Pepecoin and the Rise of the Meme-Backed Currency
Memes, Dreams, and Get-Rich-Quick Schemes
Introduction
Itâs hard to have missed epic saga of Pepecoin over the past two months, and along with it, a resurgence of memecoin hype. Indeed, on May 5, Pepecoin broke through the stunning $1B market cap to become a Top 50 cryptocurrency [1]. In many respects, Pepecoinâs rise calls to mind the famously stunning rise of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, two of the most famous memecoins in history. In fact, Pepecoin itself even pays homage to the long tradition of memecoins it descends from, writing that it will âmake memecoins great againâ [2]. So what makes a memecoin âgreatâ? And why do they exist (and even thrive) in the crypto ecosystem, in spite of their evident lack of utility?
Know Your Memecoins
Memecoins have always been a crypto novelty and oddity. Their most characteristic trait is in fact their own self-professed lack of any utility, something they wear around with a semi-sarcastic sense of pride. Even though almost anyone can create a memecoin today just with a few clicks of a button, not all memecoins are created equal. After all, a lot more people hold Dogecoin than say, âHarryPotterObamaSonicInuâ (this is an actual real coin on CoinMarketCap) [3].
Indeed, the most successful memecoins never come from humble backgrounds: they are warriors. These are memes that have fought in ferocious battles on the turbulent seas of Internet meme culture, where any cultural sensation or anything that grabs peopleâs attention, ranging from Elon Musk references (Tweelon), sex jokes (CumRocket), literal poop (PooCoin), GPT-references (PepeGPT) can all be turned into memecoins [4].
In these epic battles, only those memes that have proven their demonstrated approachability, relatability, persistence can survive. For those that do, they are rewarded with boundless glory, with glamour from the crowds, homage from the powerful, and a memecoin that will wear through even the toughest of crypto storms. And amidst all of this, perhaps Pepe does actually stand a chance of surviving, prevailing, and thriving.
Pepe the Meme Royalty
The Original Pepe meme of âFeels Good Man.â Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepe_the_Frog
Pepecoin was born with a silver spoon in its mouth, as the meme of Pepe belongs (along with Doge) to a class of Internet meme royalty. Born in 2008 out of the hand of cartoonist Matt Furie, the green frog with a bulging green eyes was depicted literally urinating (pee-pee-ing) while commenting âfeels good manâ [5]. And since then, Pepe has taken off in all shapes and forms, including a sad version, a smirk version, and so many more [6].
Since its inception, the Pepe meme and the corresponding image of an ugly frog has had a distinctly counterculture and subversive connotation, in particular when contrasted with the much more sanguine Doge meme. While most usage of Pepe is very benign, this ugly frog also has a distinctly âugly side.â On 4chan and other more fringe social media platforms, the frog meme is often twisted and modified to take darker turns and sometimes embody extremist political symbols. And gradually, variants of the Pepe family of memes became staples on alt-right groups and other darker, more subversive corners of the Internet [7]. Thus, the Pepe meme exists in a massive duality: on the one hand, it exists in the mainstream as a benign counterculture image of an ugly frog with a happy or sad or smirky expression on its face. On the other, this counterculture symbol has been coopted for extremist political movements that actively cause societal instability.
This duality is what has made Pepecoin so controversial, and why it landed Coinbase in hot water after Coinbase accused the Pepe meme of being âco-opted as an alt-right hate symbol,â before later being forced to apologize and acknowledge that most mainstream uses of Pepe are non-bigoted [8]. But in the context of memecoins, they thrive on controversy and continued media attention. After all, it is precisely Pepeâs status as a longstanding meme royalty and one of the undisputed hallmarks of Internet meme culture that underwrites the value proposition for Pepecoin, and explains its eye-watering ascent to a $1 billion market cap, with a $1.87 billion trading volume at its peak.
Pepecoin Price, CoinMarketCap. Data as of May 24: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pepe/
In this respect of leveraging its power as an undisputed Internet meme royalty to underwrite its value as a cryptocurrency, Pepecoin greatly resembles Dogecoin. And one could argue that there is a kernel of truth in the Pepecoin slogan of âmake memecoins great againâ and its self-proclamation of being fueled solely by âpure memetic power.â After all, as Pepe is such an important meme royalty, it is certainly conceivable that Pepecoin could stick around for quite some time, just like Dogecoin [9].
Pumps, Dumps, and the Power of FOMO
Memecoins such as Dogecoin and Pepecoin, along with their self-processed lack of any utility, are of course ripe targets for pump and dump schemes and regulations. And in many cases, âshilling shitcoinsâ is a favorite pastime for the rich.
