Hey, it’s Marc. ✌️
2024 has been the year “memecoins”.
They may seem like a fad, but there's more to them. Let me explain.
It started with Elon Musks Dodgecoin. Now, the number has exploded to over 140, and a market cap of $67B.
The top 10 memecoins by market cap are:
Why it’s important: Memecoins have become a popular GTM strategy for crypto projects. The more they circulate, the more value they have. And they’re potentially a signal for a much bigger trend (more on that below).
Zooming in: BONKbot, a Telegram trading bot on Solana, originated from the $BONK token, a Solana memecoin. The trading bot recently crossed daily trading volume of $200M (compare that to Base, which averages about $200M in daily trading volume).
Now, celebrities start to launch their own Memecoins:
Rapper Iggy Azalea’s memecoin, Mother Iggy ($MOTHER), has been added to liquidity vaults by Kamino Finance, Solana-based liquidity and lending solution.
Caitlyn Jenner has launched the token, JENNER on Solana and then on Ethereum to support Donald Trump 👱
Other notable tokens like RICH (Rich the Kid), ZACK (Edward Constantin), TRUMP (MAGA) and DAVIDO (Davido) are in talks.
By the data📈:
Solana has become the mother of memecoins. The chain saw 455,000 tokens launches in May. The majority were memecoins.
Pump.fun, the memecoin launchpad on Solana, has crossed a revenue of $30M, half of that made in May.
90% of celebrity memecoin volume (~106M) is bring traded on the Solana chain.
What they’re saying: Vitalik Buterin has slammed the ongoing celebrity token experimentation. "Financialization as a means toward an end”, is the way forward, Vitalik said.
Devil’s advocate😈: most of these tokens are bullshit and celebrity cash grab.
The Big Picture
We’re experiencing the “tokenization of culture”. This means:
Instrumentalizing community with ownership and financial incentives into powerful brand advocates of a brands’ “culture”.
While NFTs were a first inning of “tokenized culture”, most of these NFTs weren’t “currencies”, i.e. much less liquid.
Maja Vujinovic🤓, early crypto and payments pioneer, saw this coming many months ago and points out:
"Memecoins are a larger signal. Organized peer-to-peer groups can now invest and share profits before even having a product or tech infrastructure, flipping the current business logic on its head. This may just transform capital allocation and some platforms at large. Brands should pay attention to this by looking beyond speculation and exploring the creativity of such communities."
The opportunity for brands: Democratizing brand value. The tokenization of culture could represent a powerful opportunity for brands to transform community engagement and loyalty. By providing financial incentives through tokens and memecoins, brands could turn community members into passionate advocates who actively participate in brand growth.
Punchline💥: To outsiders, memecoins might appear as a fad or just pure gambling. But that’s just half of the truth. They’re part of a bigger trend of shifting power back to consumers.
That’s all for now, folks. Thank you for being part of the journey.Talk soon,
– Marc