I do not hate Meme Coins.  I just want cryptocurrencies and the blockchain to be the way most of us carry out our daily lives in the future.

 

And this is why I want meme coins to phase themselves out for good someday.

 

I hope all of you who got into these early make tons of money, take your profits, and use those profits to move onto the next phase, whenever that time comes.

 

But I don’t want Meme Coins to be around in the next phase.

 

If you love crypto as much as I do, you should feel the same.

 

I’ll explain.

 

This blog post is about both regulating the crypto market, and the role Meme Coins play in the overall solution.  And it’s long.  Fair warning.

 

I am also not a crypto-nerd.  I am a trader and a general finance guy, and I am sharing my perspective as a general finance guy here.  If you think there is something “I just don’t get” when it comes to crypto, you’re probably right.

 

What They Are

 

I don’t think I need to spend too much time on this part, most of you know what Meme Coins are.

 

Through the wide-open structure known as DeFi (decentralized finance), if you have the means to, you can create a cryptocurrency.

 

Does it have to do anything?  No.

 

With enough resources behind you, can you pump it as high as you are able to, with no consequence?  Yes.

 

The one which gets almost all the press is DogeCoin.  Created as a joke, the coin was not built to do anything, yet people thought it was hilarious to buy into it anyway over time, creating a cultural phenomenon, capturing the hearts of other get-rich-quick wannabes.

 

 

Some people have done very well investing in Doge, and my hat is off to them.  Putting your chips down on investor greed and overall sentiment is a very slick move, super meta in so many ways.  Congrats.

 

But this party needs to end at some point.  I will explain soon.

 

To fan the flames, the richest man the world, Elon Musk, took a deep interest in DogeCoin, exacerbating the situation.

 

Mark Cuban, another billionaire with an absolutely microscopic investment (percentage-wise) in Doge, announced how you could now buy Dallas Mavericks tickets and merchandise with DogeCoin, finally giving it a legitimate use for purchases.  It was used strictly for charitable purposes in the past.

 

“This now gives DogeCoin the same abilities as Bitcoin and Litecoin”.  No it doesn’t.

 

Bitcoin and Litecoin have limited supply, which instantly makes them superior to fiat currencies.  DogeCoin, whose purpose was to be as ridiculous as possible, has nearly unlimited supply.

 

Again, I’m not mad at it, and I see the brilliance.  But it’s bad for the future of crypto.

 

Shiba Inu

 

Bet let’s not leave out the hottest DogeCoin-esque offshoot to date.  Spring-boarding off the joke that is Doge, The Shiba Inu coin (Shiba Inu is the breed of dog featured on DogeCoin) was created in the summer of 2020.

 

Again, it doesn’t do anything, the main difference being there is an announced cap of one quadrillion coins.

 

Shiba Inu broke into the Top 30 of market cap in the crypto market in May of 2021.  It currently sits at 31st.

 

So Watcha Want?

 

As fun as the run on these coins has been, at some point it needs to come to an end, and we need to take the next steps forward into full adoption.

 

So what do I mean by this?

 

Here is where I stand.  I think there is certainly a place for CeFi (centralized finance), which encapsulates the equities, bonds, etc we have had for centuries.

 

But I want people to have a legitimate choice between CeFi and Defi, without restriction.  I want DeFi to enter the mainstream for good.

 

I want the current cryptocurrencies we have (BTC, LTC, BCH, DASH) to be fully accepted as transactional currencies, allowing freedom to the un-banked and finally allowing people all over the world the freedoms to become whatever they want without the horrible and corrupt restrictions their governments and central banks insist on crippling their citizens with.

 

I also want the blockchain to eventually become “Web 3.0”, adding far more freedom and decentralization to the way we do all of the things we currently do online, and so many other things we have yet to even imagine could be possible with a technology such as this.

 

As a finance guy, I want tokenized finance to take over the derivatives market, allowing people all over the world to have access to every market, and to be able to trade seamlessly across those markets if they choose to.

 

Everyone is different, but I doubt your wishes for the future of this new technology veer too much away from mine.  At the end of the day we all want the same thing.

 

We want this to be the future of finance.

 

To get there however, we need mass adoption, and we need it at levels far beyond what we have right now.

 

Meme Coins stand in the way of this.  But it’s not the only thing standing in the way.  Not by far.

 

You Cannot Go FULL DeFi

 

Would you want to live in a town where you could pretty much do anything you want, taxes were super low, and you never had to worry about government overreach in anything you did?

 

I think most of us would line up for this opportunity on day one.  Sounds awesome.

 

But would you want to live in a town like this if it was completely lawless?  I doubt it.  But “no rules” means “no rules”, right?