One need to look no further to see how Elon Musk has been instrumental in shaping the fortunes of Dogecoin to see the influence of how key opinion leaders can send prices soaring to the moon [10]. After simply Tweeting âDogeâ and writing that âDogecoin is the peopleâs cryptoâ, Dogecoin prices soared 40%, and in the massive bull run of 2021, Dogecoin did a phenomenal 147.6x price increase in just over five months.
Elon Musk calling Dogecoin âthe peopleâs cryptoâ. Source.
Arguably, this ability to be pump and dumped at will by key opinion leaders is in-baked into the economic logic of memecoins. As mentioned before, memecoins monetize and gain according to how much attention and cultural capital the underlying meme (or cultural phenomenon) is able to accrue and sustain over a long period of time. Key opinion leaders such as Musk have by definition the power to single-handedly create and sustain cultural phenomenon, and thereby allow these cultural derivatives (i.e. memecoins) to gain immensely in value, and in turn, kickstart a cycle of fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) for retail investors, who want to hop aboard the get-rich-quick crypto ride.
This same logic that applies to Pepecoinâs rapid ascent over the past month or so. Although there isnât a clear single celebrity pushing Pepecoin on Twitter (as in the case of Musk and Dogecoin), from on-chain data it seems as if there have been some outsized winners with the Pepecoin hype. For example, a wallet labelled blackrock3.eth bought $244 worth of Pepecoin on April 21, and sold all of them on May 5 at its peak for $2.63 million [11].
And of course, with a pump inevitably comes a dump. Today (May 25th), exactly 20 days from its peak, Pepecoin is down 70% from its all-time-high [12]. As the attention of the memecoin inevitably dissipates and the frenzy of FOMO subsides, the price (a function of this attention) naturally also decreases. But thatâs simply the virtue or characteristic of memecoins. For a memecoin, Pepecoinâs -70% can already be considered tame and âbenign.â At least Pepecoin hasnât mimicked the fate of the âSquid Game token,â a memecoin which rode on the wave of the Netflix TV show âSquid Gameâsâ massive success in 2021. The âSquid Game tokenâ jumped from 1 cent to $2856 in a week, before plummeting to zero after its creators essentially ran away with the money earned and did a classic ârug pullâ [13]
But this volatility coming from memecoins, who self-profess that their only value comes from their memetic power, one really shouldnât be surprised â after all, they literally say âuselessâ on the label.
From the Pepecoin Website
Memechains and the Question of Utility
But what does the future of memecoins look like? Will they ever only really be objects of pure speculative bubbles? The answer actually is a bit more complicated than a simple yes or no. Memecoins by design are backed up by the potency of their underlying meme. The problem is that you can never really quantitatively measure the economic value of a meme. These, after all, are simply free JPEGs widely accessible and distributed on the Internet, and as such, obviously generate no monetary value. After all, why pay for a meme I can see, copy, and create for free?
But just because a meme does not have a price tag on it does not mean that it lacks intrinsic value. If Pepe the meme did not have any value, why would people continue to use it to this day, as a symbol for resistance, counterculture, and digital identity? This is the paradox at the center of all art, but particularly digital mementos that can be freely copy-pasted: no one doubts that they are valuable, yet there is no way to measure that value.
Memecoins, to some extent, may in fact be one way out of this problem. If a meme is a some âunquantifiable value,â a memecoin is in essence a âquantifiable un-value.â The two therefore fit together hand-in-glove, and attaches some quantifiable representation to the value of the meme behind the coin. Therefore, even if much of the memecoin mania is fuelled by speculation, I donât expect the memecoins of mainstream memes such as Pepe and Doge to ever go to zero, so long as the memes themselves still exist.
Nevertheless, there has been a frenzy in memecoin communities to add on so-called âutilityâ to these originally supposedly âuselessâ coins. This notably includes the Dogecoin communityâs Dogechain, a smart-contract executing PoS built using Polygon Edge where gas fees can be paid in Dogecoin [14], as well as the Shiba Inu communityâs Shibarium, a L2 scaling solution that recently just announced its public beta [15]. Most of these âadded utility functionsâ are centered around the classic playbook of getting a chain in order to nominally âhave utility.â But the crypto industry is already strewn with the corpses of failed chains, and today there are already too many L1 and L2 chains that are able to match and surpass the proposed functionality of something like Dogechain and Shibarium. The central problem of building a chain to inject so-called âutilityâ into these tokens is this: why should I use Shibarium and Dogechain to execute smart contracts, over say Arbitrum, Optimism, or Polygon?
Any satisfactory answer to these questions must go back to where memecoins started from in the first place â the original meme underwriting the whole memecoin, such as Doge in the case of Dogecoin, or Pepe in the case of Pepecoin. In fact, if any of these memecoin powered memechains do succeed, they likely will be some sort of a meme-focused chain, where the design of the chain leverages and magnifies the iconographic power of the meme, which in turn adds value to the memechain. Viewed through this lens, one could argue that a memechainâs long-run potential is in becoming a special sort of appchain, one that specializes in operating the underlying meme.
