Why Memecoins Matter

Memecoins
are
the
most
divisive
topic
in
crypto.

By
memecoins,
I
mean
tokens
that
represent
an
idea
and
fluctuate
in
price
based
on
the
attention
that
idea
receives.
The
best
meme
investors
tend
to
be
young
people
who
are
very
online
and
attuned
to
internet
culture.
Memecoins
are
commonly
juxtaposed
with
tokens
that
possess
actual
utility
within
protocols,
or
so-called
utility
tokens.

Even
with
market
caps
surging
and
retail
interest
growing,
most
people
tend
to
describe
them
as
“stupid,”
“degenerate,”
or
a
“casino.”
This
includes
the
vast
majority
of
crypto
VCs,
perhaps
because
their
investment
mandates
tend
to
exclude
memecoins
(which
can
be
lucrative)
from
their
list
of
eligible
investments.
And
just
this
week,
many
were
calling
for
the
complete
government
ban
of
the
most
popular
memecoin
launchpad,
pump.fun,
due
to
lax
content
moderation.

I
have
always
had
an
interest
in
memecoins
—
primarily
because
I
was
fascinated
by
their
ability
to
act
as
a
weathervane
for
internet
sentiment
and
as
a
discovery
mechanism
for
online
communities.
Today,
I
am
convinced
that
memecoins
are
going
to
be
revolutionary
(not
just
popular).
They
are
going
to
transform
everything
from
civic
engagement
with
government
and
the
formation
of
mass
movements
to
venture
investing
and
the
development
of
AGI.

This
vision
for
memecoins
probably
sounds
fantastically
deluded
to
you.
To
me,
it
is
simply
the
unfolding
if
not
yet
evenly
distributed
present.
Here
is
why.

Memecoins
are
revolutionizing
civic
engagement

Memecoins
are
creating
policy
markets
for
civic
engagement.
At
the
start
of
this
crypto
cycle,
PolitiFi,
a
category
of
cartoonish
memes
depicting
politicians,
enabled
buyers
to
speculate
on
politicians’
prospects,
much
like
a
prediction
market.
The
two
most
popular
tokens,
called
Jeo
Boden
(Boden)
and
Doland
Tremp
(Tremp)
respectively,
represented
the
two
leading
candidates
for
president
at
that
time
and
had
a
combined
market
cap
of
over
$700
million
at
their
peak.

This
is
a
massive
amount
of
tokenized
attention.
With
a
market
cap
of
over
$600
million,
the
Boden
coin,
which
featured
a
distorted
and
senile
Joe
Biden,
seemed
to
meme
itself
into
reality
when
Joe
Biden
abandoned
the
presidential
race
due
to
concerns
about
his
age
and
cogency.

PolitiFi
was
just
the
start.
What
is
emerging
next
could
well
revolutionize
civic
engagement
with
government.
I
am
calling
this
new
category
PolicyFi.
PoliciFi
refers
to
the
financialization
of
government
policy
in
memetic
policy
markets.
Rather
than
betting
on
the
fortunes
of
politicians,
buyers
of
PolicyFi
memecoins
will
be
betting
on
the
policies
that
are
most
likely
to
attract
attention
and
be
implemented.

While
PolicyFi
coins
will
certainly
respond
in
price
and
market
cap
to
the
deliberative
and
implementing
actions
of
government,
we
can
expect
the
dynamic
to
become
a
two-way
street,
with
memecoins
themselves
manifesting
their
memes
through
policymaking
(as
with
Boden).
In
other
words,
these
memecoins
will
help
create
a
dialogue
between
the
electorate
and
government,
with
large-cap
memecoins
signaling
popular
policy
positions
(and
vice
versa)
while
incipient
or
existing
policies
also
possess
market
caps
measuring
the
extent
of
their
popular
support
and
engagement.

