Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently called out the ongoing celebrity coin experimentation. Via a recent post on X [formerly Twitter], he asserted that he was “feeling quite unhappy” about how things have been panning out this cycle. According to him, a project is worthy of respect only if its “end is worthy,” i.e. if it contributes to something meaningful, may it be healthcare, art, open-source software, etc. However, he disregarded the notion of financialization “as the final product."
Buterin also emphasized on the need to have “some kind of fun mechanics” that goes beyond trading a token. Furthermore, the Ethereum executive directed another arrow towards longevity and urged creators to develop projects that lasts for more than ten years, rather than bubbling around for a few months and then being erased from the map.
Buterin dropped his remarks as a reply under Chris Burniske’s tweet. The co-founder of Placeholder, on his part, asserted that if MOTHER breaks into “sustainable value creation,” it will end up becoming "the mother" of this cycle’s celebrity experimentation.
Celebrity coins have been the focus over the last couple of weeks in the crypto market. Several prominent accounts have been hacked on X to promote random coins. GCR, and American rapper ‘Rich The Kid’ were among the ones targeted recently. Alongside, even American celebrity Caitlyn Jenner was presumed to be a victim, when she announced the launch of her own coin JENNER, and posted videos vouching for it.
Nevertheless, it was later revealed that her account was socially engineered by developer Sahil Arora. In fact, he also dragged Australian musician Iggy Azalea into the picture and posted manipulated screenshots of their so-called conversations to convince people that they were working together on IGGY. Nevertheless, she outrightly called him out and asked him to take his "L" and "go already.” Ultimately, his X was suspended on account of violations. After distancing herself from Arora, Azalea launched her own Solana-based crypto, MOTHER. It hit the markets within a few hours after Arora launched IGGY.
Even though Buterin called out celebrity coins, MOTHER did not register any significant price dump. Over the past hour, it just dropped by 1.6%, while it was still trading in green on the daily, up 14% when compared to the previous day. In fact, the MOTHER market has been characterized by more buyers and buy transactions at the moment. However, in terms of volume, sellers have been placing heftier bets.
In his earlier posts, Buterin has asserted that he values people's desire to have fun, and would want the crypto space to swim with this current rather than against it. However, instead of just bringing in users, he wants “higher quality fun projects” to get more “mindshare” and positively contribute to the ecosystem and the world. Concluding with what the guiding factor should be while creating a celebrity coin, Buterin’s post on X concluded,
“The north star should be: to have a project where even if eventually all tokens involved go to zero, the average person who participated is happy to have done so. Regular businesses and charities accomplish this goal all the time! It's a low bar, but things we build should meet this bar as well.”
