Crypto degens have been gambling on World War themed meme coins while the United States bombed Iran on Sunday morning and tensions in the Middle East appear to be nearing a boiling point.
The biggest meme coin winner—if you can call it that—was BunkerCoin, a six-month-old Pump.fun token that skyrocketed 1,964% from Saturday into Sunday to a $5.14 million market cap. It has since dropped 78% to $1.13 million.
BunkerCoin, originally called Project Malachite, claims to own a 750,000 square foot private bunker in Germany. Currently, according to the project’s live roadmap, the team is renovating the bunker’s electrical system, blast doors, and launching marketing events. Token holders can also register to visit the bunker.
Other war tokens that spiked over the weekend include Werld Wur Thwee, which peaked at a $1.54 million market cap immediately after launching, before crashing 89% to just $167,000. Sticks and Stones, with the ticker SAS, also launched and climbed to a $1.56 million market cap on Monday, while Make Iran Great Again, inspired by a social media post by President Trump, jumped to $832,530.
The meme coin trenches trend is just the latest installment of traders gambling on the public’s attention—which, in this case, happens to be on the actual trenches.
“They just want to make money,” Cecilia Dahlberg, CMO at on-chain sleuthing firm Bubblemaps, told Decrypt. “Anything that's on the news/hot/relevant WILL be a memecoin. It often is not related to personal interests in these cases; they have seen a lot of headlines and look for a matching meme coin.”
Pump.fun, the largest token launchpad on Solana and where most of this degeneracy takes place, is responsible for the creation of almost 11.5 million meme coins in its year-and-a-half lifespan. Just over the past 24 hours, according to Dune data, it has launched 22,019 tokens.
On the innocent end of the scale, traders gambling on attention can be seen with the roaring success of the Labubu meme coin, which peaked at a $72 million market cap as the toy’s virality was at its peak. In reality, 0xToolman, a pseudonymous on-chain detective for Bubblemaps added, traders weren’t genuinely interested in Labubu toys.
However, on the more sinister side, traders have gambled on meme coins making fun of or celebrating the death of celebrities and politicians. For example, when Joe Biden announced his prostate cancer diagnosis, a Solana meme coin called It’s Joever skyrocketed.
“Crypto, generally being a free market, brings out the best and worst in people,” Loopify, the pseudonymous founder of Palestine charity CryptoGaza and trader, told Decrypt. “The attraction is simpler than what people make it out to be. People want money, and some people care less about passing the boundaries of life, whether social or moral.”
At its worst, this was seen when hordes of Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, fans started buying up tokens they believed were related to the rapper in March. These communities became a breeding ground for antisemitism and Nazi ideologies. Some traders told Decrypt that it was all just a joke, but experts pushed back by claiming that it was the first step towards radicalization.
Still, Swasticoin peaked at a $180.45 million market capitalization and Yeezy Coin $33.18 million. Both tokens are now below a market cap of $2.5 million.
That was just one of many meme coin projects that crossed what many perceive as a moral line. Other viral tokens have laughed at racial stereotypes, literally claim that Hitler did nothing wrong, and much more.
However, in the case of World War III meme coins, Victor Teixeira, fund principal at investment firm Contango Digital Assets, believes it's emblematic of a generation unwilling to learn.
“Personally, I think the ‘WW3 is happening narrative’ is a version of educational nihilism where no one wants to actually take time to understand issues fully,” he said. “And that’s being reflected now in investment decisions, where consumers are converging on the lowest common denominator in general.”
Teixeira explained how the narrative of a third world war is the easiest narrative to sell, rather than one that is nuanced and rooted in truth. This educational nihilism ties nicely with the concept of financial nihilism that underpins the meme coin industry.
Financial nihilism, in a nutshell, refers to the feeling that the traditional financial systems no longer serve new generations. The best example of this is the housing market getting too expensive for first-time buyers, especially as wages aren’t increasing at a similar rate. Plus, many youngsters felt the impact of the 2008 recession at the hands of financial institutions in the middle of their childhoods, meaning they no longer trust those institutions.
As a result, those generations are turning to increasingly speculative assets to gamble their way into financial success. Combined with the supposed rejection of education, meme coins blossom.
"I think [educational nihilism] is reflected in the meme coin trends where you can put a real product in front of them,” Teixeira added, “and a really dumb meme coin that makes someone chuckle they’re going to choose the meme coin as a rejection of the fact that someone took the time to build a product, even though the meme coin will hurt them."
“At the end of the day, meme coins have always been about catching the cultural zeitgeist,” he finished, and giving people a dopamine rush when they’re on the timeline and get to feel like they are part of something.”
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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