In a speech at the MemeGlobal Sydney conference, Kain Warwick noted that many members of the crypto community consider memcoins to be dangerous speculation. However, in his opinion, critics' arguments against meme cryptocurrencies, as if they do not bring any benefit, are unconvincing. On the contrary, thanks to memcoin trading, trading volumes on decentralized exchanges are growing, and platforms have to improve their trading tools.
"Even if investments turn into a purely speculative instrument, an entire ecosystem begins to form around it. There is a cash flow, investments form the infrastructure, and this is very valuable," said the founder of Synthetix.
Warwick noted that the bulk of memcoin trading takes place on DEX, since, given the short-lived nature of these tokens, it is difficult for them to be placed on centralized exchanges. According to DefiLlama, in March, monthly DEX trading volumes almost reached the highest in two and a half years — $267.9 billion. This figure is slightly below the record of November 2021 — $292 billion.
According to Warwick, memcoins, non-interchangeable tokens (NFT) and game tokens involve more human emotions and embody cultural ideas. Therefore, such tokens are much more interesting to the average person than DeFi. As Warwick put it, not many people find it interesting to develop new financial instruments. And movies, games and music are what the average person enjoys every day.
"Memcoins are the most simplified link between finance, culture and tokenization. Memcoin is like a hook that catches people's attention to DeFi and cryptocurrencies. There is something elegant about this simplicity. There is no profitability or revenue. It's just a cool idea when a person wants to possess something," Warwick argues.
However, not everyone agrees with this position. Eddy Lazzarin, technical director of the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital company, believes that memcoins only spoil the reputation of large cryptocurrencies and blockchains. According to the independent "cryptodetective" ZachXBT, more than half of the meme tokens created on the Solana blockchain have already been abandoned.