Memecoins are fusing with popular culture and their influence will grow, says crypto pioneer Olaf Carlson-Wee.
On the vodcast, he shared his views on where the industry is going next. That included weighing on the recent proliferation of memecoins, which have taken off thanks to sites like Pump.fun, which make it simple for anyone to launch a cryptocurrency.
“There’s a very fascinating behavior where, every time a new news event or meme gets created, just anything that’s like viral on social media or on the internet, you immediately see a coin sort of launched and attached to it,” he said, pointing to example of a person who learned of the death of Pope Francis through a memecoin.
Carlson-Wee observed that, in the future, it’s easy to imagine a world where memecoins become a type of content and, based on the activity of traders, become part of an organic social media feed. For many in the crypto world and beyond, this could be an attractive alternative to the current system where people are force-fed content based on the algorithms of large tech companies.
“These new like meme coins sort of act as the information discovery system for the cutting edge of information markets,” said Carlson-Wee. “In social media, you could have every post be a coin, right? I do think this is a bit where we’re headed.”
The Polychain founder also weighed in on other emerging trends that are likely to become part of the fabric of crypto.
On the intersection of crypto and AI, Carlson-Wee observed that blockchains represent a natural substrate for deploying agents. That’s because traditional software systems are largely incapable of autonomous transactions, while blockchains can use smart contracts to achieve this.
“[Agents] can enter into contracts using software or math like smart contracts on blockchains, they can own assets in crypto wallets, and they can transact with real people or other agents using crypto wallets,” he noted.
