Memecoins
Vitalik Buterin criticizes celebrity memecoins for lacking real value
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed strong disapproval of the recent trend of celebrities experimenting with crypto by creating memecoins.
In a social media from June 5 jobButerin pointed out that most celebrity-backed memecoins lack practical utility or specific use cases supporting their creation.
He added that financialization – or the process of turning something into a tradable asset – is only justified if it serves a purpose that brings value to society, such as improving health care, supporting to open source software and the promotion of art.
Buterin believes that the main goal of any project should be to provide a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction to the participants, even if the project ultimately fails or the tokens become worthless. He added:
“The North Star should be: have a project in which even if ultimately all the chips involved go to zero, the average person who participated is happy they did it. Regular businesses and charities achieve this goal all the time! The bar is low, but the things we build should also meet that bar.
Approval criteria
The Ethereum co-founder provided a set of criteria that a celebrity crypto project must meet to earn their respect.
First, these assets must serve a public good beyond simply enriching celebrities and early adopters. He cited the example of Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’ Stoner Cats NFT collection as being “much more honorable” than other memecoins launched by celebrities this year because the project funded an actual show.
Buterin further suggested that celebrity memecoins should feature attractive mechanisms such as decentralized self-organization (DAO), which would promote community participation and help tokens grow beyond just trading.
Furthermore, he emphasized that these tokens should be designed to last more than ten years and not just be traded for a few months and easily forgotten.
Celebrity Memecoin
In recent weeks, celebrity memecoins have become a new trend in the crypto industry, with superstars like Caitlyn Jenner, Iggy Azalea and Davido launching multiple tokens via the Solana-based Pump Fun app.
While the results of these experiments have been varied, blockchain data shows that the assets primarily benefited early traders who accumulated a substantial position in them. For example, blockchain analyst Lookonchain reported that an address associated with Nigerian record producer Davido made a profit of more than $470,000 in just 11 hours.
Meanwhile, Iggy Azalea’s Mother Iggy token continues to see interest after soaring approximately 500% over the past seven days, based on CryptoSlate data.