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ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin criticized meme coins linked to dictatorships and advocated for better quality projects in a recent blog post.
The current state of meme coins in the crypto space clearly shows that the industry is still in its infancy, as many of these coins lack novelty and provide little value beyond speculative trading, hinted ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin , in a recent eth.limo/general/2024/03/29/memecoins.html” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>blog post.
The co-founder of ethereum, the network that has dozens, if not hundreds, of meme coins such as Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Pepe (PEPE), criticized the recent rise of multiple assets targeting social groups based on their nationalities, saying that “a lots of Solana memecoins recently they have been openly super racist.” He also highlighted the prevalence of coins with names associated with totalitarian regimes, which he finds especially worrying.
“I have no enthusiasm for coins named after totalitarian political movements, scams, flips, or anything that seems exciting in month N but leaves everyone upset in month N+1.” Vitalik Buterin
Buterin noted 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 data from CoinGecko, surpassing sectors such as gamefi ($33.6 billion) and tokens focused on artificial intelligence ($41.3 billion). The overhyped sector of tokens created primarily for fun represents 2.53% of the total crypto market, surpassing non-fungible tokens (accounting for 2.37%) and real-world assets (2.13%) for market dominance , according to data from CoinMarketCap.
