jakiro
Author: David Hoffman, Bankless; Compilation: Baishui, Bitchain Vision
Meme coins sparked strong discussion.
Some people think they are depravity—inefficient, zero-sum games at the expense of others.Others see it as a grassroots response to top-down elite and venture capital impact.
We all know this debate – the industry has had countless such conversations.However, like many aspects of cryptocurrency, the arc of Meme is dynamic, adaptive, not inert.
We have reason to be optimistic about the future of Meme coins.
The term Meme coins has been overused and overly broad.Not all tokens marked as Meme coins are in line with the stereotype of hollow, lazy gimmicks.Some tokens were initially Meme coins but later evolved into something more, but due to inertia, people still end up labeling them as Meme coins.
Platforms like Pump.fun have achieved token creation, increase in the number of tokens and democratization.Of course, due to the low barrier to entry, most of these tokens are easily created – an interesting name, a quirky picture – designed to entertain, and nothing else.However, in the midst of the hustle and bustle, some Memes acquire substance and drive value in unexpected ways.
Pump.fun, Clanker, and token launchpad make it very easy to create liquid tokens.No licensing and accessibility are core value propositions in our industry.
More convenient
The development direction of the crypto industry has always been to improve the accessibility of tokens made by ordinary individuals.
The history of cryptocurrencies is one of the history of constantly increasing accessibility to token creation.Every bull market will bring new mechanisms:
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2013: It is not difficult to fork the code base of Bitcoin and create a new blockchain.
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2017: Ethereum introduces ERC-20 tokens without launching a complete blockchain.
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2021: NFT and coin mechanism unlock another token standard and distribution mechanism, turning quirky images into speculative assets.
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2024: Pump.fun combines token minting and AMM liquidity, all packing into a simple interface.
This model goes beyond tokens.Why are there so many L2s?Because Optimism’s OP stack reduces the cost of creating rollups.Conduit takes it a step further by creating the front end created by L2.
The latest innovation in token creation is Clanker, an LLM Warpcast account where Warpcast users can simply tag Clanker with stock codes and images, which will automatically mint tokens and launch Uniswap V3 pools, skipping the front end completely.
Beyond Meme Coin
Critics often confuse token launchpads like Pump.fun or Clanker with the tokens they produce.While many of the tokens that appear on these platforms are classic Meme coins, the launchpad itself is a neutral tool.
For example:
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GOAT is the token associated with the first AI proxy, from Pump.fun.GOAT is now an effective investment for those who want to get into the Truth Terminal IP.Is there any cash flow?No.Is there a direct relationship between GOAT and Truth Terminal?No, the relationship is fragile and indirect.Will the price of tokens rise with the size of the Truth Terminal brand?I don’t know, this is not investment advice, but probably, that’s why people buy GOAT.
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ANON is available on Clanker for easy access to ZK’s anonymous Farcaster account.If you have enough ANON tokens, you can send tweets anonymously from your Anon Farcaster and Twitter accounts.This is practicality.
We should learn to distinguish between tokens and launchpads.Pump.fun is not the Meme coin launchpad.It is a token launchpad.A good launchpad will only make it easier to issue Meme coins.
New creation mechanism
Let’s discuss the benefits of the token launchpad.We can give moral preaching to the products they produce in the future.
In 2023 and 2024, cryptocurrencies are plagued by high FDV, low-circuit token allocations.
Points + High FDV Low Floating RMB is unfortunately generated by a combination of multiple factors, mainly due to the risky capital surplus and the toughest regulatory environment ever made by cryptocurrencies.
The result of this fusion is that points and airdrops appear and are adopted by complex, exploitative witch receivers of airdrops, which creates toxic and improper incentives, forged indicators, and is almost distributed to target benefitsThe actual value of the stakeholder.
Meme coins are completely opposite token allocation mechanisms.
You can be the 7th person to buy a market capitalization of less than $1 million and a 100% liquidity supply of tokens.
This token generation mechanism has its advantages!
