Can content coins avoid ‘speculative destruction?’

This is The Riff segment from a recent edition of the Empire newsletter, where newsletter writer Katherine Ross and other contributors opine on recent happenings in crypto. To read full editions, subscribe.

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On our minds: Content coins

Katherine Ross:

I’m of two minds here. 

First (and this was my gut reaction), I wonder if we really need another segment that lacks inherent utility. And, like I wrote above, is this something that lasts? You all know my background prior to crypto. So you know I’m a big fan of things like fundamentals that can help better gauge value. 

But the other part of me says I’m holding content coins to an unfair expectation. There are real tokens and projects that are pushing crypto forward — content coins shouldn’t be mixed in with them.

Pollak’s comments made me wonder if content coins could act as crypto’s social media moment (at first I typed TikTok moment, but I don’t think we’re there yet). If we pull back the expectations and let the content speak for itself, I can see a scenario where content coins have a memecoin moment without the volatility. 

And, honestly, things like content coins do push crypto forward. Personally, I’ve found the discourse around the viability and usability to be really enlightening — not to mention, it feels like it’s been a while since I’ve seen such a variety of takes. 

That’s not to say I support some of the controversial things that have happened, such as promoting or coining the aforementioned Hinge screenshot, but that’s a whole other discussion I’m happy to have at some point. 

Michael McSweeney:

Like Katherine, I’m of two minds as well.

On the one hand, I’m all for carving out new, weird use cases for tokens. Whether “content coins” will prove to have lasting power or be another flash-in-the-pan CT topic remains to be seen. The folks over at Base obviously have an incentive to see the former outcome realized, so heavy tweeting to that effect (see Katherine’s piece above) is all but guaranteed.

That said, I’m a touch dubious about the notion that content coins will somehow avoid what I like to call speculative destruction, the sort of which tends to send most coins, tokens, etc. to the dustbin soon after they pop. 

I think people will develop speculative expectations around a prospective successful content coin because that’s simply what happens in crypto. It’s inherently a speculative game. Always has been. I don’t think some kind of special immunity to those market forces will be conferred because someone came up with a new mode of thinking (though I’m happy to be wrong, as always).

I think if someone creates a content coin and people find a reason to speculate on it, the typical crypto market forces will almost certainly follow — especially if someone with some cash to burn sees a way to make money off whichever narrative surrounds that coin.

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