We live in an absurd world. The more absurd, the better the memes. The wilder and scarier it gets, the more we need them. We find common ground through humor and cope with terrible events by memeing, often immortalizing moments in history that live on through memes on the internet forever.
Whether it is something as geopolitically impactful as the Trump elections or as specific as the Harambe incident, memes are the most compact, powerful way of recalling that shared emotional memory.
Beyond big, famous memes, they are simply a tool to communicate. Entire conversations are punctuated with all sorts of stickers and gifs. Memes are their own language and an integral part of the internet. They are often the place we find commonality, where people form communities around sharing them, delight in them, and acknowledge their significant cultural relevance.
There is literally nothing more core to internet culture than memes. And since crypto is literally internet money, why wouldnât memes be just as integral to crypto?
To us, it makes perfect sense that they would often dominate the conversation and imaginations of market participants. Markets are basically memes anyway, driven incessantly by the most compelling narratives of the day, week, or year.
Crypto simply dials this up to eleven. We spend so much time in this industry debating why things have value and how to value these assets. Why is a coin worth something? Itâs really just collective belief at the end of the day, and people believe in memes. We grew up with them, we understand them, we value them. They matter to us.
You can build a community around a meme coin that leads to legitimate collaborations between seriously talented people. If done well, they can end up being one of the best ways to onboard users who inherently understand the memes immediately, versus a complicated white paper for a DeFi token that they either donât read or donât understand. From there, you can get them to use products on a network through partnerships and incentives.
Historically, meme coins have seen massive upside in bull markets. This narrative is ingrained in market participants. The collective belief that these coins can do amazing things is there. The memes are here to stay, and teams should embrace this. A ânormieâ is not coming into this market because you did some math they canât decipher and now your DEX routes orders better. But they will come into the market because some meme coin they can buy 100,000,000 of, with a cute animal picture, is pumping, and then theyâll use your DEX to trade it.
Social coordination, narratives, trust minimization, and aligned incentives are integral parts of what crypto is. If memes are a universally understood language by internet natives, and crypto is going to be an integral part of the future of the internet, then it stands to reason that meme coins will be a lasting fixture of this new parallel economy weâre building. You canât kill memes on the internet, and you canât kill meme coins. So, we should really start taking them more seriously as very powerful tools and an essential aspect of crypto alongside technical and financial infrastructure.
Meme coins are, in essence, social infrastructure.
Taken another way, we also believe that meme coins are the most pure representation of the 3 core beliefs we have:
While this is true for all successful coins - Bitcoin became the global juggernaut it is because it successfully created a worldwide social system with lots of people wanting it, and being the symbol for resistance against centralized systems.
Meme coins, though, demonstrate these beliefs to the very zenith, since the only thing that forms the meme coins are essentially the social system that it manages to form, generating enough demand for it, and crucially to the point we are making here - the symbol itself is the thing that the community rallies around - not the technology or financial system.
As such, they can be one of the most important social layers of a network, bringing teams and users together around something fun that doesnât have the weight of some of these projects out there trying to change the world.
In summary, meme coins matter for the following reasons:
Meme coins are not just a fleeting trend but a vital component of the cryptocurrency landscape, mirroring the intricacies of internet culture and human interaction. By encapsulating the essence of internet humor, the rallying power of symbols, and the unifying force of shared beliefs, meme coins reveal the profound impact of social dynamics in shaping the future of digital currencies.
As we venture further into building this parallel economy, let us not forget that the power of community and shared narratives is just as crucial as technological and financial innovation. Let us embrace these unique assets, recognizing their role as harbingers of a new era in digital connectivity and cultural expression.
Coauthored with R89 (website) - World class thought leader n troll
Many thanks to Nom, Joe McCann, and everyone who involved in Bonk, the inspiration for this piece.
One of my fav points in this article - âLeveraged Bet on Networkâ comes from Joe McCann.