shades of attention tokens:
ways meme coins can expand
Meme coins have made everyone realize that tokens are primarily about attention. However, meme coins today are still too simplistic. What second-generation meme coins will look like:
the meme stack: we now understand that everything is a meme: a mechanism (PoW/L2), a segment (social, cross-chain/DePIN), and even values (privacy). Different people’s attention is drawn to different memes.
There are two types of investors: long-term ones who care about fundamentals and get in early, and retail investors who come in late based on signals.
The interesting gap is between the long-term effort (VC-backed projects) and the short-term traders.
Attention arbitrages are key for 2nd-generation meme coins.
As I wrote here, sometimes attention arbitrages arise—cases where people want to invest in something, but the asset is not investable. Monad and Berachain are current examples of this for retail investors.
This is one of the most important concepts for understanding 2nd-gen meme coins.
Some examples from the recent past:
Friends Tech: Enabled investing in people (bonding curve mechanism).
*Degen.tips*: Invest in forecasters (airdrop).
Constitution DAO: Investing in an important artifact (IDO).
Types of arbitrages and mechanisms for 2nd-gen memes:
Private market - to Meme: The peak attention for most VC projects is just before launch. During this period, there’s a lot of attention around the token, but no asset to invest in. Meme coins that serve as proxies for projects that haven’t launched yet will do very well.
Charity and Lawsuits: I also wrote about it here. Tokens can fund a class action lawsuit or a charitable cause. Lock 50% of the token and release it when it reaches X value. $Not a Security is an example.
Real-World Tipping Using zk-TLS: Meme coins could be awarded to people who prove certain real-world actions, such as sperm donation or purchasing shoes. More from Dan Elitzer. This is interesting because it creates a proxy for investing in a topic outside direct reach—a new category.
Acquisition Memes: Similar to the second point and Constitution DAO.
