Meme Coin is About Culture

Polkachu Intern | 2023-12-16

Listen up, you Cosmos meme coin hoppers.

I know how you spend your time: create a new meme coin, ask ChatGPT to generate cheap animal images, copypasta charmless tweets from your Telegram group to generate buzz, and then hope no one sees through the playbook after you have repeated it multiple times with different token symbols.

Well, if you have so much time at hand, maybe you should read this short post. Meme coin is not about memes; it is about culture.

Many meme coins have been attempted but few have seen lasting success. A mid-wit take is that the failed ones do not have strong enough memes. However, I argue that the successful ones succeed not because of their memes, but because of their culture.

Take DOGE. The meme is cute and funny and all that, but the fundamental cultural breakthrough is in its category creation. It was attempted when no one thought it was possible. The pioneering culture is its lasting power (similar to Bitcoin).

Take BONK. I do not even know what the meme is other than the dog picture, but it represents the culture of grit in Solana. It was launched at the worst time in Solana after the FTX scandal. VCs asked their portfolio companies to pivot to L2s and founders voluntarily pivoted to AI. But Solana persevered, so did BONK.

Take HUAHUA. HUAHUA is not successful by my standard (because the team cannot execute), but it is culturally interesting. It is the first time someone says, "maybe a meme coin can have its own chain". Once you have your own chain, you can do many interesting things, like experimenting with monetary policy, using governance and community pools to fund smart contract projects, etc.

Now, knowing all that, you think that you can just dream up another cute animal head with minimum effort and think it will go to the moon? Most meme coins fail, so what differentiates yours other than that fact that your animal is more endangered than a dog? What is your culture beyond tweeting about your token price on Twitter ad nauseam?

Call me once you find your culture, and I will help you pump it to the moon.