Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has criticized meme coins linked to dictatorships, advocating for better-quality projects in a recent blog post.
The current state of meme coins in the crypto space is clearly showing that the industry is still in its early innings, as many of these coins lack novelty and contribute little value beyond speculative trading, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin implied in a recent blog post.
The co-founder of Ethereum, the network which boasts dozens if not hundreds of meme coins like Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Pepe (PEPE), criticized the recent surge of multiple assets targeting social groups by their nationalities, saying “a bunch of Solana memecoins have recently been openly super-racist.” He also highlighted the prevalence of coins with names associated with totalitarian regimes, which he finds particularly concerning.
“I have zero enthusiasm for coins named after totalitarian political movements, scams, rugpulls or anything that feels exciting in month N but leaves everyone upset in month N+1.” Vitalik Buterin
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Buterin pointed out the potential for creating “positive-sum” alternatives within the meme coin space, such as charity coins that allocate a portion of their token supply to charitable causes. However, he also emphasized the importance of creating projects that are not only financially rewarding but also “contribute positively to the ecosystem and the world around them.”
While the Ethereum co-founder acknowledged “people’s desire to have fun,” he still called for higher-quality projects in the crypto space that avoid “enriching insiders and creators.”
The value of meme coins currently stands at $69.1 billion, according to CoinGecko data, surpassing sectors like gamefi ($33.6 billion) and tokens focused on artificial intelligence ($41.3 billion). The overhyped sector of tokens mainly made for fun represents 2.53% of the total crypto market, outstripping non-fungible tokens (accounts for 2.37%) and real-world assets (2.13%) by market dominance, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
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