Memecoins aren’t useless: they bypass securities laws, don’t benefit venture capitalists, and are also pretty fun.
Memes are the essence of cryptocurrency: social trends, wry humor, and the lure of absurd profits, all wrapped up in a functionless token. They're not for Warren Buffett, but they are for legions of ordinary people looking for fun, community, and a break from the fringes of their surroundings.
“Memes are leading indicators,” says Danny Yang, founder of OnChainMonkey, referring to crazy returns relative to other indicators. Meme coins gamify the investing process, with investors flocking to follow invisible trends from election results or joining the latest coin launch within ten minutes of the arrest of a UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect. This is very similar to 4Chan’s style.
Building community, social bonds, and having fun are all part of the appeal of meme coins. "Humans are social creatures, and memes are about people finding entertainment in the same things," Yang said.
Memes themselves are irrelevant. It's a social game that requires a large number of players, and memes are judged by how many people might want to play the game.
But aside from silly fun and money-making opportunities, what are the real applications of Useless Meme Coins?
Image source: cointelegraph $PNUT was suppressed, but became stronger as a meme coin. (Musk, X)
Application 1: Bypassing U.S. Securities Laws
First, let’s be clear – the uselessness of meme coins is a special application in itself. They bypassed U.S. securities regulations that suppressed the ICO craze. Furthermore, memecoins specifically will not be covered by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s proposed expanded crypto powers. Why is this happening? Because they do nothing.
"It is actually safer to issue a memecoin with no application today than a useful token," wrote Chris Dixon, managing partner at a16z Crypto.
U.S. securities laws focus on the Howey Test to determine what constitutes an investment contract. Meme coins represent only a concept and do not promise any rate of return from the efforts of others and are therefore not subject to this test. This regulatory friendliness has allowed meme coins to spread like wildfire during the crypto war era (2022–2024).
Meme coins are the biggest cryptocurrency narrative in 2024, accounting for 14.3% of CoinGecko’s Q2 market share. Now, with Trump becoming the incoming president, it is expected that new SEC head Paul Atkins may allow "real" projects to once again raise funds through a "safe harbor" proposal similar to Hester Peirce's 2020, whether they Will it gradually disappear?
Application 2: Political speculation
In a world where people use technology to create social bonds they have personally experienced in the past, meme coins allow holders to participate in and capture the political zeitgeist. Meme coins have been created to support and oppose candidates in the U.S. presidential election.
Source: cointelegraph Meme coins are for everyone, even Gary Gensler. (X)
Argentina’s liberal president Javier Milei also has a meme coin dedicated to his reforms. The social utility of allowing people to monetarily express political views can be seen as parallel to textual donation efforts running within major campaigns.
However, social engagement or utility should be better understood as capturing the "zeitgeist," according to Daniel Drescher, vice president of business development at Sal'Ad Labs, Trump's new friend and future administration, in an interview with (Magazine) Musk, the head of the Department of Efficiency (DOGE), is a typical example.
“How does Dogecoin become the gold standard in this uncertain Web3 industry? They have perhaps the most powerful KOL or key opinion leader ever – the richest and undefeated man in the world, Musk. He is steel The inspiration for Ayn Rand, he is the godlike John Galt who created the engine that lit up the world."
Drescher prefers to think of meme coins as “brand coins.” Often, they require a key opinion leader or a cult figure to promote the coin. Successful meme coins have "a cult following that they live and die for. It gets them out of bed every morning."
The zeitgeist analogy struck a chord. For example, memes of Kamala Harris proliferated when then-presidential candidate Joe Biden tripped on the stairs and was subsequently removed by the Democratic Party as their nominee.
Source: CoinMarketCap Political meme coins are popular.
Application 3: Charity Trojan
Meme coins could serve as a Trojan horse for funding more meaningful projects, such as raising money for charity, launching a casino like Iggy Azalea’s Motherland, or launching an exchange like ShibaSwap.
As Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin — a man known for donating meme coins to charity — wrote:
“What’s more interesting among the coins I’ve seen are those where a large portion of the token supply (or some ongoing fee mechanism) is dedicated to some kind of charity.”
"It felt like there was an unoccupied opportunity here to try to create something more positive and lasting."
The Neiro Foundation’s memecoin $NEIRO is trying to become the next Dogecoin by blending utility and speculative rise.
The question is, who is the Trojan horse? Is it a charitable purpose or a speculative increase?
The meme coin is named after Neiro, a rescued Shiba Inu adopted by Atsuko Sato – the owner of the original “Doge” Kabosu.
Image source: imgflip.comDoge vs. Neiro. (X)
The Neiro Foundation is a collective effort to fund the rescue and welfare of Shiba Inu dogs worldwide, providing essential resources and financial support to dog shelters and charities that improve the lives of Shiba Inu dogs. This breed is prone to several common health problems, including hip dysplasia, eye diseases such as glaucoma and cataracts, and progressive retinal atrophy.
