Memenomics
The economy of memes
Introduction
Murad, Ansem, Arthur Hayes all have one thing in common: they’re midcurving. You might think they are bullposting the future of the meme economy but I’m here to raise the alarm bell: they are fudding. This essay will be the single most bullish post about memes in human history.
We’ll discover:
- Memenomics (the economy of memes) is evolving into a cornerstone of our digital markets by providing an entry point to wealth creation to your average person;
- Why Ansem is bearish, based on straightforward laws of economics;
- The economy built on memes today and how it will look in the year 2035;
- The reason why meme communities are the most influential hiveminds in our industry;
- Why deploying memes on Linea is the gwei.
The thesis: Memenomics will see 1000x growth in the allocation of money, talent, and attention from people around the globe by 2035.
People are poor and they want to be rich
That’s it, that’s the title. And that’s the reason why memenomics can only grow.
Historically, there have only been a few ways to make a lot of money. Investment. Owning a business. Or working very hard for a long time. Otherwise, you need to get lucky and be born to the right family.
Now, anyone in the world can participate in memenomics either as a speculator or worker. Speculators seek the fabled 100x. Workers around the world can access better money than their government fiat and potentially earn much higher wages than they could in their local economy. This may be a secular shift in how the economy operates where continuous innovation leads to ubiquitous opportunity and regular minting of newly successful entrepreneurs. This trend can accelerate massively to the point that many short-lived projects are perceived to be highly successful even if they are forked or eclipsed rapidly. This can happen in the meme space as well as the infrastructure or app space as innovation and ease of riffing accelerates.
The memecoin that grows tribal can represent a new kind of Special Purpose Attention Community (SPAC). A community with strong social cohesion can attract, participate, promote and benefit from a wide range of relevant situations/opportunities. A SPAC that is able to grow sizable and remain cohesive can develop collective buying power, pricing power, social and political power.
Memecoins fulfill every rung of Maslow’s hierarchy.
- Physiological needs are met when you take profits;
- Safety needs - okay maybe not this one;
- Belongingness and love needs are provided by the community of friends you experience suffering and joy alongside;
- Esteem needs comes from picking the right meme and being recognized;
- Self-actualization is when you retire your bloodline and can focus on the most creative aspects of your life.
Ethereum was created to enable a global economy that anyone, anywhere can participate in and by creating value, earn their fair share. Now, the people have determined that tokenizing attention tied to the fundamental value of a funny internet picture is one of the greatest things they can do with their life. If you don’t like it, perhaps you should participate in a permissioned virtual machine.
Ansem is Bearish - Evidence!
H/T Orion Currier
I hypothesize that the amount/value of magic internet money that is circulating in the global economy will grow larger than all nation state fiat money, perhaps within a decade. This is especially likely if AIs are creating memecoins, other tokens and participating autonomously in a hybrid human-machine and/or machine-machine economy. The implication is that, if this trend becomes established – though nation states will fight this – the economic and political power of those in the progressively decentralizing economy will continue to grow fast and very large.
Joseph Lubin, Founder & CEO of Consensys, Co-Founder of Ethereum
Facts
- The total market capitalization of memes is $110 billion dollars.
- The global money supply (liquidity), denominated in U.S. dollars, is estimated to be approximately $95.7 trillion. This figure represents the broad money supply (M2), which includes cash, checking deposits, savings deposits, and other liquid assets.
- Memenomics are at a $110B market cap but the actual liquidity in markets is probably closer to $10B because most memes are illiquid.
Question
How much would the market cap of memes rise if 1% of the global money supply entered as liquidity into the meme index?
Let’s Cook the Answer
Q: Okay Jarvis, how high would the global meme market cap be if 1% of global money supply entered?
In crypto markets, particularly for memecoins, liquidity often represents a small fraction of the total market capitalization due to the way Automated Market Makers (AMMs) price assets. A small amount of liquidity can drive disproportionately high market caps.
