Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed his strong disapproval of the recent trend of celebrities experimenting with crypto by creating memecoins.
In a June 5 social media post afterButerin pointed out that most celebrity-backed memecoins have no practical use or specific use case that supports their creation.
He added that financialization – or the process of turning something into a tradable commodity – is only justified if it serves a purpose that adds value to society, such as improving healthcare, supporting open source software and promoting of art.
Buterin believes that the primary goal of any project should be to give participants a sense of achievement or satisfaction, even if the project ultimately fails or the tokens become worthless. He added:
“The north star should be: have a project where, even if ultimately all the tokens involved go to zero, the average person who participated is happy with that. Mainstream companies and charities achieve this goal all the time! The bar is low, but the things we build must also meet this bar.”
Approval criteria
The co-founder of Ethereum has laid out a set of criteria that a celebrity crypto project must meet to earn his respect.
First, these assets must serve a public good beyond simply enriching celebrities and early adopters. He called the example of Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’ Stoner Cats NFT collection “much more honorable” than other memecoins launched by celebrities this year because the project funded a real show.
Buterin further suggested that celebrity memecoins should include engaging mechanisms, such as Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) activities, that would promote community participation and help the tokens grow beyond just trading.
Furthermore, he emphasized that these tokens should be designed to last for more than a decade and not just be traded for a few months and easily forgotten.
Famous memecoin
In recent weeks, celebrity memecoins have become a new craze in the crypto industry, with superstars like Caitlyn Jenner, Iggy Azalea and Davido launching various tokens through the Solana-based Pump Fun application.
While the results of these experiments have varied, blockchain data shows that the asset mainly benefited early traders who built a substantial position in it. For example, blockchain analyst Lookonchain reported that an address linked to Nigerian record producer Davido made a profit of more than $470,000 in just eleven hours.
Meanwhile, Iggy Azalea’s Mother Iggy token continues to generate interest after rising around 500% over the past seven days, based on CryptoSlate data.