Memecoin Thesis
March 5, 2024
Note: This article was initially written for a specific community I’m involved with. However, I’ve broadened its scope for a general audience while maintaining references that my community will appreciate.
Hey guys! I wanted to share my memecoin thesis (as they are ripping rn). I think it’s aligned with the goals of our community (to do cool shit across the world, buy land together, and to have a powerful community in general). I also think this is a really good investment opportunity, but if you don’t understand it, it looks like degenerate gambling (it still might be). This will seem dumb/irrational as well, but humans are and there is a huge market opportunity because of this fact.
Why listen to me? I get memecoins. I bought $600 of DOGE at $0.003 and sold a good chunk of it at $0.50 (post-SNL). That’s more than 150x my initial and I took profit along the way up. I bought it within 5 mins of Elon tweeting DOGE for a few simple reasons. I mined dogecoin in 2014 and knew what it was (but lost access to it). I liked the meme (I like dogs). I knew and respected Elon a lot (it was 2020, I still like Elon). I also knew Elon had a large following and that other people would be interested.
But why does that matter?? Why would I buy DOGE given those reasons? Watch this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA8z7f7a2Pk). See how one person doing some random shit is ignorable, but having someone else join in and vibe and then having more people join in can create an unignorable movement. Memecoins are this phenomenon but financialized. There is extreme value to being early, and diminishing value for latecomers. Memecoins are digital financial parties happening on the blockchain. The good news is that it’s still early, you’re arriving at the party at midnight (if you are reading this past Fall 2024, it is no longer early, it is past 2am, you might still have a good time).
But time for the blackpill. Memecoins are a big decentralized wealth transfer scheme (ponzis are also a wealth transfer scheme). You could say this, wealth transfer scheme) about traditional finance as well (both are built on top of actual value creation mechanisms, and yes, blockchains have immense value outside of finance/moving tokens). Memecoins are a huge game of musical chairs. Each round has losers, but some coins are eternal, some are not. I first bought btc at $1000 and it crashed to $300, I lost that round (winning/losing technically only takes effect when you sell). It was worth it to stay in the game for bitcoin however. Some memecoins rug (meaning all the money is taken out, game over) and some live forever (but no one really engages with the meme e.g. Litecoin) and some continuously transform (e.g. ETH is ultrasound money). There are ways to analyze them before you buy (e.g. is liquidity locked or burnt), but this is outside the scope of most people’s interest/capabilities and is why memecoins can feel like pure gambling. This is once of the core reasons people are opposed to crypto ideologically.
Whitepill: Crypto mechanisms are not just wealth transfer mechanisms, it’s also harnessed for powerful compute reasons, like providing economic security for proof-of-stake networks like Ethereum. Chris Dixon talks a lot about the Computer vs the Casino of crypto, however this post is about a facet of the crypto casino. I won’t focus on the computer in this post but a “trusted world computer” is the true long term value of crypto and one of the core reasons that crypto still persists and is actually a very important good, on the scale of the internet itself. The operating system of our world/society is changing and getting some capital for yourself (on-chain) is important!
Not convinced? That’s okay. I would argue you’re midwitting this and that most people would! I also respect ideological opposition to crypto, it’s ok to not like value transfer without value creation, I had that perspective for many years.
I agree with all of the above.
This is a long term bet, (taking profit in 9-18months).
Memecoin: https://x.com/DegenerateNews/status/1764837835020947627?s=20
Ok so you’re convinced and you want to know, what are some memecoins I like? [this is not financial advice, do your own research]
BTC: The original memecoin. Like showing up to a party at 4am, you might still have a good time, but you probably should’ve gone when you first heard about it. I think most countries will adopt it as part of their reserves instead of US Treasury Bonds
DOGE: After using internet infrastructure created by Elon (Starlink) while in Colombia, I look forward to using DOGE to power infrastructure. I look forward to the DOGE ETF.
$BITCOIN: Coming in as the most retarded, HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu (ticket $BITCOIN) was named after a backpack on sale in southeast Asia. This is pure memetic fuel, I was in almost immediately, due to the stickiness and humor of the meme as well as the fanbase
WIF: It’s a dog wif a hat. What more can I say. People like it. It’s on Solana which people also like. It’s an example of a memecoin/party which has critical mass and spins off other phenomena
What else? ETH? Solana? Zyncoin? Who knows. Good luck out there.