though) that Vine has and the power shifts between the major social platforms (namely the TikTok ban that has been extended to April 5th), X has an opportunity to acquire creators who are realizing that they need to diversify the channels they’re on as an insurance policy.
Vine is a net new platform for them to be on, and Rus has laid out this opportunity while indirectly calling out TikTok:
Old Vine stars such as BatDad are hearing about the revival of Vine thanks to VINE
And let’s not forget about that 5% VINE that Rus purchased at launch, which is locked until 4/20 with a current valuation of $13 million 😱.
It’s possible that the 50 million tokens will be Rus’ to keep and eventually sell, but…wouldn’t it make more sense for the 5% supply to be converted into a creator incentive fund? After all, major social platforms like Instagram and TikTok have their own respective programs for creator acquisition and retention purposes.
VINE doesn’t have to be the only financial incentive video creators receive, and can be one of several tipping/payment options for X users. We’re already seeing this in action with Abstract’s (L2 blockchain) streaming platform.
Cost
It cost $0. Ok I lied, it cost ~$370, which was the price of 5% of the token supply that Rus purchased when VINE was created on pumpfun.
This was the kicker that made me realize there’s something special going on here. Memecoins can drive attention with intention and we have our first meaningful example from a company. Companies and brands would have to pay millions for this volume of attention, while the team at X working on Vine is getting this organically.
Memecoins as a marketing channel
Assuming it plays out the way holders are expecting, VINE may be the first tangible example of how memecoins could be leveraged as a marketing and acquisition channel from a company.
And is it a good idea for others? Just like NFTs, probably not. And just like the many companies and brands that launched NFT collections anyway, the vast majority will fail if attempted.
With the right conditions and approach, memecoins may become more than what we see them as today.
See you Thursday!
PS: I got some more Vector codes this week. Download the app and enter the invite code. If you don’t know what Vector is, I wrote about it here
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