- Buterin argues current meme coins just fluctuate in price and add no value, envisions meme coins that support charities instead.
- Buterin refers to recent racist meme coins, says creating positive versions is better than just criticizing them.
- Buterin anticipates “degens” wanting to gamble on meme coins, suggests better Web3 games be built to provide that fun.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined a positive-sum vision for meme coins, arguing that the current crop of meme-inspired cryptocurrencies do little more than go up and down in price and contribute nothing of value in their wake. In a recent blog post, Buterin argued that many people feel uneasy about the current crop of memecoins and outlined how the financialized games that underpin them can be made to support public goods and charities.
Buterin Takes Aim at Racist Meme Coins
Buterin seemed to be referring to a rash of blatantly racist tokens that appeared on exchanges last week, many that used the n-word, a token called “Jews did 911”, and “NAZI” which appears on exchanges with a swastika as its trading symbol.
“One answer to this conundrum is to shake our heads and virtue-signal about how much we are utterly abhorred by and stand against this stupidity,” Buterin said. “A more productive step,” he argued, “is to create a more positive-sum version of the whole concept of meme coins.”
Envisioning Meme Coins That Support Charities
Buterin envisions meme coins being more like GiveWell Inu, which is no longer active, which promised to donate a portion of its proceeds to the Give Well organization.
Back in 2021, after Buterin had been gifted half the Shiba Inu (SHIB) supply, he swapped them for Ethereum. After he’d done that, he sent $53 million worth of the ETH to GiveWell. But the project seems to no longer be maintained.
Anticipating Criticism from Degens
Anticipating that his ideas might steal the fun of “degens” who enjoy taking a gamble on new meme coins, he suggested that developers build better Web3 games. He specifically put the spotlight on the 0xPARC organization, which has been responsible for games Dark Forest and FrogCrypto.
