Author：Kinjal Shah, Blockchain Capital
Compiled by: DAOSquare
Meme coins are having their moment. However, in essence, what we have witnessed in the crypto world over the past four years is nothing more than the realization of some of the same ideas in different new media. For example, social tokens, NFTs or meme coins. Their common feature is to make the financialization of shared ideas, assets or information possible. Participating in these markets is to participate in the next "meta" that is constantly created, spread and evolved.
The current state of meme coins is extremely controversial because its culture is one that celebrates (approximately) gambling mechanisms. But imitation of online behavior is a very popular entertainment tool on the Internet. If you look closely, you can see this potentially evolving into deeper forms of participation, ownership, and monetization for creators and users.
In one of my previous posts, I stated that user-generated content is a native form of money on the internet. User-generated content, like memes, is primarily published and circulated on media aggregators like Meta (Facebook) and X (Twitter). With cryptocurrencies, it takes it a step further. User-generated assets are published and circulated on digital native exchanges, and as we are starting to see, they are the new age form of distribution. Memes are just another way to attract attention, a way to distribute it on web3 platforms.
Meme Coin as part of the creator toolkit
Although it is still in its infancy and has not yet reached its final form, a toolkit for web3 creators is gradually emerging. Mechanisms such as points and airdrops reward the use of the protocol. In terms of airdrop design, we still have a lot of room for improvement, such as whitelisting and restrictions on release mechanisms, which have the potential to give birth to more specific reward mechanisms. Further promote its growth through the existing community, on-chain referral rewards, and "token social proof".
Meme coins can also be used to bring different communities together or capture a special moment. For example, Seed Club recently launched $ENJOY on Zora in a completely permissionless manner. The meme coin was airdropped specifically to users who interacted with Zora and Seed Club in real life in various forms. This allowed them to attract wider attention to themselves by leveraging the traffic of the Zora network.
With on-chain addresses and wallets, $ENJOY can specifically reward those who engage more deeply than a simple mint. $ENJOY holders represent a unique set of wallet addresses that demonstrate some level of loyalty and engagement with Zora and Seed Club. While meme coins may be short-lived in nature, they are also an effective tool for gaining attention and marketing.
We’ll start to see more and more creators and brands reward and engage their users through on-chain mechanisms. Your favorite newsletter writer might offer referral rewards to a portion of their readers. Alternatively, those influencers might airdrop their Meme tokens based on active engagement on their social channels. Here are some examples of tools that creators can use to acquire users and increase asset value.
Social consensus and narrative building play a critical role in this. We have seen almost all forms of content aggregation happening on the internet. Until today, the Crypto community has largely relied on traditional social media platforms to build narratives. However, we also have some examples of products being released on-chain, with protocols such as Lens and Farcaster, and applications built on top of these protocols such as Warpcast, Drakula, and Orb.
With these platforms, Meme coins can become part of the product experience. For example, you can comment on a post (Cast) table on Warpcast, and then your wallet address bound to the Warpcast account (FID) will receive BONSAI, and $BONSAI holders can access specific collections or join specific groups. In addition, we also see this social behavior appearing in other emerging markets, such as wallets, trading channels on Telgram, etc. Publishing platforms can use this data to provide a seamless user experience for users of specific protocols or applications.