What do Moo Deng the pygmy hippo, social media sensation Hawk Tuah, and the President of the United States all have in common? They've all inspired highly valuable, highly volatile memecoins. The humble memecoin began as a sort of satirical send up of speculation in the crypto world. But it was a joke that soon became very real. In the decade since the launch of Dogecoin in 2013, a series of cultural shifts and technological leaps enabled an explosion in the number of new memecoins. And this memecoin explosion has not only minted millionaires but also led to hordes of unlucky investors and untold scams. On today's show, what's in a memecoin? How they went from a one-off joke to a speculative frenzy worth tens of billions of dollars? And who are the winners and losers in this brazen new market? wow such tease many listensFind more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.Listen free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What warning is given at the start of the episode?
Just a quick warning, this episode includes a kid cursing.
This is Planet Money from NPR.
A few months ago, I came across this livestream video clip that had started going viral online that I think captures something essential about the absurdity of the current financial moment we're living through. Here's the backstory. On the night of November 19th, 2024, this baby-faced kid, he looks around 13 years old, used a new online platform to launch a brand new cryptocurrency into the world.
We're not using his name because he did all this anonymously. The cryptocurrency he created is what's known as a meme coin, which is a kind of joke currency, something that doesn't hold any inherent value besides what other people on the internet are willing to pay for it. The kid named his coin Gen Z Quant. He spent a few hundred dollars to buy up about 5% of the total supply of his new coin.
And then he also started live streaming on the platform. Somebody else recorded the live stream, which is why in the video you can hear the kid and a couple other voices.
Are we bonded yet, or what's good?
In the video, you can both see the kid's face and a chart showing the coin's price. Within seconds, the list of people buying the coin starts to stream in, and the little green price line on the chart starts shooting upward, like a rocket ship trying to reach escape velocity on its way to the moon. At first, the kid seems surprised. Wait, what? Wait, I'm so confused.
But then he gets this kind of devious grin on his face. His cheeks start to get a little flushed. He moves his cursor over to a sell button on the website. And with one click, he cashes out the entirety of his holdings in Gen Z Quan. Some 51 million tokens for a cool $20,000 or so. There's a murmur of surprise from other people watching the live stream.
In the chat, a little burst of fire emojis starts popping off. And the price of Gen Z Quant then immediately collapses. The green line on the price chart turns red and takes a nosedive. And for a moment, the kid again seems shocked at what he's been able to do. Holy fuck! Holy fuck! And then the kid makes it clear. He is not, in fact, so confused. He seems to know exactly what's happening.
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Chapter 2: What is the absurd financial moment involving a kid and a meme coin?
The kid then stands up, starts tugging at his hair, and just takes a moment to revel in what he's pulled off. And I think maybe the most absurd part of all this is that the kid then goes on to pull this exact same move two more times with two other meme coins he created that very same evening, betting over $50,000 in total.
And when you take a step back and just think about what's happening here, it's kind of wild, right? We're living at a time where a 13-year-old can create his own cryptocurrency, successfully hawk it to a bunch of strangers on the internet over livestream video, and then rip them off for tens of thousands of dollars. Not once, not twice, but three times in one night.
All from the comfort of his own home. And all before bedtime. If someone pulled this move on a market like the New York Stock Exchange, they might have had government regulators knocking on the door. But meme coins are kind of a Wild West. And the thing is, what this one kid did is just a tiny glimpse into this much bigger economic story.
Just one example of a transformation rippling across the internet. There are thousands of these meme coins being launched every single day now, involving everyone from literal children to social media sensations like Hawk Tua or Mudang the pygmy hippo to the president of the United States. It's the kind of thing that makes you wonder, how in the world did we get here?
Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and I'm joined by freelance reporter Nick Navis.
Hello, Alexi. Hello. Yes. Over the past few months, you and I have been on a deep dive into the world of meme coins. We've been spelunking in the crypto mines. We've been getting lost in them because over the past decade, meme coins have gone from a one-off joke to a speculative frenzy worth tens of billions of dollars.
Today on the show, the story of the meme coin casino. How a few technological leaps and cultural shifts helped turn a seedy internet backwater into a giant cryptocurrency gold rush. Okay, so in order to tell the story of how we got to this moment, where we are constantly awash in new meme coins, we have to begin at the beginning. And in the beginning, of course, there was Bitcoin.
Bitcoin was launched in 2009, and it was pitched as a sort of utopian alternative to government-backed currencies. It was a way for people to pay each other without having to rely on the existing financial system.
But in the years after its launch, there was also this whole wave of often sketchy new Bitcoin copycats. And this is where you start to see this pattern develop that's characterized the world of cryptocurrency ever since. A cycle of grand utopian promises followed by a period of frenzied speculation and outright fraud.
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