In the long-run, the successful operation of a memechain would likely be more similar to the operation of a successful NFT community, such as BAYC, Azuki, Nouns or Doodles, rather than the operation of an actual L1 or L2 chain like Ethereum, Arbitrum or Polygon. The focus needs to be on the underlying asset backing the memecoin in the first place â the meme â rather than the functionality of the chain itself.
This convergence and triangulation between memes, coins, and tech is arguably the most innovative and inspiring aspect of memecoins. If Pepecoin, Dogechain, and Shibarium are able to innovate out a novel governance structure that perpetuates the longevity of the underlying meme, they will undoubtedly leave a significant mark on the cultural legacy of web3. And then, perhaps, we will truly be able to âmake memes great again.â
Pepecoin making memes great again. Source.
References
[1] https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/what-is-pepecoin-pepe-memecoins-dogecoin-shiba-inu-crypto-news-2023-5
[2] See Pepecoinâs Website: https://www.pepe.vip/
[3] https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/9-funniest-memecoin-names
[4] What are Memecoins: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/what-is-a-meme-coin-how-do-they-work
[5] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-the-frog
[6] Derivative memes of Pepe the Frog: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-the-frog/children
[7] https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-pepe-the-frog-became-a-nazi-trump-supporter-and-alt-right-symbol
[8] https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/05/11/coinbase-apologizes-for-tying-meme-token-pepecoin-to-racist-symbols/?sh=37957e942419
[9] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/cryptocurrency/what-is-dogecoin/
[10] Elon Musk and Dogecoin: https://coincodex.com/article/21927/elon-musk-dogecoin/
[11] See https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/blackrock-labeled-wallet-nets-2-4m-from-pepe/. Note that while some have speculated this wallet may belong to BlackRock fund, there is no concrete evidence suggesting this to be the case.
[12] Data from CoinMarketCap, as of May 25: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pepe/
[13] About the Squid Game Token Collapse: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59129466
[14] About Dogechain: https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-dogechain-the-smart-contract-platform-for-doge
[15] About Shibarium: https://blog.shibaswap.com/introduction-to-shibarium/
[16] See the importance of community building in NFT circles such as NounsDAO: https://review.stanfordblockchain.xyz/p/nouns-dao-and-the-philosophy-of-governance
Note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly suggested that BlackRock was an institutional holder of Pepecoin based on on-chain data. The Stanford Blockchain Review regrets this error.
Edited by XWORLD: Pioneering Web3 Games & Apps Store.
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The League of Kingdomsâ Web3 Transformation
Unleashing the Power of Profit, Community, and Fun in Gaming through Blockchain Technology and revolutionizing the Gaming Landscape
In the ever-evolving world of digital gaming, one name stands out as a trailblazer in the industry: League of Kingdoms. This innovative game, listed on the XWORLD platform, is a testament to how Web3 technology can transform the gaming landscape by seamlessly combining profit, community, and fun.
The major titles of Web 3.0 games include Axie Infinity, where you can raise and collect different âAxiesâ, The Sandbox, which aims for open metaverse, and NBA Top Shot, which is a collection of sports player cards and games.
However, most Web 3.0 games at their current state are mainly focused on pursuing âprofitâ rather than âfunâ, and merely emphasize on the fact that game players can acquire in-game item ownership through blockchain and NFT. In addition, as in the case of Axie Infinity, the issue of sustainability continues to be raised.
For a game to have sustainable gameplay and growth, it must not miss the âfunâ element as well as the âprofitâ element. Only when player-focused âcommunityâ element is integrated on top of these will it truly be a Web 3.0 game of the players, by the players, for the players.
League of Kingdoms is a 4X strategy game that takes the concept of gaming to a whole new level. The 4X strategy game refers to a strategy game that focuses on âEXplore,â âEXpand,â âEXploit,â and âEXterminateâ.
GamePlay
In general, factors such as base construction, technology research, managing troops and resources, scouting surroundings, and rivalry and monster battles are part of the gameplay.
GamePlay of League of Kingdoms
There are a lot of ways to play it, such as plundering other kingdoms or farming monsters for various resources. Because playing with friends is more fun than fighting others, you can also join an Alliance. It also has multiple events that will let you complete various activities each day for unique rewards. The game has four standard resources to collect: Wood, Stone, Corn, Gold, and Crystals. While they can be easily farmed, the latter mostly come from events, quests, and store purchases.
Users who have played existing mobile games such as Clash of Clans and Rise of Kingdoms would find this kind of gameplay familiar.