Let’s break it down:
Liquidity and Market Cap Ratio:
Memecoins typically exhibit a 1:10 liquidity-to-market-cap ratio. For every $1 in liquidity, the market cap inflates to approximately $10.1% Global Money Supply as Liquidity:
If 1% of the global money supply ($95.7 trillion) enters as liquidity, that’s $957 billion in purchasing liquidity.Market Cap Impact:
Using the 1:10 ratio, $957 billion in liquidity would create a market cap of:
957 billion×10=9.57 trillion USD.957 , \text{billion} \times 10 = 9.57 , \text{trillion USD}.Let me refine the calculations explicitly to ensure accuracy.
If 1% of the global money supply ($95.7 trillion) entered memecoin markets as liquidity, and we apply the typical 1:10 liquidity-to-market-cap ratio, the market capitalization of memecoins would rise to approximately $9.57 trillion USD.
This amplification effect demonstrates how even a relatively small liquidity injection can massively inflate the perceived value of memecoins due to the dynamics of AMMs and market sentiment.
Source: Sam Altman Bot
This is going to happen by 2035
Many of my FUDDers will say this is too far of a left curve take; they’re wrong. Dead wrong. And they might miss an active role in the greatest future digital economy known to man. As older generations pass away and wealth transfers to the younger generations, where do you think the money will flow? You do the math.
Let’s explore what currency is and how it gets value. Then we can revisit the thesis. Three megatrends coalesce on the macroeconomic stage that will redefine how people perceive value.
- Every generation since Millennials becomes more chronically online, brainrotted, and aware that their opportunity for financial independence achieved through normal means diminishes;
- A tectonic transfer of assets will occur by 2035. Money will transfer to younger, internet-rotted generations for whom internet memes are the peak of culture and self-expression;
- Memes will gain value as governments legitimize them and develop into a new form of fiat currency.
Brainrot is on the rise
Internet adoption has progressively increased across generations, with younger cohorts exhibiting higher usage rates. Below is a table summarizing internet usage by generation in the United States:
| Generation | Birth Years | Internet Usage (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Greatest Generation | 1901–1927 | 14% (2000) |
| Silent Generation | 1928–1945 | 40% (2019) |
| Baby Boomers | 1946–1964 | 68% (2019) |
| Generation X | 1965–1980 | 90% (2019) |
| Millennials | 1981–1996 | 93% (2019) |
| Generation Z | 1997–2012 | 95% (2024) |
| Generation Alpha | 2013–2025 | N/A |
Note: Data for Generation Alpha is not available as many are still children.
These statistics show that each successive generation is more online. Younger generations are more inclined to engage in internet-native activities, including the use of cryptocurrencies like memecoins.
Analyzing generational trends reveals that younger cohorts, particularly Millennials and Generation Z, exhibit increased online engagement and face challenges in achieving financial independence through traditional means.
Increased Online Engagement:
- Internet Usage by Age: Data from the Pew Research Center indicates that younger generations have higher internet usage rates. For instance, in 2023, 99% of U.S. adults aged 18-29 used the internet, compared to 75% of those aged 65 and older.
Pew Research Center - Social Media Consumption: A 2024 study found that Generation Z spends approximately 6.6 hours daily consuming media content, surpassing other age groups.
New York Post
Challenges in Achieving Financial Independence:
- Delayed Financial Independence: A 2024 Pew Research Center report highlighted that only 45% of young adults consider themselves completely financially independent from their parents, with the percentage increasing with age.
Pew Research Center - Economic Pressures: Rising living costs and economic instability have led many young adults to delay traditional milestones such as homeownership and marriage. For example, a 2024 report noted that 46% of Gen Zers aged 18 to 27 rely on financial assistance from their parents due to insufficient income and high living costs.
TIME
These findings suggest that younger generations are more immersed in digital environments and face greater obstacles in achieving financial independence through conventional pathways. This is a paradigm shift where despite an increased tendency towards financial nihilism, the younger cohorts are set up for greater agency, sovereignty, and wealth than any broad group in history.