SlumDOGE Millionaire gained public recognition after converting $180,000 into over 3 million Dogecoins, a process documented in the documentary (This Not Financial Advice). He is now a spokesman for the coin and said: "While the growing popularity of meme coins has attracted a lot of skepticism, many critics dismiss some meme coins as having a clear, positive mission."
In addition to viral humor, some meme coins support charitable initiatives and thus gain rabid community support. The best meme coins have a strong narrative foundation that resonates with the growing number of socially conscious Web3 users, while demonstrating the huge potential of DeFi to drive philanthropy.
Application 4: Funding the launch of AI agents
AI agents have great practical potential. Imagine an AI agent that automatically rebalances your crypto portfolio so that profits are automatically transferred into good coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and $SOL, saving you from holding 90% of crap coins.
Source: cointelegraph Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between robots and humans. (X)
It seems that one day, AI agents may actually bootstrap autonomous DAOs. But currently, they are highly concentrated on the memecoin bot trading endpoint. Bots like Truth Terminal interact with users on the X platform to create artificial hype, drive community engagement and purchase of meme coins.
Just look at Fartcoin, the AI-inspired meme coin that soared to a $900 million market cap via the “immutable laws of comedy: hot air rises.” It is quickly catching up with $GOAT, another meme coin promoted by Truth Terminal.
The whole concept of autonomous AI agents launching meme coins is a meme in itself, as many "AI agents" are just humans in disguise, and $GOAT was made by humans. However, the growth in real agent numbers highlights its potential.
Calanthia Mei, co-founder of Masa, said, "There is a huge difference between smart AI agent meme coins and dumb meme coins." Mei, formerly a founding member of PayPal's venture capital arm, talked about the "sentience of meme coins." – She was referring to the intersection of AI and meme coins, where AI agents perform tasks such as making transactions.
“Besides making money, meme coins have the side effect of making technology cool. They shine a spotlight on technology that only a small group of people care about.”
Memecoin is helping to fund and launch agents on Virtuals Protocol, AI agents that can be programmed to interact with the token economic design. It also allows for codeless AI agent building, tokenization, and deployment, as well as more complex designs.
Mei's company, Masa, is a "decentralized network of data miners" that provides real-time data to power context-aware AI agents that leverage retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and rely on "emotional intelligence" based on pre-planned prompts. These agents can learn new things and acquire new memories on the fly, she told (Magazine).
So, in this case, these RAG-based AI agents are equipped with dynamic data retrieval, emotional intelligence, and memory capabilities, making them context-aware and adaptable on the fly.
Image source: XMei believes that AI agents are an unstoppable application for trading
Mei is convinced that memes will accelerate experimental connections between AI and crypto. Since the $GOAT story emerged, she has received “three times as many inquiries as previous AI agent development in the past few weeks.”
Think about it – the creation of intelligent AI agent meme coins that roam Crypto Twitter, the home of crypto market sentiment. It's an almost unstoppable investment thesis.
Application 5: Launch tokens fairly to avoid retail investors being cheated by venture capitalists
Retail crypto investors have been screwed by venture capitalists for years. These investors get in early and snap up large amounts of the token supply at prices well below the final market price. This results in ridiculously high fully diluted valuations, with retail investors losing out when venture capitalists dump tokens. It’s no wonder that users burned by unfair token economics are turning to memecoins, which can — though often don’t — launch fairly.
“For some projects, meme coins have provided much-needed funding to develop their technology, escaping the cold venture capital market and Web3 echo chamber,” Masa’s Mei said.
In Murad Mahmudov’s viral Supercycle talk at Token2049, he argued that fully unlocked meme coins mean that tokenized memes are actual products. There are no venture capitalists and no lock-in period. Since the asset cannot be priced because it has no income, this becomes an advantage.
Ultimately, meme coins are useful as a new type of financing tool, said Zhen Yu Yong, CEO of Web3Auth, a white-label wallet company that builds wallets for Trust Wallet, numerous Fortune 500 companies, and has 20 million monthly users .
Of course, most meme coins fail. But now you can launch a tokenization project without market makers, with a chance of success, without the distraction of venture capitalists and back-end equity deals.
This lack of venture capitalist backing for most meme coins is clearly part of the retail appeal. Veterans who missed out on Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or any other major coin in 2010, can get rich instantly without venture capitalists screwing up in a pre-seed round. It’s an ideological investment thesis—a veteran’s dream.
All in all, meme coins are like a cartoon version of an ICO without the presupposition that someone might be trying to build and launch a product.
Source: cointelegraph The most accurate meme of the ICO era. (LinkedIn)
Disclaimer: This article does not constitute investment advice. Users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions in this article are consistent with their specific circumstances, and abide by the relevant laws and regulations of the country and region where they are located.
This article is reproduced with permission from: (MarsBit)
Original author: Max Parasol
“Meme coins are more than just hype! Experts reveal the top 5 applications, but you still have to be careful about returning to zero." This article was first published on "CryptoCity"
