Meme coins fill a cultural need. People may not understand the SNARK extension solution, but they may own dogs, cats, or other pets.

In mid-April 2023, a frog meme coin called Pepe dominated discussions in crypto circles with a parabolic rise of 21,000% in a matter of hours. Pepe joins a long list of meme coins, led by Doge and Shiba Inu, that have made some people millions and others lost even more .​

In early April 2023, Elon Musk temporarily adopted the Dogecoin logo as the face of Twitter. Values ​​surged again, then fell back.

Critics point to memecoins as the worst of the worst, with absolutely no underlying and redeemable value. Granted, these memecoins may suddenly surge parabolically, but then crash and burn violently. There is no buy and hold strategy for memecoins. You don't really own them.

I hold zero memecoins and only look at these from a cultural perspective. I do agree that these have no underlying value. These simply reflect the time they were valued at during a very short period of history, but that value is only because it can make money for the holder. There is no emotional attachment to memetokens.

What are the possible uses of memecoin?

The only possible use of memecoins (which should in no way encourage people to buy these risky tokens) is that these memes make blockchain and cryptocurrencies less scary.

Take Ethereum (which I own some) and the new layer 2 scaling solutions like Optimism, Arbitrum, zkEVM, zkSync, Linea, Base, Starkware, MATIC, etc. (which I do not own). Personally, I don’t really understand how these things work. I do know that these have the potential to migrate many Web2 features owned by large centralized companies to decentralized Web3 in the future.

But I don't really know how they work other than a high level understanding. All I know is that they help speed up Ethereum and keep gas fees down.

These terms sound too technical and nerdy. I consider myself to be fairly tech savvy, but what about the other people we claim to be encouraging to migrate to blockchain? Tribal culture almost seems like a religion or secret society, with its own lingo, customs, and other practices. Honestly, how can the average person buy into that?

Memecoins fill a cultural need. People may not understand SNARK scaling solutions, but they probably own a dog, cat, or other pet. It runs through the emotional part of our psyche, not the logical part — especially with cute pets as memes.

Putting a cute face on this technology could be a way to encourage people to try it. Wallets are already too clunky to use due to hexadecimal wallet addresses. For those new to the space, remember not to send ETH to a BTC wallet and vice versa. There is a lot to learn and remember. Most people will shrug and say, “Why bother?”

Note that experimentation may mean buying a few dollars worth of product. Not investing hundreds or thousands, it's really a gamble on your part. More like buying a few tokens at an amusement park to have fun. That's it.

Again, I don’t encourage jumping into memecoins. Unlike crypto blockchain infrastructure tokens like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, etc., these memecoins tend to be pump and dump tokens. Sure, if you get in at the right time, you might make a hundred or even a thousand times your money, but most people end up losing money, so it’s really a gamble.

However, in the big picture, they may help get people into the space. It’s a small way to get them involved before they take the plunge into more serious cryptocurrencies.