 

This isn’t exactly what we have right now with DeFi, but we’re not far from it.

 

As a result, a market that was created to one day withstand any kind of manipulation is currently one of the most manipulated markets in the world.

 

Why?  Humans.  Those shitbag humans I tell ya, always up to no-good.

 

The Good Times Don’t Last

 

My brother-in-law is an accountant, and he asked me one time, “How come Estonia has a 5-minute online tax form you can fill out, and the United States has mountains of forms and paperwork?”

 

My response?  “Humans came in and done fucked it up”.

 

I’m sure the American tax system used to be much easier.  But Americans are the most creative, enterprising people on the planet, and those skills aren’t always used for the powers of good.

 

Over time, we found ways to abuse the lack of regulation a lot of these institutions had, and we took full advantage of them for our own personal gain.  We are remarkably good at it.

 

Others saw this, and wanted in on the free money/savings too, it all spirals out of control, and this is how we get new regulations where we never wanted it.

 

Hey, I’m anti-regulation in many ways.  But in order for things to progress, you must have some regulation.  Lawless towns don’t last long.

 

Case In Point

 

As I write this on May 21, 2021, we have just gotten done with (and it may not be over yet) serious manipulation in the crypto market, driving the price of BTC down over 50%.

 

This video is a must-watch.  It shows how it all went down.  An insider called it, to the number.  And it may not be done with.

 

 

Eerie.  And quite unsettling how this market is so easily manipulated after how far we’ve come.

 

Would you ever see manipulation of this magnitude happen on the S&P 500?  No, it’s damn near impossible.  Because CeFi is regulated to the tits.

 

I don’t want DeFi to become as regulated as CeFi, because then you’ve stripped away everything that makes it DeFi.  But we have to put SOME measures in place to prevent things like this from happening down the road.

 

If we don’t, get used to things like this happening more in the future.  Human interest is real.

 

Without at least some rules to settle this wild, untamed land, we will constantly be stuck in Neutral on our quest to mass adoption.

 

We have a very long way to go in order to get the future of finance we’ll all seeking.  Because so far, this aint it.

 

Perception Is Reality

 

The crypto community is in a long fight every single day with the CeFi crowd, and will be for the next 5-10 years at least.

 

This to me is the initial hurdle between what we have now, and mass adoption.

 

The arguments are ridiculous too, as they have been for years.

 

 

Not really.

 

 

Maybe really dumb criminals, because BTC is traceable, and ransoming and stealing BTC in the last few years has proven to be a very low-percentage bet.  It can be done, but it’s quite difficult, and expect it to become moreso down the road.

 

The #1 method for criminal transactions, and still undefeated, is fiat currency.

 

So this is the low-level dumb crap we’re up against now.  Once we move beyond this, we have much bigger monsters to slay in the Great War of Perception.

 

The Crypto Market is Fragile

 

Just when you thought it wasn’t, a bunch of whales come in and show us otherwise (see above video).

 

What do we need need for mass adoption?  Institutional money.

 

I’m not talking about the few and far between renegade institutions we have in the market right now, I mean the big boys, the ones with Grandma’s pension and the ones who have pensions of major organizations in it.

 

We have a little, but we need a lot more.

 

All of these “Bitcoin to 300K” and “Ethereum to 10K” predictions have no chance of ever coming true without it.  Remember this.

 

And what do these large institutions and their financial planners aim for more than anything?

 

Low risk.

 

They can under-perform all day, and usually do, but if they’re not losing their clients’ money, they can generally stay in business forever and get rich off of all the fees they charge.

 

The crypto market needs to show these institutions that it’s a reasonable hedge with measured risk.

 

And a 50% drop in a week aint it.  It’s a huge black eye for mass adoption.  Things like this set us back years.

 

I’m going to say the “R” word again, but just a little bit of common sense regulation can go a long way here.

 

“But then where does it end VP?  Who’s to say you can’t just keep on regulating this until it loses out on the very thing it was meant to solve?”

 

Fair point, and this is why some kind of constitution of sorts may be in order.  I don’t know, I’m just a random dude like you are, I don’t have all the answers here.

 

But mass adoption will solve a LOT of the problems facing the crypto market right now, and finally allow it to realize its full potential.

 

And we will never get there with these kinds of fluctuations to the upside, and certainly the downside.

 

And we won’t get there with joke coins either.

 

Where Meme Coins Play Their Part

 

So we can agree at this point, we need the major institutions of the world to take us seriously, give us the liquidity we need to stabilize the market, and take that next step toward greatness, correct?

 

Well good luck doing that when you have these “giggle giggle hee hee yuk-yuk” coins garnering most of the attention.

