Memecoins are bad for the space. This oft-repeated statement is found at the peak of the IQ curve.
“They are jokes!”
“They have no value.”
“They make the space look bad.”
“Memecoins take investors away from serious projects and utility.”
At face value, these statements appear to hold weight but if you dig deeper, they miss the point.
Web3 operates within an “Attention Economy” comprising itself of speculative vehicles that come in all shapes and sizes. A utility maximalist will say that something must be practically useful to have value. However, in this economy, attention itself holds intrinsic value. It is the speculation surrounding assets that propels their worth rather than their immediate utility.
Value is often a construct driven by narratives and speculation rather than direct real-world correlations. The US dollar is used across the world in numerical amounts that human brains cannot comprehend. This internationally sought after unit of account is bursting at the seams, creating geysers of “value” that are unrecognizable to our current world. This disconnects perceived value and tangible reality underscoring the inherent chaos in today’s “free markets.”
Free markets become chaotic when built on broken principles. The meme is the message.
Memecoins are easy targets for a maximalist. Memecoins make utility-minded people mad. That’s the point.
Invoking emotion is a key principle in marketing. Creating an emotional response (good or bad) is crucial to obtaining any person’s attention. Memecoins catch attention quickly and easily by attaching speculative vehicles to a viral idea of any kind. They elicit reactions from both utility-focused proponents and maximalists alike, serving as lightning rods for discussions around the core issues plaguing the system.
Most things are not inherently good or bad. They are dependent on a user and its inescapable human nature. Memecoins are no different. They are a symptom of a broken system accelerating awareness around its core issues. In theory, these speculative vehicles do not exist in a sound monetary system. Nonetheless, that is theory, and this is not a sound monetary system.
In a value maximalist’s ideal world, memecoins do not exist. But, even bitcoin cannot escape the meme, after all, it partially relies on it. The viral nature is baked into its core community and disputes with other “memecoins” appear misguided. There is this maximalist wet dream where BTC blows up the entire financial world and replaces it. If that were to play out, then memecoins and their lack of “inherent value” would accelerate the process.
Cult-like maximalism is an expression of incentive driven human nature. If it was about principles, then free market experiments and expressions of all kinds would be welcome to an astute mind. After all, good money eats bad, right?
There are opportunities in destruction and chaos. The market decides those opportunities.
The meme is the message.