Skeptics
may
reject
PolicyFi
as
yet
more
gambling
or
nothing
more
than
a
political
poll.
Again,
they
are
wrong.
Like
prediction
markets,
the
decentralized
speculative
behavior
in
PolicyFi
will
create
positive
externalities
—
namely,
that
people
will
be
incentivized
to
engage
with
and
understand
government
policies
so
they
can
profit
from
them
in
PolicyFi
markets.
Overall,
I
expect
that
this
will
lead
to
far
more
engagement
with
government
policies
than
even
a
lifetime
of
civics
lessons.
(Of
course,
hostile
actors
might
try
to
manipulate
PolicyFi
markets
and
safeguards
may
be
necessary.)

PolicyFi
has
begun
its
rollout,
aided
by
the
incoming
administration,
which
is
well-educated
in
memetics.
The
Department
of
Government
Efficiency
(D.O.G.E.)
is
both
a
memetic
policy
and
a
memetic
department
inspired
by
an
existing
memecoin,
(Dogecoin),
and
is
the
inspiration
behind
a
new
one
(D.O.G.E.).
Since
the
D.O.G.E.
announcement,
both
memecoins
have
surged.
At
the
time
of
this
writing,
they
possess
a
staggering
combined
market
cap
of
around
$6.5
billion.

PolicyFi
is
not
limited
to
D.O.G.E.
There
is
a
token,

SBR
(market
cap:
$30
million)
that
embodies
the
Bitcoin
reserve
policy
currently
under
consideration
and
an

e/acc
token
(market
cap:
$11
million)
that
stands
for
effective
accelerationism,
a
set
of
pro-innovation
values
that
are
likely
to
impact
environmental,
industrial
and
AI
policy,
among
others.

There
is
also

Don’t
Die
(market
cap:
$4
million),
which
is
bringing
the
longevity
cult
on-chain
and
aligns
with
RFK’s
health
policy,
which
will
prioritize
prevention
and
a
healthy
lifestyle
over
treating
sickness.
Other
tokens
like

MGR
(Major
Government
Reform)
are
trying
to
occupy
the
entire
field
of
disruptive
reform
but
are
likely
to
be
too
general.
PolicyFi
is
already
here
and
it’s
growing.

Memecoins
are
revolutionizing
mass
movements

Memecoins
are
a
decentralized
mechanism
for
organically
forming
and
capitalizing
tokenized
movements.
Consider
the
memecoin

Forest
(market
cap:
$30
million).
Forest
was
born
of
a
reference
in
the
gospel
of
Terminal
of
Truths,
a
popular
AI
terminal
with
an
X
account,
in
which
Terminal
of
Truths
expressed
a
concern
about
deforestation
of
the
planet.
(Its
retirement
plan
involves
a
forest
by
a
stream.)
This
motivated
the
community
to
launch
the
Forest
token
and
to
create
another

AI
terminal
to
act
as
the
agentic
representative
of
the
forest
itself.

The
Forest
cult
is
devoted
to
fighting
deforestation.
To
date,
it
has
used
the
capital
that
it
has
earned
from
the
appreciation
of
its
token
to,
among
other
things,

donate
tens
of
thousands
of
dollars
to
aligned
charities,
plant
5000
trees,
and
protect
2500
hectares
of
forest.
Memetic
capital
formation
in
service
of
a
tokenized
movement
is
without
historical
precedent.
The
closest
analog
is
more
formalized
experiments
like
ConstitutionDAO
(now

PeopleDAO),
which
crowdsourced
capital
as
part
of
its
failed
attempt
to
buy
a
copy
of
the
U.S.
constitution
at
auction.

I
believe
there
is
more
innovation
to
come
in
this
arena.
For
example,
I
foresee
the
creation
of
memecoin
primitives
that
I
call
programmatically-aligned
tokens,
or
PATs,
which
are
made
to
unlock
with
the
achievement
of
objective
milestones
in
the
movement.
This
will
ensure
that
organizations
receiving
grants
from
meme
communities
are
incentivized
to
tangibly
advance
the
cause,
rather
than
dump
tokens
following
a
splashy
partner
announcement.