On the first day, the entire supply of tokens was in the market.That’s pretty good.This eliminates different categories of investors who lock in tokens.Everyone can get the same valuation.Everyone is an investor at the same level.
Still, there are insiders and cabals that can potentially destroy tokens when creating tokens through launchpads.In addition, the issue of commissioned agency between token creators and token buyers has not been resolved.Fully liquid token issuance does not solve the fundamental human problem.Humans are imperfect and easily corrupt.
In any case, the ability to launch tokens with 100% supply and instant AMM liquidity in the market is a novel and valuable mechanism with strong advantages that we should not abandon, although it is easy to beabuse.
We should add this to the toolbelt of the token creation mechanism, together with the ICO and NFT mints, as an effective way to start and distribute tokens.
All tokens start with Meme
I encourage people to consider the potential of creating tokens for your project using platforms like Pump.fun or Clanker.
Imagine a founder having a promising idea about a product or service.They believe it has value and plan to work long term to realize its potential.To support their project, they decided to launch a token, either to diversify governance, manage system risks, charge fees, or for any other possible reason.
This founder can:
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Raise funds from venture capital firms
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Carry out ICO
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Start tokens on the token launchpad
All of these are effective choices and every founder should consider the merits of each.
Let’s consider the last one in detail.Suppose the founder also launched tokens early in the project lifecycle.Maybe because they can, they make tokens before building any other part of the project.If this is the setting, then the token is a Meme.The founder had an idea about the plan, maybe a document.They share it with others, trying to bring Meme into other people’s brains, but despite that, it’s still a Meme.
Take the most recent Clanker token $NATIVE as an example.This Derek requested a token for his Farcaster project, which was obviously to build a new type of Farcaster client.
Maybe the story ends here!Maybe Derek had no intention of building Native, he just requested a Clanker token that contained a long story about possible building Native.Maybe Derek has been working on Native for over a year.Who knows!Of course I don’t know.Derek needs to prove this to the market.But, despite this, the token is fully liquid and potential buyers can make their own decisions based on the information they have.
There must be a big agency problem here.Founders can talk about their projects as a means to convince people to buy the tokens they create, and then they can sell the tokens, which may have been the plan for a long time.
After writing the above, Derek said on Twitter that he had locked the token supply for one year!The guy minted his own tokens, bought his own supply (cheap), and chose to tie himself to the mast.Legal projects with legal efforts can be generated from the token launchpad, even if they mainly launch worthless Meme coins!
That’s what we’ve seen in many ICOs in 2017, and moreover, the industry has realized the idea of VC psychological warfare making up stories around valueless projects.Regardless of the token creation mechanism, the issue of delegate agency exists.It’s just that people from different groups are conducting psychological analysis.
Nevertheless, the Pump.fun and Clanker tokens were originally just Memes and now represent effective efforts to build something truly revolutionary.Refer to ANON and GOAT again.People just call these Meme coins based on their creation mechanisms, but they are not Meme coins!
Improve the meme coins mechanism
When using the Token Launchpad, there are several ways to improve the commissioned agent gap between token developers and token buyers.
What if the developer does not own part of the tokens as an upward risk mechanism, but has the right to earn transaction fees?
This is the mechanism that Flayer is building using its incoming token launchpad Flaunch.They are building a Uniswap V4 Hook that adds some extra features and mechanisms to their token launchpad.
1. Transaction fee management
Tokens launched on Flaunch distribute income between developers and communities.Like Pump.fun, Flaunch charges a percentage of all transaction fees through its platform.Unlike Pump.fun, Flaunch returns these transaction fees directly to token developers and token holders (communities).
The token developers control the income distribution between the developer and the community.This is the parameter set when tokens are launched and can be anywhere between 100% community, 0% developer and 20% community, 80% developer.The community must get at least 20%.
The fees charged by the token community can be used to purchase tokens and add them to the LP, and the price and liquidity of the tokens increase as the transaction volume increases.They call it “progressive buying wall”, which is a good narrative.The fees charged by developers can be used to fund their Lambo, or can be reinvested into projects to fund development and growth.
