MMFA: Make Memecoins Fun Again
I know, I know. Web3 with TPan is on its Memecoins with TPan arc at the moment. I promise, it’s for good reason!
Since the launch of the TRUMP memecoin, the topic has taken the spotlight and mindshare (mine included) of many other products, use cases, and stories that deserve attention as well.
Although I’ve been highlighting interesting use cases that will continue to evolve, at this rate it’s getting to be too much with 50k+ new tokens graduating from the pump.fun daily.

And the meme above is not an exaggeration. Today, Enron (yes…that one) launched a token that ran to almost a $700M market cap and now sits at a $170M market cap 8 hours later.
A couple weeks ago I caught wind of Yapster, a live competitive mobile app that focuses on taste and curation rather than the memecoins themselves.
Yapster was created by Salvino Armati and the Renegades team, who previously created Scoops, a SocialFi mobile app game with some similarities to Fantasy Top.
The team realized that memecoin launches aren’t as fair as they could be, and built Yapster to address the issues with a different and refreshing approach.

How does Yapster work?
Every day, there is a live competition in the app. The game lasts ~10 minutes.
Players purchase a ticket for 0.25 SOL (~$50, may be subject to change) and submit a meme
Each game has 5 rounds
Players are split into different brackets and allocate 1,000 points to the best memes determined by the total points allocated from the players in that bracket
Players who allocate points to the winning memes more quickly earn more points
The lowest-scoring players and memes are eliminated at the end of each round
After the final round, players vote on whether to launch the winning meme as a token
If the vote passes, the SOL prize pool becomes liquidity for the memecoin launch and the token supply is distributed to players and creators based on in-game performance
If the vote fails, the SOL prize pools is distributed to the top players and creators based on their in-game performance
The app is currently invite only (shoutout Serdar for the invite!), and invites are currently closed
The team has put the app in testing mode to squash bugs, so tickets are free to purchase or are refunded
As an example of what the end game for Yapster looks like, from left to right we see the results of today’s game:
The top meme of game, $GRAMMY. The meme is based on Beeple’s latest Everyday, ‘YE BACK ON THE TIMELINE’. I won’t go into detail as to why Beeple made an Everyday of this, I’ll let you do your own research 😂
The top bettors who bet early on the winning memes from all the rounds in the game
The top meme creators. These players created the memes that were voted on the most.
Me winning a measly $0.42 for scoring 38th on the leaderboard. Not bad out of 200 I guess?

The first game was on January 19th and the winning meme YAPSTER graduated with a current market cap of ~$15M. In a way, it has become the unofficial token for the app.
Because YAPSTER reached a much higher valuation than the original SOL prize pool’s value, players of the genesis game hit it big.
First place won $65,327 in YAPSTER, while last place even won $1,826 in YAPSTER 👀

Do you want me to stop writing about memecoins? If so, share this with 100 people!
What makes Yapster interesting?
There are several aspects of Yapster that make it notable. Some center around the app itself and the features, and some are more around what it represents.
Apple Live Activities
Live Activities are interactive notifications on iOS devices that display up-to-date information from an app, which is helpful for various use cases like ride progress, orders, and fitness.

Yapster uses Live Activities as a way to remind players that the daily game will be starting soon, starting from 1 hour before the game.

Live Activities make sense for Yapster because the game happens synchronously with hundreds of other players and you have to pay to play. It would suck to forfeit the game because you simply forgot.
Bet only mode
In today’s test game, Yapster introduced Bet Only mode. Before this feature came out, all players had to submit a meme. Now submitting memes are optional, with today’s 200 player game having a 100 meme submission cap.
Players don’t have the pressure of submitting a meme, especially if they aren’t good at creating them. On the other hand, meme creation is still encouraged since top creators will receive a boost on their final score (low-scoring memes will result in a penalty though).
Is collusion possible?
It’s definitely possible for players to collude and vote on the same memes in order to achieve a higher score, but this is mitigated by the app’s bracketing system. Players are split into different groups in the early rounds. Additionally, if Yapster grows in popularity the total number of players could be in the thousands or more, making collusion more difficult and less rewarding.
Lastly, the team can look at backend data to see if voting behaviors suggest suspicious behavior between players.
One game, one memecoin (maybe), multiple winners, 10 minutes per day
The Yapster cadence is much more digestible for the average person who wants to dabble in memecoins but not drown in them.
Instead of using multiple tools to monitor thousands of tokens and rotating attention and capital from one hot potato token to another, Yapster runs one game a day that lasts ~10 minutes. And the winning meme might turn into a memecoin if it’s really good.
When it comes to winning the daily game, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.

Players who are poor bettors can still win as great meme creators. Or if a player is great at both…well, they should start a viral shitposting account lol.
And at the end of each daily game the group of players must make one final bet of sorts: Do they turn the winning meme into a memecoin?
If the majority vote yes, the newborn output of the daily game enters the arena of the memecoin metagame which could lead to a much larger prize for all players or a slow (or rapid) bleed to 0.
Yapster isn’t about memecoins
After playing multiple test rounds of Yapster, I’ve come to realize that Yapster isn’t about memecoins. Yes, there’s a memecoin component that may be involved and it’s a core part of explaining what the app is. However, it’s more than that.
It’s about taste. It’s about curating and co-curating. It’s about creating and co-creating.
What does that mean?

The last and optional step of the game, launching the winning meme as a token, is the ultimate test of taste. Is the winning meme that’s good enough for that day’s game good enough to graduate to the big leagues?
And if it isn’t, that’s ok. There will be another game tomorrow 🙂
I’ll be at a wedding later this week sooooo, see you next week!