THree a few days before its inauguration as American president, Donald Trump makes an unusual movement. He launched $ Trump, a so-called part of memes that fans and speculators could buy in the hope that it would gain value. Initially, $ Trump has climbed worth $ 7 to $ 75 per day, depending on the crypto tracking website, CoinMarketCap. Two days later, he fell at around $ 40 – just like the first lady of Melania Trump launched her own meme piece, $ Melania. Even the pastor of Trump’s inauguration ceremony, Lorenzo Sewell, was swept away in the frenzy of the same, promoting a $ Lorenzo version the same afternoon.
So what exactly are the pieces even, and why do everyone and their vicar suddenly get involved?
Coins are a type of digital asset based on a meme – generally something that has become viral online. The best known is Dogecoin, inspired by the meme popular with a Shiba Inu dog who speaks in Comic Sans. But Dogecoin is a little different from the slew of parts even recent, explains Simon Peters, cryptographic analyst of the ETORO commercial platform. Launched in 2013, Dogecoin has its own blockchain-the technology of the great decentralized book that underlies cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The majority of other coins are “tokens”, which means that they operate above an existing blockchain and therefore require little technical development.
These tokens are very easy to make; There are millions. The only real objective of most coins is speculation: users create or buy them in the hope that their value will climb so that they can earn a lot of money very quickly.
It seems lucrative, what is the catch?
In reality, the vast majority of people lose money. Most coins are volatile and short -lived. They are also sensitive to what is called a “pump and discharge” scheme or a “carpet traction”, explains Peters. It is at this time that the creators keep a lot of tokens for themselves, the planking media on social networks to attract other buyers and increase the value, then dump all their tokens – flooding the market and causing the fact that The price crashes. “Then everyone goes to another,” said Carol Alexander, a finance professor at Sussex University. Since the cryptography market is largely unregulated, investors have little appeal in the event of a problem.
No regulators, no railing, seems uncertain …
All this has not discouraged people, and there has been a boom of coins in the past year. Alexander compares him to the previous one Mode around NFTAnother type of crypto asset (you may remember that people have paid millions of books to Digital monkeys). There are several reasons for the recent interest. January 2024 saw the launch of Pump.fun, a platform that allows anyone to easily create a piece of meme (although it was blocked for British users in December following a Warning from the Financial Conduct Authority). The election of Trump Crypto-Friendly may also embrace the community. But a key engine of the same corners, says Alexander, is more a social problem: “Young men, disillusioned, want to try to become rich quickly.”
Which would explain why they are based on the internet in jokes or purile humor…
Indeed. At the time of the drafting of this document, several memes of money dogs reveal; The Shiba Inu breed is a particular point of contact. Others include a Pepe token, based on the meme of cartoon frog sometimes associated with the alt-red, and a gighad token, referring to a “male alpha”. The subjects of memes also tried to transform viral reputation into crypto gains: in December, Haliey Welch, better known as “Hawk Tuah Girl” after a viral video of his reference to oral sex, launched the token $ Hawk, who quickly lost 95% of its value).
Are parts of bitcoin and memes essentially the same?
Although the pieces even have their foundations in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, Mike Hearn Early Bitcoin Developer said they have little to do with the vision of original crypto. He left the Bitcoin community in January 2016 because he did not agree with the direction in which he was managed. He wanted to see the cryptocurrency used as a real alternative to traditional finance rather than a simple speculative asset. The pieces even are a continuation of this trend, it says: “They are essentially a form of game – a kind of more amplified version of the stock market, but with less connection with anything concrete.”
It does not seem more crazy than an online Paris site for me …
Then consider the story of the New Zealand artist Andy Ayrey, who formed an AI language model and created an X, @truth_terminal account, so that he shares his thoughts. Ayrey describes the bot as a teenager who “has no social awareness of when to be rude and when not being”. Truth Terminal particularly appreciated the publication of Goatse, a meme not to be done for work that is one of the first Internet traditions.
The AI has acquired an interest in coins after interacting with cryptographic accounts on X, and Ayrey has set up a cryptographic portfolio in its name. Then things have become weird. Inspired by the messages of the bot, a foreigner – Ayrey says he does not know who – created a token on the theme of goat on Pump.fun and sent it to the Terminal of Truth. Truth Terminal promoted the token on his account and “all hell has detached,” explains Ayrey. The token market capitalization – the total value of all tokens – has increased. According to CoinmarketCap, in its most precious launch, about a month after the launch, it reached more than $ 1.2 billion.
The AI was later involved in another part of memes, Fartcoin, based on the same a more relatable (once again, Ayrey says that he does not know the creator). Fartcoin has reached market capitalization of more than $ 2.3 billion.
SO Ayrey was quids?
Not so simple. All experience has introduced Ayrey to some of the problems concerning the parts even. He noted that their value on Eclipt paper massively what he could really get for them, due to the low liquidity. As soon as he sold the tokens, their value would decrease and have a negative impact on others who held the tokens. Finally, he concluded a private agreement with a few investors on the grounds that they would not empty Fartcoin on the market. He admits that it was fun to have to speak to finance and the tax authorities of the “liquidant PET”. He thinks that it is part of the attraction of fans of the same corner. “The more people get angry on this subject, especially in traditional finances, the more the people think that Fartcoin is funny and that Fartcoin goes up,” he said.
Who earns money then?
The main people earning money on Crypto, explains Alexander, are institutional investors – commercial companies that use strategies that are not authorized in the trade of regular actions. “All large professional traders make them billions, and ordinary people lose their money,” she says.
And Trump?
Alexander considers his meme piece as being slightly different from many parts in that he has a potential alternative function in addition to speculation: users buy it to show their support for the president. In this way, it is similar to a “fans token”, like those produced by sports teams and players. The Trump token has aroused criticism due to conflicts of interest; Among other concerns, Trump Has one of the entities that receive negotiation costs. Alexander thinks that the motivation of the medal is simple: “It just shows that he can do this kind of thing,” she says. “He can do what he likes and he knows.”