This is a more consistent mechanism that helps to close the gap between delegates.Through this mechanism, developers can monetize transaction fee income.They no longer need to sell a certain amount of tokens to fund development.This is highly consistent with NumberGoUp, as transaction fee income increases accordingly as the price of tokens increases.
2.NFT ownership
Who is the “developer” of Flaunch tokens is determined by the owner of the NFT.Each token release on Flaunch comes with 1/1, which is the source of revenue from development transaction fees.
This NFT becomes a composable object around which further structures can be constructed.You can put the NFT in a multi-signature and manage it by the team.Alternatively, NFTs can be managed by DAO token voting, either a previously launched token or a new governance token.
The possibility will only expand from here.
So, has my position on Memecoin changed?
Recently, I’ve been receiving some criticism on Twitter for my obvious turn to Meme.Indeed, I have never expressed support for meme coins except for the occasional appreciation of Dogecoin, and I have repeatedly expressed my preference for productive assets rather than the inertia of Meme coins on Bankless.
I do think Dogecoin may represent the best case for Memecoin.Dogecoin is a healthy story about a community gathering under the banner of interesting dog pictures and jointly increasing Dogecoin market value in the name of a good atmosphere.In addition, Dogecoin has donated a lot of money to various charities, including clean water projects in Africa, bee protection efforts, American Cancer Society, education, animal welfare, homeless support, and of course, my favoriteIt is to send the Jamaican sled team to participate in the Olympics in 2014.
Despite this, there will still be normal, ordinary, and lazy Meme coins.These tokens will continue to cause anger among many people because they are difficult to convince anyone that they are by no means a speculative PvP internal game and have major proxy issues that are difficult to maintain.
My preference for productive assets with a development arc remains the same, but I have a wider appreciation of the broader potential of Meme coins.
First, I began to imagine a world.Meme coins play a much greater role in the Internet economy than most people currently think.
What if the scale of the meme currency economy grows to rival the traditional stock market?Crypto protocols and markets are designed as supersets of existing financial systems, providing unprecedented flexibility and coverage.Meme coins can use this foundation and become a huge economic ecosystem with their own strength.Listen to the vernacular of Zoomers and Generation AI: Meme is the core of Internet culture, and Meme coins will naturally play an important role in Internet finance.
While Meme coins are currently in a speculative cycle similar to ICOs or NFTs and may face market liquidation, they will remain permanent fixed assets in the cryptocurrency space.The need to get in touch with new, exciting things early will never fade away.In this sense, I began to accept the long-term potential of Meme coins and changed my view.
Secondly, as shown in the whole article,I see more and more opportunities for meme coins to evolve into something greater than the Meme they were born.Through additional mechanisms, these tokens can be transformed into the basic “Lego of Currency” that supports more physical systems.As Meme coins have the potential to develop into something more sustainable and productive, they have also improved palatability to me.
Let’s explore the meme coins together
We are agents.I chose to believe that we can leverage the power of Meme coins that people obviously like and establish mechanisms to make Meme coins go light, rather than to go in disgusting directions.
When Pump.fun added live functionality, it began to optimize for attention and virality, and we all know the cost of optimizing for this result.When Pump.fun canceled the live broadcast feature, the platform took an important step away from depravity and towards health.With this simple technique, it weakens the motivation for pathetic behavior and creates space for more productive results.
I think there are more tips and mechanisms that can continue to improve the nature of Meme coins.The Meme currency industry is huge and will continue to exist.There are still a lot of resources in the Meme currency field to be squeezed to create sustainable value.
So, this is a call for startups!Build Meme Coin infrastructure to help Meme Coin become more valuable.Helps resolve delegate-agent issues that exist in all token creation events.
Both Clanker and Pump.fun produce indestructible Meme coins.There are no backdoors for these tokens – no one can mint more and no one can create honeypot traps.These are examples of token infrastructure that helps protect users from security.
There are more similar mechanisms.Let’s find them!
