Why do Airdrops and MEMEs Always Lead to New Adoption and Hype Cycles?
Smart Contract platforms have been around for nearly a decade, and to the outrage of many, the most successful crypto products still see crypto as a "what" rather than a "how" at the end of 2023.
Crypto Assets are "What" products around assets as investments: users buy, earn, trade, borrow, leverage assets, including Internet currency, Memecoin, and Non-fungible Tokens, in the hope that the price will rise. Wealth is created and lost, sometimes quickly. These extremes within the industry are sought after by those who call themselves "Degens", while outside the industry they are ridiculed by those in power.
To the disappointment of many, there is no more innovation in crypto assets than as an investment, but such products have a strong market fit, a trend that Jesse Walden believes is likely to intensify. The following article will try to explain why this is so, the reasons are subtle and not taken seriously.
Variant's argument is that next-generation internet networks turn users into owners – especially asset owners. Just as the internet empowers everyone to be a publisher, Crypto Assets enable everyone to become an asset owner and, in turn, an investor. You don't need capital to invest, you can put your time or work into creating art, running machines (like the DIMO Mobile project, which turns car data into an asset), or doing manual labor.
From this perspective, Crypto Assets can be seen as the "democratization of investment." Crypto assets serve many other forms of internet-native value, such as money, digital art, memes, and early-stage technology projects.
The democratization of investment, both in the Crypto Assets space and beyond, has been achieved in the most compelling speculative way, confirming the saying that "the most interesting outcome is the most likely" (Note: Musk's 2021 tweet). This has been the case with GameStop, Dogecoin, Bonk, and Dogwiphat in the past. What's going on?
The film "Silly Money" tries to capture the cultural context behind this trend. The film provides a perspective on the modern world of delegated investment that is characterized by online accessibility, the impact of social media on the information waterfall, the psychology of defeating the strong with the weak, and the opportunity to get a piece of the pie. (Note: The movie "Silly Money" is adapted from the 2021 game station stock surge incident, which tells the story of how retail investors gathered together at the forum to fight against Wall Street)
For those in power, this speculative investment is like a joke, or perhaps a strange form of entertainment. For the participants, it's a lottery ticket, a sport, a team sport played online with friends, or some combination of them. Like all games, there are expectations of winners and losers. There are also cheaters who try to gain an unfair advantage (which should be punished).
Jesse Walden asked every crypto entrepreneur he met how they got involved in the crypto space. The most common story heard is that they start with speculative investing, usually BTC, ETH, IC0, Decentralized Finance Summer, or Non-fungible Token, which resonates with Jesse Walden because this is also Jesse Walden's story. For many entrepreneurs, including the author, these early-stage investments have changed their lives – from having little savings to having some savings that make the way for another adventure.
All of a sudden, they're also bottom-tier investors in some technologically advanced projects or communities. The initial investment sparked their interest in the underlying technology or ideology, and many found work in the crypto space, or started startups. More often than not, the investment will not be successful. But everywhere else, this cutting-edge financial opportunity is available just by paying attention.
At the extreme, Memecoin still represents the same outlook for those who are concerned today. The prospect of participating in economic growth attracts so many entrepreneurs and users, which is important because a portion of these users learn from these experiences, thinking and acting like investors. The process usually starts with something "absurd" that looks like a toy, but leads to a complete shift in psychology, in which money, effort or skills are honed in order to make a more "serious" contribution to the field. Many have also been harmed by the chaotic, volatile free-market process. But despite this, speculative investments continue to drive the growth of Crypto Assets, which in turn drives technological advancements for non-speculative use cases.
Variant's vision for crypto is a fairer internet: a mission to empower 1 billion users to become owners. This is a long-term, ambitious goal. Variant believes this path is being forged by an ongoing cultural shift where more and more users think like investors and want to have what they believe and understand (like the MEME they use every day). This means embracing Memecoin as much as it embraces Meme as part of the internet's native culture, and invites people to invest/use/contribute to the project.
At the end of 2023, crypto speculation is once again in the spotlight. Speculative projects have the most activity, users, and attention. At the same time, permissionless tracks continue to be developed and innovate around non-speculative use cases. It's not a question of if, but when the latter will have an impact, validating the speculative enthusiasm surrounding the former.
Even in the event of failure, the reality of avoiding speculation will appear to be "high status", and accepting speculation is considered a "low status" path to success. The reality is more nuanced: speculation can be a powerful strategy that allows users to walk through the door and invest in the success of the project and the field as a whole, not only as an end in itself, but also as a means.
(Source: Jesse Walden, Felix)