Transfer of wealth to the brainrotted
| Country | Estimated Wealth Transfer (USD Trillions) | Time Frame | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $68 - $84 | By 2045 | Cerulli Associates |
| United Kingdom | £5.5 | By 2047 | Kings Court Trust |
| Canada | CAD 1.1 | By 2026 | Strategic Insight |
| Australia | AUD 3.5 | By 2030 | Productivity Commission |
| Germany | €3.10 | By 2027 | Deutsche Bank |
As wealth transfers from Baby Boomers to younger generations—Millennials, Generation Z, and eventually Generation Alpha—there is evidence suggesting that a large portion of this wealth will flow into the cryptocurrency market. Cryptocurrency ownership among Baby Boomers (individuals born between 1946 and 1964) is relatively low compared to younger generations.
Various studies provide insights into this trend:
-
JPMorgan Chase Institute (December 2022): 4% of Baby Boomers have engaged in cryptocurrency transactions.
-
Investopedia Survey (April 2022): 6% of Baby Boomers reported owning cryptocurrencies.
-
Stilt Study (April 2024): Baby Boomers accounted for about 1.22% of all cryptocurrency buyers.
These findings indicate that while cryptocurrency adoption is growing, Baby Boomers remain less involved in the crypto market compared to younger generations.
- Current Cryptocurrency Ownership:
- Millennials: Approximately 43% of Millennials report owning cryptocurrencies.
- Generation Z: Around 22% of Gen Z individuals hold crypto assets.
- Investment Preferences:
- Younger investors show a preference for alternative assets over traditional stocks. 20% of Gen Zers and 22% of Millennials are more inclined to invest in assets like cryptocurrencies compared to their older counterparts.
- Retirement Accounts and Digital Assets:
- Approximately 50% of Gen Z and Millennials express a desire to include digital assets in their retirement portfolios. Notably, 43% of Gen Z and 47% of Millennials already invest in cryptocurrencies outside of their 401(k) retirement accounts.
- Wealth Transfer Projections:
- In the United States, an estimated $68 to $84 trillion is expected to be transferred from Baby Boomers to younger generations by 2045.
These data points suggest that as younger generations inherit wealth, their existing interest and participation in the cryptocurrency market may lead to increased investment in digital assets. Imagine a world where 80% of this transferred wealth transfers into the token economy. We will see a world with universal tokenization of every asset type via RWAs; memecoins will continue to be the definitive cultural symbol of these new investors.
Fiat is a Big Meme
Today’s money—fiat currency—is not backed by gold, oil, or any tangible asset. It is backed by belief. Collective faith in a government’s ability to enforce laws, maintain economic stability, and wield power is what gives fiat value. When the USA depegged the USD from gold on August 15, 1971, it wasn’t abandoning value—it was pioneering memenomics. Fiat currency is an inflationary memecoin, a government-endorsed idea that only works because enough people believe it does.
Memecoins Are Sovereign Memes-in-Waiting
A currency is only as strong as its collective story, and memecoins tell a story that resonates with internet natives: decentralization, community power, and a brazen rejection of the deep corruption of the legacy financial system expressed by irreverent financial nihilism. Because financial nihilism is more honest and meaningful to the population than a rigged system that leads the herd to the slaughter with the regularity of financial cycles. Memecoins are primed to become not just personal speculative assets but tools of sovereign influence.
Take DOGE, for example. Originally a joke, DOGE was memed into a billion-dollar market cap. It’s no longer just a coin; it’s an icon, so much so that Elon Musk himself has effectively annexed it into the cultural lexicon of governance with his satirical “Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).”
And it’s not just Musk. Look at Nayib Bukele, the Bitcoin-maxi president of El Salvador. By turning Bitcoin into legal tender and branding his country as a crypto haven, Bukele demonstrated how governments can leverage the collective faith of crypto communities to rewrite their economic stories. Bitcoin isn’t a memecoin, but it is a meme in itself: a story of independence and defiance against fiat.
The Economics of Viral Belief
To recap: the total market cap of memes is just $114 billion—a barely 0.1% of the $97 trillion global money supply. Yet, as the Great Wealth Transfer moves trillions from Baby Boomers to Millennials, Gen Z, and eventually Gen Alpha, memecoins stand poised to absorb this influx.
Memeing Sovereignty
Fiat currencies rely on the “meme of the state,” enforced by legal violence and geopolitical clout. Memecoins offer an alternative meme: trust in a decentralized, self-organized community. But here’s the kicker—governments are already noticing.
