Did memecoins stress-test crypto’s infrastructure?

Empire co-host Santiago Santos makes the case that memecoins have actually helped push infra forward…just not in the way you think

article-image

vittryp/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


“Memecoins are stress-testing infra,” Empire co-host Santiago Santos said on the Empire roundup this morning. 

Santos compared it to the porn industry stress-testing the internet. Good times. 

“ I get really excited about the fact that we’ve come such a long way in building infrastructure … [and you] see a line of sight into actually becoming the future of finance, like tokenizing stocks,” he continued. 

The point Santos makes is a personal favorite of mine, as I’m sure you’re aware. 

We’re seeing a lot of developments happening, and I’m speaking to a new founder almost every day about their projects and raises. It’s hard not to — even as an objective bystander — respect the amount of work that’s gone into getting crypto to this point. 

It’s also just so inherently “crypto” for the space to use memecoins as a stress test. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they seem to have a use case after all (but don’t tell the SEC).

With the Digital Asset Summit next week, my assumption is that we’ll see more bullishness, given that DAS is offering something that a conference like ETH Denver couldn’t: a look behind the scenes of what the institutions are up to. And we know that’s going to play a big part this cycle.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Despite ending its points program, Hyperliquid has maintained a dominant market position with 77% of perpetuals DEX volumes, though overall volume has decreased from early 2025. It is the only DEX that has been able to compete with CEX volumes. Hyperliquid's success stems primarily from rapid, relevant token listings and superior UX for users and market makers, particularly its API - which is how market makers interact with the protocol. The controversial oracle price override during the JELLY incident exposed risks in the Hyperliquid Liquidity Pool (HLP), though the team has since implemented risk management adjustments. The HyperEVM is currently underoptimized and lacks necessary precompiles, but represents an important strategic expansion to enable asset issuance and DeFi composability.

article-image

Both CeFi and DeFi lending have made a comeback, Galaxy noted

article-image

Blueprint Finance has launched a rebranded and re-engineered protocol today on Solana mainnet

article-image

Panelists from Coinbase, Uniswap Labs and NYSE were among those making recommendations on crypto trading rules

article-image

Trump says he’s “flexible” on electronic tariffs, and that more developments are “coming up”

article-image

Abstract app Bigcoin has polarized Crypto Twitter with its mining simulator

article-image

ColliderVM promises validity-based computation on Bitcoin—no soft fork required