We’re about half a year out now from the time some guy put his life’s savings into a literal meme and came out a millionaire exactly 69 days later. Back in the spring, Dogecoin made mainstream headlines for its extreme volatility — it minted a lot more bankruptcies than billionaires, seemingly off the whim of whatever Elon Musk tweeted. If that doesn’t scream ‘simulation on 5% processing’ I don’t know what will.
But history (and/or the matrix’s sloppy automated settings) seem doomed to repeat themselves. Yesterday morning, a second dog-based meme coin, Shiba Inu, rose 30% and deleted a zero from its decimal value after Musk tweeted a picture of… his dog.
Let’s be clear. The coin is still worth less than a penny, despite prices surging 8000% in the past year. But if you bought in with just $1,000 worth of less-than-pennies last year — well, I’ll let you do the math. This is just another succinct summary of the appealing and appalling truths of DeFi (decentralized finance) in one news story: meme tokens are a quick and easy way to make or lose millions, tethered almost entirely to whatever one creepy, would-be Bond villain is feeling that day.
Lately we’re not the only ones jumping ship on DeFi in favor of NFTs. This tweet sums up the reasons why quite nicely:
Much like the moon it so often shoots toward, the potential of Web 3.0 is unexplored. We understand that, to a lot of you, meme coins and NFTs might mean more or less the same thing, and whatever that thing is, you zoned out because some drunk asshole at the bar spent an hour trying to mansplain it. No worries. We get it. We only ask you forgive us for trying too. Read on for what DeFi and NFTs mean for you.
(Drinks in the face are an occupational hazard we’re willing to pay.)