 

Look at it from the other side.  We need their money, we want to be taken seriously, and THIS is what we show them?

 

We look like a bunch of stupid, clumsy children who are in no shape or form ready for the big leagues.  High finance is for grown-ups.

 

We must phase this out over time.  Have your fun now, make your money, but keep your eyes on the ultimate prize.

 

I’m Not Alone

 

Lots of people have made huge gains on some of these meme coins (provided they took some profit), and I think this is what will make a lot of holders resistant to come to these realizations.

 

But it’s not just me.  Most of the top crypto influencers in the world, at least the ones I follow, refuse to recommend DogeCoin in their videos and tweets.

 

They may mention it, but they wisely remove themselves from endorsing it in any way.  I’m sure there are exceptions, but for the most part, you should be able to notice this as well.

 

Most of them are behind the real transactable cryptos, with their use-cases and hard caps, along with the other cryptos who are redefining the way we do things online.

 

This is the future of finance.  The real cryptos.  The blockchain companies.  And the main influencers out there realize it too.

 

So if you want to get all mad at me and fight back in the name of Doge, you have a lot of work ahead of you my man.  Lots of bigger dragons to slay out there, assuming you don’t value your time at all.

 

Better hop to it.

 

The UFC Solution

 

I love the Ultimate Fighting Championship.  It’s my second favorite sport now behind American Football.

 

It too had to blaze a trail, filled with regulatory hurdles to gain overall acceptance.  But once it did, it became awesome.

 

The early days however, were rough.  I remember the old slogan, because we used to get super high and yell it out…

 

“Rules?  There ARE NO RULES!!!”

 

Finally!  We got the chance to see who would really win in a fight, once you take all of the stupid rules away.

 

 

As hilarious as the early iterations of the UFC were, it immediately started having major problems.  People were getting permanently damaged.

 

Who cares, right?  There are no rules!  This is just how a real fight goes down sometimes.

 

Well, state athletic commissions care.  If you can’t please them, you can’t hold future events in their state, and you won’t be able to make enough money to be sustainable.

 

“No rules” is great for the fans, but not for the people who ultimately matter.

 

It sucks, but for mass adoption, you need rules.

 

These rules came about reluctantly and slowly (remember “No biting, eye-gouging, and fish-hooking?”), and more states began allowing these events.  It still wasn’t enough to get most states on board, so even more rules and regulations had to come about.

 

There was no other choice.

 

These states do want the money these events bring, but the have liability to think about as well.  Can’t have a death on their watch.  Even as a huge fan, I understand it.

 

Same thing when it comes to these large institutions and their overall view on crypto.  There’s no way we’re getting them to adopt with a super volatile market subject to mass manipulation, and stories about joke coins dominating the headlines.

 

Flash forward to 2021, you now have only a small handful of states who ban MMA events, and despite all of the new rules and regulations, UFC continues to make tons of money, and become a world-wide phenomenon.

 

Crypto can achieve this too, and in similar ways.  Rules are going to suck, especially at first, but can be for the greater good down the line.

 

How do Meme Coins fit into this comparison?

 

Meme Coins to me would be like when you had open weight classes, and you had huge sumo guys fighting welterweights.

 

 

Super entertaining, and at times hilarious, but simply could not exist in the future if there was any chance of mass adoption.

 

We didn’t like it at the time, but we accepted it and moved on, and in the end it was absolutely for the better.  The UFC now plays a major role in the worldwide sports landscape.  It finally got there, even though it’s still fighting for more global adoption as we speak.  The journey never fully ends.

 

We can get there too.  I feel like we’re clinging too tightly to the non-regulation of DeFi, and it’s damaging our future.

 

And like anything, we need to put on a good show for the major institutions, because like it or not, we need them on board.  This is really hard to do when you’re shining the spotlight on joke coins.

 

A Possible Start??

 

You guys know I love my ETFs.  Not everybody can just create one.  It has to follow a series of standards and become approved by a country’s regulators before going live.

 

Perhaps by having a set of standards already mapped out ahead of time in order to avoid future discrimination, we can prevent market saturation, and ensure that the newer coins of the future actually have a legitimate place and purpose in the market.

 

I know “That’s CeFi, That’s sooooo CeFi”.  I’m just spit-balling here.  Chill out.

 

Conclusion

 

There are plenty of counter-arguments to this I’m sure.  Save them for another time.

 

I have little to no influence in the space, the value of your meme coins are safe from any opinions I have.

 

For all you Doge and Shiba Inu holders out there, make that money boo-boo.  I am on your side.

 

Just understand that I don’t think Meme Coins can be part of crypto’s future if we’re ever going to get to where we all want to be.

 

Plan accordingly.

 

 

— VP