When the DOGE meme transcends into an actual government department, when Bukele memes Bitcoin into sovereign money, and when countries start competing for crypto-native talent and capital, it becomes clear that memecoins will soon be weaponized by nation-states. Memes will become tools of diplomacy, economic strategy, and cultural soft power.
Never before in history has humanity had the ability to laugh at something, pool their collective time, talent, and capital, and watch the value of their idea moonshot. Memecoins are the democratization of financial memes, the ultimate manifestation of internet culture becoming economic reality.
Fiat currency is a big meme meme. Memecoins are simply the CTO.
The Meme Industry
Beyond speculation on meme tokens, participating in memenomics is an opportunity for anyone, anywhere in the world to earn money. This is commonly called working for your bags. In reality, memenomics create earning potential for a global community of artists, technologists, and acoustics.
Murad’s memecoin supercycle speech is a dissection of why a broad section of crypto investors will naturally prefer memes over new altcoins. He has excellent points. In previous market cycles, retail investors had the opportunity to get involved with the tokens issued by innovative web3 tech companies at significantly lower market valuations. But, the playbook has changed. The VCs now push the teams to list their tokens on the market at high valuations to TWAP out of their position, regardless if the chart ever goes up.
Case Study
Internet Computer (ICP), which is currently trading at $15. Seed investors bought their coins at $0.03. The bottom is not in. Memecoins on the other hand can be created by anyone, for free, and can go to billions in valuation if the meme is good and a tribe forms. If the tribe maintains cohesion, it can become a formidable economic and political force. The Bitcoin and Ethereum communities – both significantly memecoins – recently demonstrated this in the American elections of November 2024. Memes are the tokens of the people, for the people, by the people.
Too often, analysts focus on the dollar upside potential of memecoin investments. But many fail to realize that participation in memenomics, i.e., being part of the economy surrounding tokenized memes is a thriving ecosystem for builders and businesses. Here are some of the institutional, individual, and community actors who currently earn their bread from memenomics.
The 3rd Parties
The DEX
The Decentralized Exchange, ie., the YouTube of markets is where it all begins. The dev pairs the meme to another asset (usually wETH or SOL). In 2024, memes have contributed significantly to the rise of onchain volumes, most notably for the Solana and Base ecosystem. As memers meme, DEXs eat. This is the inception point where a meme becomes financialized and tradeable in permissionless markets by people all around the world.
The CEX
Centralized exchanges are like DEX but permissioned, expensive, and have a much wider spread of users. The CEX listing represents maturation in the meme’s lifecycle. At first, the meme is onchain, the cult of faith is one or two hundred acoustics on Telegram. Centralized Exchanges like Binance are increasingly opting to list memecoins over VC-funded altcoins. Reference Murad’s Memecoin Supercycle speech to understand exactly why that is; the TL;DR is that people love memes, memes go up, and centralized exchanges are how you connect the core cultists to a broader audience who aren’t fully cryptonative. Centralized exchanges make their money through listing fees (stablecoins + tokens), volume on the platform, but most importantly: more people on the platform. CEXs list memes because it brings users. Quite SHRIMPLE.
The Trending Service
Trending lists are applications that monitor onchain volume for liquidity pairs on a specific network. Usually the tokens with the highest volume or daily price increase are listed on the trending service. Trending services help distribute the meme ticker and image to people around the world who are eagerly seeking the next big meme. However, the devil is in the details. Many platforms sell their trending services for thousands of dollars a day. Other services can be gamed through programmatic bots that simulate high volume trading activity either through quantity of swaps or daily trading volume. Getting featured on a trending service is so valuable that many meme projects will execute these programs at substantial cost to their project just to hit the next wave of community growth.
The KoL
KoLs are shills who promote tokens to their audience of crypto investors. KoLs LARP as solid traders but most of them are just good writers and community managers who have gaslit their following into believing they have some incredible talent for hitting 100x. Of course, if they could hit 100x they would just do that and not share the alpha because it dilutes their gains. The real value of a KoL is having connections to dev teams and other promoters. If the KoL cares about their community, they’ll try to only promote memes where it’s a trustworthy team or the meme has a lot of support from other influencers. Over reliance on KoLs has been the death of many memes, because a KoL cannot create a good meme, they can simply amplify the memetic vibrations crafted by the community. Community comes first!!! KoLs get their money by buying early and shilling hard, big discount OTC buys, or straight cash payments.
