In Defense of Meme Coins
Just recently, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin came out in defense of meme coins, outlining seven practical uses that could make them part of mainstream life.
The crypto community at X was left smoking, but Buterin feels meme coins have a solid, non-entertainment, and non-speculative use.
For those who are not familiar meme coins are cryptocurrencies that have no real underlying value but rather
Rebutting the Naysayers
Most in the crypto community frequently ask questions about the utility of meme coins.
“Why are meme coins still a major narrative? They don’t improve everyday life,” notable critic 0xDesigner voices with frustration, disappointed that his own meme coin concepts have felt contrived.
Mathew Gould, founder of Unstoppable Domains, likened meme coins to ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), pointing out regulator problems.
While Gould thought meme tokens could be used to fund brands or causes, “regulatory issues remain a big hurdle.”
However, they have proven their worth by having the biggest percentage growth in recent time with examples like Shiba Inu, Pepe, and so many others.
Seven possible Practical Applications for Meme Coins according to Vitalik
A meme coin can not only make crazy gains for investors willing to take the risks, but also be used in several different real-world purposes according to Vitalik Buterin.
- Reputation/Identity.
Meme coins can be applied for identifying reputation on an online community.
In a virtual world where identity is paramount and must be verified, meme coins can act as badges of honour or proof for having participated in an event or a community.
For example, the ownership of a certain meme coin could prove that the user has made a contribution to the project or the community, and hence his assigned reputation online would be higher.
- Cross-Border Payments.
Due to the low value and easy transferability, these funds could be used in carrying out such small, informal cross-border transactions. In this regard, meme coins are excellent at micro-transactions, especially remittances, because they charge lower transaction fees and have short processing times.
- Decentralized Social Platforms.
Meme coins could offer tips to the creators of the content. In a decentralized social platform, meme coins can be tipped to content creators who can prove, create, and engrain good quality content.
- Prediction Markets
Furthermore, they could be used in prediction markets for betting or forecasting events. Adding a layer of fun and engagement to it, meme coins bring users to bet about the outcomes of the events.
- Privacy Features.
Meme coins most likely have some privacy features to ensure the anonymity of transactions. Meme coins that are privacy-focused guarantee that users have a way to transact without really identifying themselves.
- Enterprise Apps.
May exist in zk validiums, in the integration part, niche, or even experimental projects. In that case, meme coins can assist the enterprise applications through integration in the zk validium, which will assure scalability and security of all kinds of specific use cases.
- Censorship-Resistant Voting.
Meme coins could ensure safe voting among their community members, which would include the coin holders in a decision-making process. Meme coins in DAOs and other community-driven projects would guarantee secure and transparent voting,
Landscape Beyond Speculation
Buterin lamented the drift toward using meme coins as pure profit projects and favoured “financialization as a means to an end” when it related to certain things such as healthcare or open source.
He had, in March, emphasized the social value of meme coins in a tweet and how they could be turned into instruments of funding public projects and socially useful causes.
Notwithstanding these diametrically opposed views, the concept of Buterin shows that, used with good taste, meme coins can confer very special contributions.
Opportunities and Challenges
There is so much more to meme coins than meets the naked eye of speculation, and Vitalik`s activism only highlights the fact further.
Buterin outlined uses such as for decentralized identity and content rewards, which undercuts the idea that meme coins are not of any use in the real world, but some very valid points are raised by critics on the line of regulatory concerns and feasibility in putting these ideas into practice.
Anyhow, Buterin is of the view that the meme coins can do something really important to contribute to society other than pure speculations and adrenaline driven investment.
Conclusion
It is with these elements that Vitalik Buterin’s vision for meme coins, therefore, becomes valuable in a new light. In all, he has described seven uses, which becomes an easy entry point for an expanded understanding of integrational means with everyday life.
Skepticism can be maintained on the coins, but Buterin has fundamentally elaborated the arguments that tend to favor their utilitarian value within different societal flows.
