THE FIRST MEMECOIN EVER
There is no clear determination as to what a memecoin is or was. Was BBQcoin a memecoin? Huntercoin that had a game you play in the wallet to mine, or was Ferretcoin? Will I just mentioning them here get people to go on github and fire up some scrypt miners to mine an old random shitcoin and then publicly declare that it was a vintage shitcoin, the first ever? To be honest this is in many ways more interesting than cookie cutter edgelord pump fun degeneracy.
The shitcoin world (that is what memecoins used to be called) has developed into a world that blends the worst of attention whoring of live-streaming pranks with the hyperspeed of crypto token trading. Instead of a new mining algo or tech buzzword mint your shitcoin on SOL and do a live stream of you taking a shit, robbing people, or in blackface. This is what we call innovation. It is the mirror you look into in the morning and ask “How nihilistic am I feeling today?” Shitcoins have always been and always will be a cultural statement on the current state of things. If you want to know what the pulse of the world is look in the trenches of shitcoinery and there you will find the truth, as ugly as it may be.
FIRST EVER
There is an appeal to something that came from another time — a time before tokens even existed before any DEX existed. A time when a new coin had to spin up its own blockchain and get miners, mining pools, and centralized exchanges to list it.
Back from the dead
As expected many coins from the Dark Ages died. How would you define dead? Zero network activity, no blocks mined, no transactions, the network itself has no pulse. The freedom of this technology has lent itself to bring life to death. You can revive old blockchains, but are they connected to the old chain of consensus or is it a hard fork under the same name? This needs further investigation and I doubt a simple question on Twitter or Telegram will give a truthful answer. If the coin in question is indeed a hardfork of the OG chain and not connected then is it really the OG coin, and in itself “OLD” or even better “FIRST EVER”?
In the days of extremely short attention spans, zero research, and Adderall brain syndrome people believe what is presented to them in a nice graphic. In the same vein, I have not researched if the following coins are a fork of the OG chain or indeed the old chain: Bellscoin, Junkcoin, Catcoin. These are being marketed as vintage, old memecoins and while I do think they are cool and interesting I am not sold on if they should or can claim the old title. I am not saying who was first or which is better but I can say the following.
Dogecoin- Without this, we might not have any memecoins or NFTs. This really showed that just being fun can work. Alive since launch.
Pepecoin- launched in 2016 was the first pepe the frog themed coin. The ETH token is not the same. Alive since launch.
Counterparty- A token layer on Bitcoin launched in 2014 with tons of “memecoin” tokens. Including pepecash another pepe the frog-based coin that doubles as a collectible NFT part of the Rare Pepe Directory.
Dogeparty- Counterparty but on Doge. Even more obscure and tons of proto memecoins such has “Shitcoin”.
There are others, this is not a full list but as you see all of the “historical timelines” and other infographics on Twitter keep in mind, that they probably are not complete either.
Conclusion
Historical, Vintage memecoins, shitcoins, and altcoins are fun and interesting. This is not investment advice. This is simply a subjective observation around interest in old things. We are moving so fast that things 10 years old are now old. The total supply of random shitcoins is ever-expanding with no stop in sight. Old projects rebranding as a memecoin is at best a fun project connecting with the current zeitgeist and at worst a bad meme rebrand trying to capitalize on new blood in an effort to gain exit liquidity.
The power of Zeus — The fury of Hades,
Theo Goodman