The Charting Firm
PooCoin, DexScreener, DexTools, Birdeye, etc. If you trade them, you know them. As a survivor of the memecoin wars of 2021 I came to fundamentally understand the value of the chart. The chart is the chalice. It feeds real-time green dildos of hope and the bloody candles from nuking whales. You see; a chart is a perfect product. It is dynamic, changing; it presents patterns that are a perfect fractal representing small hiveminds of human consciousness. They are entertaining. They are painful. They contain hope and sorrow. The chart is the beautiful product that makes the asset real.
The Believers
The Community
The community is the core of the meme. Without the community the meme does not exist, ergo the meme is resident in the collective consciousness of the community. The community is the host of the egregore that emerges from the shadow of our collective id and manifests immaterial waveform into the machinations of physical reality. The single most important component of memenomics is the community; they are all powerful. The community is comprised of the team, the pilled influencers, the whales, the roundtrippers, the jeets, the shrimps, the raiders, etc. The community goal is to gain mass adoption of their meme, when the meme spreads like wildfire the attention economy turbo bids the meme token until it reaches unfathomable market capitalizations and is automatically listed on Centralized Exchanges, securing its future.
The Whales
Lurking at the top of the holder list, the whales control the fate of your meme. The difference between whales in memes vs. traditional markets or even altcoins is that a whale can be some 14 year old kid who just bought the right meme early and didn’t sell. The independent whale who starts poor and ends rich is an encapsulation of a personal Hero’s Journey. The whales have an undue influence over the meme’s health because of their ability to affect the community by dumping or pumping the chart, e.g., using the chart technology to inflict the release of cortisol or dopamine into the cerebrum of thousands of others at a moments notice. Whales are fickle and must be treated delicately. Many times, whales will form pods to collude among themselves and become secluded from the general Telegram chat. As the wealthy elite of a particular meme, a single whale often determines the fate of young memes as they can impulsively cash out and kill the chart or choose to use their token resources to fund project development.
The Mods
The mods (aka Jannies) are on Telegram and Discord. They are cannon fodder to separate the core team from the hungering masses. Mods earn hundreds or thousands of dollars a week to endure the weight of admin privileges without authority. Their role is to eliminate FUD, organize raid squads, and maintain constant engagement with the community so that chat is always bumping. What some may consider a thankless task is actually a phenomenal opportunity for cryptonatives in developing countries to earn memenomics money without financial risk through speculation. Many mods go full-time crypto and become some of the most connected, savvy, and financially literate people in the world. The road from community mod to full-time industry employee at a prestigious company is well trodden. This grassroots, permissionless, and global work opportunity is a major reason that memenomics will continue attracting bright minds around the world.
The Team (The Devs)
The team is the brain of the meme. Without it, the meme dies in its infancy.
The Project Lead is either a delusional megalomaniac or a ghostly tactician. They set the tone, rally the troops, and play god with the roadmap. If you’re lucky, they’re charismatic enough to keep the community vibing and organized enough to avoid a mid-week rug.
The Devs are the backbone. Telegram bots? Done. DEX contracts? Live. NFT airdrop? Already priced in. Half of them are junior devs trying to get hired by the next bull market, and the other half are winging it on amphetamines.
Artists
Then there are the Artists—the meme magicians. They churn out visuals, music, and gifs faster than you can refresh your wallet. If the meme lives in your brain, they’re the reason.
The team doesn’t sleep, doesn’t stop, and doesn’t flinch. If the meme succeeds, they’re heroes. If it fails… then the community is coming after them.
The Network
The two verticals that have attained global product-market fit currently are DeFi and memes. By next year, payments will have broken through into the global market with solutions like the MetaMask Debit Card. Today, DeFi has become hyper-commoditized and competitive. Another DEX, another lending market; innovation is a scarce resource and at the end of the day the DeFi ecosystem’s success is a net result of unforkable elements: liquidity and community. DeFi is the backbone, but memes are the user acquisition and retention product.
