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The thing about crypto is that, almost since its inception, it’s been defined by its sideshows. First, it was early altcoins — coins that tried to be like Bitcoin, but better. Then came the shitcoins, an industry term of art referring to assets launched with little purpose beyond pumping and dumping. These projects were more like rug pulls that everyone was in on.

Today’s sideshow has got to be memecoins. We’ve covered memecoins before, mainly because they’re so interesting. They fascinate because they’re like the internet’s version of a flash mob, but defined by satire rather than spontaneous dance — like there’s some kind of big joke out there, and you can somehow make money off the punchline.

In the full arc of crypto’s brief and sometimes convoluted history, these sideshows might be seen as a distraction — like they’re the thing that will never really lead to the real thing.

I write about crypto and the internet at danielmcglynn.com

The funniest thing about these presidents and their coins is that memecoins are almost like a joke within a joke. The hard part to figure out is: Are the people launching these coins telling the joke? Are they in on the joke? Or are they the joke? It’s like a comedy show that’s turned dark — you realize you’re still laughing, but the material isn’t funny anymore.

The risk here is that memecoins, like the altcoins that went bust and the shitcoins that never amounted to much, prove that this crypto movement is really just a circus and a casino designed for the amusement of people who are chronically online — but that amusement comes at the cost of everyone else.

On crypto Twitter, there’s still a general vibe that crypto makes sense and is working as intended. But if you go anywhere else, it’s pretty clear that crypto, and by extension its guiding principles like decentralization or permissionless access, looks like a bunch of nonsense that only enables scams and clown-like behavior.

Last year, I wrote about how memecoins are actually a new way to value attention on the internet. They’re a way to convert internet users and creators into owners and operators who can leverage the content and attention they create across the internet’s surfaces.

Memecoins, I argued, were about deconstructing the monopolizing forces of mass media, in which corporations are high earners, and redistributing that value across the communities driving the attention.

But all of that thinking feels naive now. If memecoins are about monetizing attention and building digital culture that somehow reinforces our digital identities, then what does it say about the future of digital assets when celebrities and politicians are just cranking out coins and leaving wide paths of wreckage?

If that becomes the norm, then memecoins aren’t an interesting new primitive — they’re a grotesque amplification of everything that’s already wrong with the way fame and influence cloud our critical thinking skills. At scale, it means that memecoins are more damaging than the mass media models they were supposed to replace.

In some ways, it’s fitting that memecoins are part of the zeitgeist that’s led us to where we are now: Nobody feels good about it, nobody knows what to do about it, but everybody still wants to see what will happen next.

But then there’s this: Maybe the most interesting thing about memecoins is that they’re exactly what crypto is supposed to be in the first place — a currency native to the internet.

Or, put another way, an asset that belongs to the network. The importance of this kind of network-based asset class is that it allows people to organize, create, and build economies that aren’t possible under corporate-owned or government-ruled systems.

So maybe both things can be true at the same time. Memecoins are a distortion of reality that allows people to leverage satire or outsized personalities into a financially destructive force. But they might also be a path forward toward whatever comes next.

In the early days, the internet was little more than poorly designed websites and bad information. And maybe that’s where we still are with crypto. Maybe someday we’ll lose part of the casino, keep some of the circus, and figure out a way for people to build and create whatever they want — even if it’s a whole bunch of celebrity-backed shitcoins.

Looking back, what stands out about these sideshows is that some of them actually turned out to be meaningful. Some of those sideshows moved into the main tent —and now occupy an important place in the overall crypto market cap. You can say this about early altcoins: Litecoin is a great example. And what about Dogecoin? You could even argue that Ethereum was launched as an alternative to Bitcoin, and now look at it.

This holds true for the shitcoins, too. Some of them are still around. And even a few of them ended up playing a substantial role in the crypto story, at least in the way it’s been written so far.

So maybe someday we’ll look back and remember these wild days of memecoins. When presidents (and it’s not just the US of A anymore — this week, the leader of Argentina got in on the action too) and other made-for-TV celebrities thought that launching tokens, cashing out, and leaving their fans holding the bag was some kind of savvy business decision.