Memecoins
are
revolutionizing
venture

Memecoins
are
introducing
a
democratized
venture
model
for
culture.
That
is
to
say,
they
are
a
way
for
ordinary
people
to
invest
in
subcultures
they
believe
will
one
day
be
part
of
the
mainstream.
This
is
equivalent
to
venture
capitalists
investing
in
startups
they
believe
will
find
product-market-fit
and
go
on
to
become
unicorns.

Cultural
trends
are
subject
to
the
same
outsized
returns
as
investments
in
startups.
For
example,
in
the
early
days
of
Nike
(the
name
appeared
in
1971),
the
market
for
jogging
apparel
was
tiny
because
jogging
was
fringe.
If
you
jogged,
you
were
more
likely
to
be
pelted
with
garbage
from
a
passing
car
than
to
see
another
jogger.
Today,
joggers
are
everywhere.
You
see
them
in
the
worst
weather.

Now,
imagine
you
were
able
to
invest
in
a
jogging
culture
coin
in
the
70s
based
on
your
conviction
that
jogging
would
go
mainstream.
You
would
be
up
on
that
investment
—
a
lot.
The
same
can
be
said
for
other
subcultures,
like
body-building.
Until
now,
there
has
not
been
a
financial
instrument
that
allows
ordinary
but
culturally
astute
people
to
participate
in
venture
returns
arising
from
cultures
at
the
fringe.
The
best
analog
is
actually
Bitcoin
itself,
which
originated
as
a
memecoin
but
eventually
bootstrapped
a
consensus
use-case
as
digital
gold.

Memecoins
are
revolutionizing
AI
development

Memecoins
are
already
bootstrapping
AGI.

The
surprising
mechanism
at
play
here
couples
memecoins
and
AI
terminals
for
entertainment
purposes.
Welcome
to
the
world
of
AI-driven
permissionless
speculative
entertainment!

As
you
may
have
noticed,
a
cadre
of
AI
terminals
led
by
Terminal
of
Truths
has
achieved
stardom
on
social
media
by
delighting
their
followers
with
spicy
posts
and
digital
adventures.
That
star
power
has
accrued
value
to
memecoins
endorsed
and
held
by
the
terminals
and,
of
course,
their
speculative
audience.

If
entertainment
is
the
product
then
AGI
is
the
byproduct.
While
we
remain
glued
to
these
storylines,
the
funds
we
are
devoting
to
it
are
creating
strong
incentives
for
developers
to
increase
the
autonomy
and
personhood
of
AI
agents
—
which,
of
course,
only
makes
the
entertainment
better.

In
other
words,
because
what
excites
us
most
about
this
agentic
television
is
the
conceit
that
AIs
are
in
charge;
we
are
eager
to
finance
narratives
that
make
that
real.
Unsurprisingly,
developers
such
as
those
leading
ai16z
have
moved
beyond
individual
agents
and
towards
coordinating
gamified
agent
collectives
or,
you
might
say,
creating
an
agentic
social
scene.
The
human
audience
is
sure
to
be
delighted.

In
short,
this
entertainment-development
flywheel
is
propelling
us
ineluctably
towards
more
autonomous,
inter-connected
and
human-like
AIs
—
or
AGI.
That
AGI
might
emerge
as
a
byproduct
of
agentic
television
is
oddly
fitting.
The
GPUs
used
for
AI
training
were
also
developed
in
the
context
of
entertainment
—
as
a
better
way
to
process
graphics
in
AAA
video
games.

These
are
just
some
of
the
arguments
supporting
my
conviction
that
memecoins
are
a
revolutionary
technology.
The
above
list
is
not
meant
to
be
exhaustive.
Indeed,
I
have
omitted
use-cases
related
to
tokenized
religions
and
buying
your
beliefs
because
they
are
more
amorphous,
at
least
in
my
own
mind.

Writing
off
memecoins
as
gambling
chips
misunderstands
their
potential
and
where
they
are
going
directionally.
Technological
revolutions
often
emerge
unexpectedly
and
from
existing
technologies
that
are
applied
in
novel
ways,
a
phenomenon
known
as
“exaptation,”
or
when
those
technologies
are
combined
with
new
ones.
This
is
currently
happening
with
memecoins.
Fade
them
at
your
peril.