Making money while laughing at inside jokes with your friends? What could be better than that?
Memes are taking the financial world by storm, and behind the community forums, the ludicrous wealth being generated in a matter of days, and the sometimes crude humor, something incredibly meaningful is happening.
On the surface, a meme is just a photo or video clip that flies around the internet in text messages, social media timelines, and community forums. It’s easy to overlook that memes may mean more than just humor. Memes convey subtle yet powerful cultural meanings in a digitally native way. Memes that are popular in a community or culture often mean something about that group and the values of that particular moment.
Blockchain technology offers the ability to financialize nearly everything digitally native, so it’s no surprise that cryptocurrencies have captured meme culture for years. However, meme-ified finance is not exclusive to cryptocurrencies. In both traditional and Web3 finance, meme-ified finance has rallied powerful online groups. And now, financial gamification, while still in its nascent stages, represents a new way forward.
At TradFi, Reddit Community in 2021 It ushered in a community-first, anti-institution, anti-conventional finance movement that was deeply tied to the intersection of gamification and humorous meme culture. The r/wallstreetbets community “sticked” to traditional finance, gamified the traditional stock market, and boasted about its success in tongue-in-cheek online posts.
Meme coins have always played a big role in the cryptocurrency world, appealing to a type of community-focused finance that typically spreads through the power of memes and gamification of markets. Early meme coin iterations like DOGE were followed by use-case specific versions like NFT collectibles, and today are being accelerated by next-generation low-cost blockchains like Solana.
This raises an ongoing debate: does a meme coin need intrinsic value to be successful, or is enthusiastic community support and participation enough? When we talk about “value”, are we referring to a solid roadmap and practicality, or does the real value lie in the vibrant communities and culture they create? Perhaps the true value of meme coins lies in their ability to unite and engage people rather than following traditional financial metrics.
Everything that’s happening in both traditional and crypto finance tells us that something new and powerful is emerging. After decades of obscure, arcane, and stuffy ivory tower financial services, people are moving in the opposite direction. Discovering collective financial power and applying it to markets goes hand in hand with technologies that connect people on an everyday, global scale (like Reddit) and technologies that democratize financial independence (cryptocurrency). All of this wrapped up in humorous meme-based communities and financial gamification that is just fun at the end of the day. It seems hard to imagine a community-driven, joyful, wealth-creating world where growth is nothing but.
Memeification and gamification of finance can be seen as the result of technologies blending together. Until now, our time spent online has been conducted in quite different ways: social platforms, financial platforms, educational platforms, gaming platforms, etc. have all been separate from each other and isolated in their own digital silos.
Over the past two decades, some of these sectors have already merged with one another: gaming and social media are already closely intertwined, with platforms like Twitch specifically targeting the intersection of the two. With the power of cryptocurrency, finance is also beginning to merge with social media.
Without a doubt, the Asia Pacific region is way ahead of the West in terms of technology convergence. Platforms like WeChat seamlessly combine commerce, social media, gaming, communication, and more. As all these technologies converge, what is the common thread between what were once separate ecosystems? It’s culture. And how does culture spread online? It’s memes. We don’t know what the next product that meets everyone’s needs will be, but we do know that everyone needs happiness: memes.
Cryptocurrency is changing the face of finance, but it’s not happening in a technological vacuum. It’s fueled by memes and the deep economic gamification that is at the core of blockchain systems. The power of finance is no longer in knowledge of esoteric financial principles. It’s no longer in the relationships built in rigid financial corporations. Its power is in community, virality, and deep cultural synchronicity.
Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CoinDesk, Inc. or any of its owners or affiliates.