Memes trading on Linea, today (and a couple DeFi coins)
The mass of cryptonative people congregate on networks to participate in memenomics.
The green candles, the whale dump FUD, the euphoria when a big name on X reposts your memecoin content - these are the things that build a deep kinship between people. This is the experience that turns a random group into a diehard cult.
Memenomics attracts cryptonatives and turns them from random degens into diehard, weaponized machines that will raise mindshare for your network. These supersoldiers are TPS machines, eager to test any new product launched on the network, ready and willing to spam transactions just for the thrill of executing immutable transactions on a permissionless blockchain. They are the warrior poets serving as the frontline trench warriors with a simple goal: to retire their bloodline.
Memenomics will grow, by a lot
Memes are not a joke. They are an economic force, a cultural phenomenon, and the connective tissue of the digital age. Memenomics will 1000x because people want what memes offer: the chance to create, to speculate, to belong, and, most importantly, to win.
Every on-chain network dreams of vibrant communities, explosive growth, and unstoppable TPS machines. Memes are the gateway, the spark that turns observers into participants, and participants into diehard believers. As cryptonatives rally to their banners, meme cycles become the lifeblood of blockchain ecosystems.
And that’s where Linea comes in. If you think the meme supercycle is peaking, you’re wrong. The next narrative is brewing, and Linea is positioning itself as the proving ground for the most feral, creative, and explosive meme economies the space has ever seen.
The Future of Linea Memenomics
Here are some of the things cooking on Linea to empower memenomics. Starting with the MetaMask debit card growing millions of new Linea users and coinmunity cashback providing memes a scalable distribution platform, to new features releasing from MetaMask that will allow Linea tokens to get trending in MetaMask Products and be listed in the MetaMask advanced trade terminal. All the benefits of DexScreener and a CEX/Coingecko listing, free of charge.
MetaMask Debit Card
The Card is rapidly rolling out to every country in the world such that anyone, anywhere, can have access to a non-custodial neobank.
For a number of years, projects have fought PvP for a limited set of users, whereas the Debit Card grows the pie and helps crypto cross the chasm towards mainstream adoption. Every user that signs up to the Debit Card immediately becomes a Linea user, every purchase of a coffee powers the Linea economy, and every positive experience becomes a potential conversation with friends and family that brings even more people onchain to Linea. For memes to grow on Linea, they need direct access to a large number of highly engaged onchain users, and the Debit Card is going to make Linea the home network for millions of people.
Coinmunity Cashback
One of the features that makes the Card so compelling is the ability for memes to plug in to the distribution of users that are spending daily on Linea. It’s often hard for projects to identify and reach real, active users. Projects resort to sending tokens to random pseudonymous addresses as a marketing tactic, but this is inefficient. With the debit card, memes on Linea will be able to use their marketing budget more effectively by offering cashback rewards to verified users.
Double digits meme cashback, whilst using a non-custodial wallet, is going to attract and engage millions of users globally.
MetaMask Trending
Memecoins meeting explicit criteria that drive high volumes and activity will be recognized as trending in MetaMask portfolio, mobile, and extension in an upcoming release. This further accelerates the reach and adoption of memes on Linea that build momentum.
MetaMask Trade Listing
It’s hard to get “listed”. To get access to users, centralized exchanges will often charge fees, either in dollars or a percentage of the token supply, suffocating early memes that have not yet reached escape velocity.
Memes on Linea will be able to be listed through all of MetaMask’s distribution channels for free. Linea will offer an accelerated process that makes it simple for new projects to appear for MetaMask’s user base, without fees or waiting weeks.
By choosing to build on Linea, memes will find an efficient way to tap into this user base that enables a rapid large-scale testing of ideas and mimetic ideas unseen on other platforms.
Conclusion
The question is simple: will you be part of the greatest memetic wealth transfer in history, or will you fade it and cope while the memedollar replaces the dollar as global reserve currency? Choose wisely.
i think want to attract active users through MEME, you need to conduct pump marketing. Pumping the price by hundreds of times is the best strategy. Pump it until the funds flow in and people recognize your value. Don’t be afraid of retail investors making money; their success is the best form of promotion.
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