Wow (!!!)
I first found out about Wow thanks to the team’s spot-on meme posts that only chronically online folks (especially those in crypto) would understand. In each post the !!! logo is emblazoned front and center.
The posts served as a form of commentary on the stories of the day cycling in and out of the collective consciousness featuring Murad, Moo Deng, Biden and Obama, Trump, Jerome Powell, BitBoy, Vitalik, Young Thug, and more. If you’re into memes like me (anyone? just me?) this approach raises eyebrows.
Yesterday Wow launched, and it’s a…
Yes, they’re popping up left and right like weeds on a lawn and Wow incorporates a lot of elements from the OG launchpad pump.fun. However, this one has a few interesting nuggets:
Wow was built by the Zora team, which hasn’t been publicized and is intentional. I found out by checking Wow’s ToS.
For any token deployed on Wow, each buy or sell incorporates a 1% protocol fee, which is split as follows:
50% to the token creator
20% to the protocol
15% to the platform referrer
15% to the order referrer
The platform referrer is the platform through which the token is created using the Wow Protocol
The order referrer is the platform that is used to execute a buy or sell order on the Wow Protocol
So instead of just buying tokens and dumping them early on, creators can earn through volume, ideally aligning incentives and encouraging these memecoins to grow.
The platform and order referral rewards incentivizes other players to join in to grow the token ecosystem on top of Wow.
What’s an example of this?
dreamcoins
Since Wow’s launch, one token has been at or near the top of the leaderboard: dreamcoins.
dreamcoins is a token, and a token launchpad, so we’re at memecoin launchpad inception at this point.
dreamcoins is probably the simplest memecoin launchpad out there. Type in what you’re dreaming about via a prompt, wait 10 seconds, and voilà you just created a token thanks to AI!
Because the launchpad is built on the Wow protocol, dreamcoin creators earn 50% and the platform earns 15% of transaction volume via platform referral rewards. The referral reward dreamcoins earns is used to buy and burn DREAM on a daily basis.
The Dreams team has even created a released a Telegram bot, allowing users to create tokens in the same simple prompt fashion on other channels.
Do have dreams when you sleep? If so, share or subscribe!
The integration of Meme Markets
Seeing Wow and dreamcoins launch over the past day and how they work together reminds me of a point I made last week with the AI Agent Cambrian explosion. Just as we saw NFT collections from 2021-2022 proliferate with various bells and whistles, something similar is going on here.
We continue to see different ways memecoins (and tokens in general) are proliferating, whether it’s with rewards distribution models, launchpads, how they are expanding and being integrated into other channels.
IMO, the logical next step is that memecoins and launchpads will become features within products and ecosystems. An example that comes to mind for me is the Stalk Market in Animal Crossing, a popular game from COVID days.
As the name of the feature implies, the Stalk Market is an uber-simplified version of the stock market. Players can buy and sell Turnips with the goal of buying low and selling high as prices fluctuate.
In this case, Animal Crossing is incorporating a stock market mini-game into the meta-game itself. Another great example of this is the Grand Exchange from RuneScape, but alas, I never played (lame, I know).
Why wouldn’t a web3 game do the same, but with memecoins? As a hypothetical:
Let’s imagine there was a web3 version of Animal Crossing. The in-game soft currency Bells is also a token that can be traded outside of the game.
Instead of a Stalk Market, there’s a Meme Market. The currency of the Meme Market is MEME, a crop that can be harvested periodically or purchased with the in-game token. You can:
create and submit your memes that can be bought or sold
create decorative items that can be bought and sold in the market
or just buy low + sell high.
Sounds ridiculous, but these individual components already happen today, they’re just not integrated together.
Create and submit your memes that can be bought or sold
These memes lean game or ecosystem-specific, as those would resonate with the player base more.
One version of this is the recently launched Apechain’s Ape Express token launchpad. The highest-value tokens are those related to characters, themes, and memes from the Bored Ape ecosystem.
Another is Unicorn and their Emoji Market. Unicorn isn’t just a memecoin, UWU. It’s also a meme ecosystem where holders can swap their UWU for emojis, which are memecoins that are only available on Unicorn.
Some emojis have their own websites, X accounts, and Telegram groups, creating niche communities within the broader community. In gaming terms, these would be considered guilds.
These examples serve as prototypes of what a memecoin launchpad in a game could look like and how it could operate.
Create decorative items that can be bought and sold in the market
This could be item and character skins, or decorative items if the game has cozy spaces like Animal Crossing or islands in Pirate Nation.
Yuga's Dookey Dash Unclogged has a feature called Creator Mode, allowing players (or non-players) to create skins, vehicles, and stickers and sell them.
Maybe 'meme markets' is too aggressive
Ok, I may be leaning too far into the ‘meme’ side of these in-game markets since this concept was inspired by Wow and dreamcoins. However, these pieces are Lego blocks that are fine as is…and can be combined in different ways to create richer ecosystems that encourage creativity, richer ecosystem lore, and a more engaged community that brings their memes to life.
As memecoins continue to seep into the mainstream consciousness just like NFTs, people will want something else. And integrating them (not just creating them and making the price go up) will be a possible evolutionary step.
I’ll be at Devcon and Asia for the next two weeks, so no posts for me next week. You may or may not hear from me the following week 😉
And if you’ll be at Devcon, hit me up if you wanna chat!
