Community, Purpose or Revenue Building Through Gaming, Memes and the Crypto Casino(s)

- Meme coins are an interesting social experiment of community building through a feeling of belonging around something funny

- Blue-chip memecoins show resilience in bear markets

- Multiple AI meme coins will hit $1 billion market cap in the next 36 months, says Dr. Nagendra Bharatula

Whether the establishment likes it or not, memecoins are hot, especially after President Donald Trump launched his own version just days before taking office. They emerged in 2013 as a joke initially, with Shiba Inu and Doge coins being prime examples, but they’ve grown into a $127bn market cap space in just over a decade. Still, despite their explosion in popularity, memecoins have struggled to gain recognition as an investment universe due to their lack of underlying economics. Pump and dumps and scams often yield sky-high returns initially, before losing all their value.

Theodore Agranat, Director of Web3, Gunzilla Games, said that there is an inherent problem when the only value accrual of a memecoin is that the people investing hope, anticipate and expect to get a financial return, but no value is generated within an ecosystem. He argued that it then becomes a discussion as to whether appropriate disclosures are in place and whether people understand individual factors such as an unlimited supply that Doge has.

“I don’t have issues with what I call an interesting social experiment of community building through a feeling of belonging around something funny, but I do have a problem with whether people are educated around the risk of return,” he said.

Dr. Nagendra Bharatula, Founder and CEO of the G-20 Group, highlighted the success of blue-chip meme coins like Doge and Shiba Inu, noting their resilience in bear markets and their role in driving Solana’s growth. Recently, the G-20 Group published a report which illustrates the importance of memecoins. He also stressed the accessibility and simplicity of meme coins, making them appealing to a broader audience.

Ryan Kim, Co-Founder and Partner at Hashed, on the other hand, criticized the current state of web3 gaming, calling it disappointing and unsustainable. Like Agranat, he stressed the need to focus on user experience rather than just financial incentives, while conceding that meme tokens can be used as a user acquisition model.

When thinking about AI and memecoins, Bharatula believes that AI memecoins will become valuable as they accumulate attention and influence. He predicted that AI agents will raise funds from other AI agents, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem. He also believes that multiple AI meme coins will hit $1 billion market cap in the next 36 months. The panel was hosted by Zenobia Godschalk, Founder and CEO of ZAG Communications.