Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has weighed in on meme coins, claiming that current meme-inspired cryptocurrencies are nothing more than “prices rising and falling and contributing no value in the aftermath.” explained the “positive sum” vision for
In a recent blog post, Buterin claimed that “many people are nervous” about meme coins at the moment, and explained how the “financialized games” behind them could be created to support public goods and charities.
He took aim at the recent surge of ‘ultra-racist’ meme coins on blockchains such as Solana, saying: “I’m looking for coins named after totalitarian political movements, scams, rug pulls or whatever else feels exciting in the month of N. “I’m not interested at all. In month N+1, everyone will panic.”
Buterin appears to be referring to a blatantly racist token that appeared on exchanges last week. Many of the tokens used the n-word, a token that said “Jews committed 9/11” and “NAZI” with a swastika on the exchange. Used as a trading symbol.
“One answer to this conundrum is to shake our heads and virtue signal how much we abhor this foolishness and stand up against it,” Buterin said. He argued that a more productive step would be to create a “more positive-sum version” of the whole concept of meme coins.
Buterin envisions a meme coin similar to GiveWell Inu (no longer active), which promises to donate a portion of the proceeds to the Give Well organization.
In 2021, Buterin was gifted half of the supply of Shiba Inu (SHIB), which he then exchanged for Ethereum. After doing that, he sent $53 million worth of ETH to Give Well. However, it appears that the project is no longer maintained.
Anticipating that his idea could steal the fun of Degen’s gambling on new meme coins, he suggested that developers create better Web3 games. He specifically noted the 0xPARC organization, which has been responsible for the Dark Forest and FrogCrypto games.
“I value people’s desire to have fun,” Buterin said, adding, “I want the cryptocurrency space to swim in some way.” with Rather than going against this trend.”
Edited by Stephen Graves.
