Not all new coins are pointless pump and dumps

Don’t let celebrity memecoins get you down in the dumps

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Unless you live under a rock, you probably heard about the Kaito token drop yesterday. 

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Vibes were pretty positive, it turns out people like to be paid to yap (and some of us — ahem, myself — are left with FOMO after not yapping to earn). But alas, I turned to two colleagues who did earn KAITO for posting

Lightspeed’s Jack Kubinec and The Drop’s Kate Irwin both earned roughly $200 of KAITO. Kubinec praised the project for understanding that folks didn’t want another social media site to post on to earn their yaps, and instead kept it on X — where parts of the crypto community are the strongest. 

Kubinec was lucky in that a thread of his went viral shortly after claiming his profile on Kaito, bumping him up to one of the top yappers briefly. However, he admitted that even his short-lived CT fame didn’t prompt him to post any more than usual.

For Irwin, the question is all about longevity. We’ve been through a few hype cycles now, and admittedly when it’s good, it’s great and when it’s bad, CT kind of feels desolate. Irwin told me that it’s hard to see people still posting about yapping and caring about it in six months.

The token, however, is holding on for now. Perhaps some of that is due to some of the shaming we’ve seen over on X.

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Or perhaps this is finally the project that can break the cycle and we’ve finally solved the code for SocialFi. Only time will tell I guess.

And now you know.

HYPE is up 550% since it launched at the end of November

Maybe David Sacks is right. Memecoins are collectibles.

If that’s true, then crime season suddenly gets an element of Pokémon GO. 

Like how you might wander through the park and catch Wigglytuffs and Psyducks, we could all frolic through Raydium and buy dead rugpulls collect souvenirs of all the memecoins that come and go. 

It’s a pain that memecoins have sucked so much air out of the room and it’s made for a ton of myopic takes. The supposed Yeezy token launch isn’t helping, either.

So, here’s some eyebleach: Of the major coin launches in the past few months, HYPE — tied to a project of substance in Hyperliquid — is outperforming the pack with steady price action. 

Around 60% of all perps volumes on DEXs flows through Hyperliquid right now, which is a stat the market obviously appreciates.

MORPHO, the lending app on Ethereum and Base, is otherwise ahead by 135% since its own launch a week or so before HYPE. 

That’s much better than BERA, PENGU and MOVE, which have lost between 24% and 38% since they started trading (BERA is staging a comeback as we speak). Morpho currently has $6.8 billion in deposits, up 160% in the past three months.

All well and good: Real projects might have a chance after all. 

The best part is, if you zoom out this analysis to include coins launched just a few months earlier, in August and October, it would be FARTCOIN dominating the chart, even after its 84% retracement.

Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.


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