Game-Changer
While the company took all the profits in Web 2.0 games, League of Kingdoms distributes a portion of the profits back to the players, just like what XWORLD is doing. Through $LOKA and $DST, the game is designed so that the community is enabled and rewarded for making their own game and governance operation through DAO is effectively possible.
League of Kingdoms is the game that has secured both âprofitâ and âcommunityâ along with âfunâ. When the game was released, instead of initially disclosing the tokens, it first focused on the excellence and fun of the game to build a sustainable gameplay environment for players to thrive. They have already secured a loyal player base through excellent game quality, and now the team wishes to return to them more rights and rewards for their contributions to the game.
The gameplay is immersive, engaging, and designed to keep players on their toes. But what sets League of Kingdoms apart is its transformation into a Web3.0 game and Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), combining profit with fun and sustainability.
Game Economy (NFT)
The transition to Web3.0 has allowed League of Kingdoms to incorporate blockchain technology into its core mechanics. This integration has led to the creation of a unique game economy, where in-game tokens play a crucial role. These tokens, which can be earned, traded, and used within the game, add a layer of complexity and excitement to the gameplay. They also provide a tangible reward for playersâ time and energy, making the gaming experience more profitable and sustainable.
The potential of this type of gameplay is immense. By integrating blockchain technology, League of Kingdoms has opened up new avenues for player engagement and monetization. Players are not just consumers; they are active participants in the game economy, contributing to its growth and evolution. This level of player involvement is unprecedented in the gaming industry and sets a new standard for future games.
1. LAND
LAND represents ownership of certain coordinates of the continent within the game as an NFT. LAND holders can earn a certain portion of the revenue (10%) generated from the coordinate and increase the level of LAND by obtaining LAND development points. Its amount is limited to a total of 65,536 (256Ă256), and the higher the demand, the higher the value of the LAND will be.
2. Drago
Dragos can be owned or traded as NFTs. Drago boosts combat capabilities by putting magical enhancements on combat forces, and if you have Drago, you can gain $DST and $LOKA. The initially issued Genesis Drago is limited in total quantity and has one of five attributes: fire, wood, ice, light, and darkness.
3. Resources
Food, lumber, stone, and gold, which are important resources in the game, are produced every time the game play time passes, and accumulated resources can be issued as NFT and traded at OpenSea.
Game Economy (Tokens)
League of Kingdoms has two tokens: the governance token $LOKA and the utility token $DST. Representative P2E games that have separated protocol tokens into two in this way include âAxie Infinityâ and âStar Atlas.â
In general, the reason for such separation of governance and utility tokens is to separate the inflation of goods that comes from gameplay and the inflation of blockchain governance that comes from staking.
1. LOKA (League of Kingdoms Arena)
LOKA is an in-game governance token that represents voting rights for the League of Kingdoms operations policy. You can get LOKA through gameplay, and receive in-game profits by staking.
$LOKA holders can decide on how to utilize League of Kingdomâs Council Vault (hereinafter referred to as âTreasuryâ) through governance staking. Treasury is incurred in marketplace transaction fees, in-game payments (on-chain payments), LAND sales, NFT upgrades, and bridging. This Treasury can be used in a variety of ways, including token burning, buyback, user compensation for P2E, landowner compensation, etc.
In addition to the usage of Treasury, governance can also vote on various factors in the game, such as land compensation rates. LOKA holders ultimately make decisions to enable long-term growth and sustainability for gameplay.
2. $DST (Dragon Soul Token)
$DST is an in-game utility token that is used to breed and raise Dragos. $DST is mainly used to breed Dragos. Each Drago has its own attributes and ratings, so players need a suitable Drago for every situation. As the number of players increase and the demand for Dragos grows alongside with it, the demand for $DST is also expected to increase.
In conclusion
League of Kingdoms is more than just a game; itâs a game-changer. Its innovative use of Web3 technology, unique game economics, and commitment to player engagement and profitability make it a standout in the gaming industry. As more games follow in its footsteps, we can expect to see a new era of gaming that is more engaging, rewarding, and fun.
XWORLD(xworld.pro), a platform dedicated to promoting high-quality games and apps, recognizes the value that League of Kingdoms brings to the table. XWORLD highly values the balance of profit and fun for all Internet digital citizens and rewards them for the time and energy they contribute. By listing League of Kingdoms, XWORLD is endorsing its innovative approach to gaming and its commitment to providing a rewarding and enjoyable gaming experience.
If youâre a gamer or an internet user interested in the future of gaming, follow XWORLD on Twitter at https://twitter.com/xworld_pro to stay updated on the latest developments in Web3 games, NFTs, and tokenomics. Donât miss out on the revolution; join the League of Kingdoms and experience the future of gaming today.
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