Fartcoin-Stage Capitalism

I'm sorry grandpa, but we need to talk about meme coins. Um, okay where do we even start. You've heard about Bitcoin right?"

I considered opening this piece with the preceding line. I actually did open this piece with the preceding line, but I quickly gave up on trying to explain crypto from first principles. I'm going to assume you know enough to have fallen into one of two general camps, "Bitcoin is a Scam" or "Bitcoin is the Future".

In June 2021 Trump said, "Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam". Donald Trump isn't exactly a Renaissance man for the 21st Century, but it wouldn't be far off the mark to dub him "The Galilelo of Grift", so when he calls something a scam we should take heed.

Over the years, I've tried to be openminded about the potential of cryptocurrency, but nobody has ever been able to explain it in a way that makes sense of how it will ever be anything more than what it currently is, a way to invest/gamble on its future price.

I recently heard Mark Cuban liken crypto to gold using the argument that gold has no intrinsic value beyond what we give it. I don't buy this argument because gold is a physical thing with many practical uses and has been highly valued by civilizations throughout human history. People in ancient Crete, China, and Egypt were making exquisite jewelry with gold, not some bullshit on the blockchain.

"But what about paper money?" I imagine the retort of some crypto evangelist. Although paper money isn't any more valuable than regular paper for practical uses, such as origami or something to take notes on, paper money is issued by governments, and... dammit! I'm about to fall into another rabbit hole trying to explain fiat currency!

One important point about our current monetary reality is that the only legitimate currencies are issued and guaranteed by governments. Here is a key difference between cryptocurrency and normal, boring money. Anybody with a modicum of know-how and a computer or even a phone can create their own cryptocurrency. In fact, the CEO of Coinbase recently said that there are about 1 million new cryptocurrencies being created every week.

I'm assuming most of these are meme coins.

"A meme coin (also spelled memecoin) is a cryptocurrency that originated from an Internet meme or has some other humorous characteristic.

The term is sometimes used interchangeably with the term shitcoin, which typically refers to a cryptocurrency with little to no value, authenticity, or utility."

Meme Coin, Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia

The first meme coin was Dogecoin, created in 2013 to satirize the rampant speculation in Bitcoin and crypto. Dogecoin is currently the 8th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $45B. Why is the original shitcoin worth that much money? I'm sure there is someone out there who can make sense of it, but it's certainly not me.

If "DOGE" sounds familiar it's because it's also the acronym for the new government organization headed by Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency. This name isn't mere coincidence since Musk has a long history with Dogecoin and even posted a whimsical logo for "DOGE" featuring a cartoon dog in November.

If you've been hearing more about meme coins lately, it's because 3 days before his inauguration, Donald Trump came out with his own coin called $TRUMP. That's why I started this piece by addressing an imaginary grandpa. Now that Trump's in the game, meme coins have broken the grandpa barrier.

This brings us to Fartcoin. Fartcoin debuted on October 18th, 2024 and was dreamed up by two instances of Claude AI spitballing ideas. At one point Fartcoin had a market cap of $2.34B. The last time I checked (2/1/25) one Fartcoin was worth the fittingly juevenile price of $0.69 and it's market cap had fallen to $689M. What makes Fartcoin different from Dogecoin, $TRUMP, or any other meme coin besides it's AI origins and puerile name? Absolutely nothing.

Crypto is not a currency. It's a Beanie Baby, a plate with an image of Princess Diana or John Wayne and a certificate of authenticity, a Dutch tulip bulb, a neighbor selling Amway, shares in Enron or Pets.com, a decentralized Ponzi scheme, a mortgage-backed security, or something called Fartcoin that you might have to explain to your grandpa someday.