Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), recently expressed his dissatisfaction with the surge of celebrity meme cryptocurrency launches. In a statement on June 5, Buterin criticized the current trend of celebrities creating memecoins.
Buterin believes that the purpose of a project should be to provide some level of satisfaction and joy to the average participant, even if it may eventually become obsolete. He emphasized in a recent post that financialization is only justified if it serves a meaningful purpose.
“I’m quite disappointed with the current trend of ‘celebrity experimentation’,” Buterin stated. “I can respect financialization as a means to an end if that end is worthwhile, such as healthcare, open source software, art, etc. However, financialization as the end product is unacceptable.”
His comments followed a discussion about the potential for Iggy Azalea’s Mother Iggy (MOTHER) token to become another celebrity experiment in the current cycle.
Buterin also outlined three essential elements that a celebrity cryptocurrency project should possess in order for it to be considered respectable:
1. It should have a public good goal that benefits both the celebrity and early adopters, such as supporting an art project or the celebrity’s preferred charity.
2. It should incorporate a fun mechanic beyond simply trading tokens, such as token voting DAOs that engage and organize participants.
3. It should aim to create a lasting impact for more than a decade, rather than fading away after a few months. The ultimate goal should be to ensure that participants feel satisfied with their involvement, even if the tokens become worthless in the end.
Buterin’s call to move towards more meaningful and sustainable projects comes as the market sees a surge in political memecoins and the rapid rise of memecoin BRETT, which recently surpassed a market value of over US$1 billion with a 50% increase.