According to Cointelegraph, Changpeng Zhao called on the crypto community to prioritize real blockchain solutions over memecoins, emphasizing changes in market dynamics.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao urged the crypto community to shift focus from memecoins to building 'real' blockchain applications.
On November 26, CZ expressed his growing dissatisfaction with the memecoin ecosystem. In an X post, Zhao stated that memecoins have become 'a bit weird' instead of being as fun as they were in the early stages.
CZ resigned as CEO of Binance in November 2023 as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors that requires him to pay a $50 million fine and prohibits him from 'participating in the operation or management' of Binance now or in the future. Since then, the entrepreneur has shifted his focus to supporting grassroots development and education in Web3.
Although Binance's crypto derivatives exchange Binance Futures continues to list memecoin trading pairs that meet public demand, two new memecoins listed on November 25, Why (WHY) and Cheems (CHEEMS), saw their prices plummet within a day of listing.
Since 2021, several memecoins, including Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, have remained popular due to support from Elon Musk and the broader crypto community.
Looking forward to going beyond speculation
However, as market interest has shifted towards Bitcoin and other value-providing projects, memecoins have lost their luster due to being purely speculative projects.
While most of CZ's followers supported him in refocusing on building real decentralized applications (DApps) rather than trying to profit from speculation, some accused his previous exchange, Binance, of listing memecoins with no apparent utility.
Experienced investors partly blame Binance for allowing exposure to unstable investments.
Community-focused memecoin project
On the other hand, the market performance of memecoins reached an all-time high. According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and CoinMarketCap, the total market capitalization of the memecoin ecosystem is about $110 billion, accounting for 3.44% of the $3.19 trillion crypto market.
On November 25, Pump.fun—a decentralized platform for creating Solana-based memecoins—faced severe criticism after one of its users threatened suicide during a live stream.
Although Pump.fun acknowledged the community's concerns, they defended their management efforts for the platform.
However, Pump.fun ultimately canceled its platform's live streaming feature.
