One more thing that I do want to mention. Let me share my screen a little bit here because people just keep rewriting history. This is from Spenton; it's the Cardano ecosystem talks all the time. He’s sharing a repeated sentiment that’s been floating around.
Charles Hoskinson recently shared a $23,000 meme coin to nearly $1 million to nearly 1 million followers on X, backed by a figure with a history of rug pulls. It didn’t take long for the community to react when he responded with a live stream on personal accountability. A lot of people were left feeling off when a prominent figure in the space shares a coin and a link to the chart and buy page. It’s just not casual; it’s a type of endorsement, whether intended or not. By shifting the blame to everyone needing to do their own research, Charles seems to overlook his own influence, and that’s where the gaslighting comes in.
So, I’m a gaslighter, and I endorse this. He knows people listen and often follow his lead. Redirecting the conversation to make followers feel solely responsible for vetting a coin he shares feels more like a deflection than true accountability. If we’re going to talk about personal accountability, it needs to go both ways. Instead of flipping it back on followers, how about owning the impact of those endorsements? Sharing random coins with your picture on them isn’t just harmless fun. By now, it’s clear that the likely outcome can be all right there.
So, guys, it was Halloween. My secretary took a picture of me in a Halloween costume, and I tweeted that costume. The Waldo coin didn’t exist until after I tweeted. This was in no way connected to the Waldo coin. Then when they did that, I tweeted, “Let’s go to the Tweet.” Let’s scroll down; we’re scrolling, we’re scrolling. We’ll get there in just a second. Degen’s gonna Degen, and I point to Tap Tools because Tap Tools is the place to actually see all the information about something. The entire purpose of this tweet is to point out the madness and insanity of what’s going on in the meme coin space.
Every single thing I do, every animal I own, every costume I put on, every place I go, every single thing I say, some jack-off creates a meme coin. It was mind-blowing to me that just 30 minutes after I put on a costume and take a picture, it’s not only on Tap Tools, but it’s trading, and there’s actual volume occurring with it. So I tweet out, “Degen’s going to Degen,” pointing out the absurdity and insanity of the situation. Apparently, there’s this group of people on Twitter who say, “Oh, that must have meant that Charles is endorsing this. That must have meant that I have to buy this with my money because somehow Charles is endorsing this.”
After his entire long track record of attacking these things again and again, people rewrote history. They made it look like the coin came first, and then I put on the costume and endorsed it when it was the costume that created the coin. My admonishment of it, saying, “Guys, you’re degenerates, stop it. Stop gambling,” was ignored. You all knew what happens to the vast majority, if not all, of these things long after they’re released. Yet, they say I’m responsible for your losses. How dare Charles Hoskinson blame the community? No, I’m just going to say I will never endorse your shitcoins. I will never endorse them. I will never endorse your meme coins and your degeneracy and your gambling.
You know exactly what I’m about and what I stand for. My record, after a decade plus of being behind these microphones day after day, video after video, tweet after tweet, is clear. And here’s what you’re thinking in your mind: “Well, Charles created some notoriety for this, so other people are going to flood in so I can make some money off the other stupid people flooding in, and hopefully I’ll be able to sell in time before it crashes.” That’s what went through the minds of the people who gambled on this.
What kind of person are you, honestly? What kind of person are you? I can’t wait to make money from somebody else and they lose all their money, but I made some of their money. Do you just want to break into a person’s house and steal their money? Is that really okay with you? That’s literally what’s going on in these meme coin pump and dumps. You know it; I know it. It’s wrong. It’s a perversion of everything that makes crypto special and unique.
I hear all these people are meme coin advocates. Well, you know, culture and society, and that might be true when there’s an actual intent to create that. But what is the culture when somebody takes a picture of me and 30 minutes later creates a meme coin of it? Honestly, what’s the culture of that? What’s the good fun in that? What’s the community in that? Where’s the attempt to actually build something real and meaningful? At least Dogecoin, when you go to conferences, you can see the Doge logo on cars, and people really get into Doge. Elon Musk pushes Doge; he’s even trying to play American politics, and he calls himself the Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency. That’s something.
I might not like it; I might not agree with it, but it’s something. But tell me, what was the community building with Waldo? Where’s that going? Where’s all the stuff there? Well, Solana has a dog with a hat. Oh, there are all these meme coins trading on Solana. Okay, great. But don’t tell me it was an endorsement. Don’t tell me I condone these things. Don’t tell me I told you to buy this. Don’t tell me I should know my influence. Yeah, I do know my influence, and time and again behind this microphone, I say you’re an idiot if you buy these things. You will lose your money if you buy these things. If you get involved in this space, 99 times out of 100, you’re not going to make anything. And the one time you did make something, you made something from somebody else who was a little slower at clicking sell than you.
That’s the reality; it’s the cold hard truth. So grow up, learn it, and stop dragging me into these things. Honestly, stop dragging me into these things. Find something else to meme about than my life and the things I put on. Because you know what it’ll do if you keep doing it? I’ll just stop sharing my life altogether, every aspect of it. I know my critics say I’m this hyper-narcissistic person. I share my life because there are a lot of people that are fans, and they enjoy seeing into it; they see the window into it. But I don’t have to tweet. I really don’t. I’ve debated the wisdom of doing that, and you know what? If this is the end result of it, well then, what’s the point? Let’s just stop then, huh?
All it’ll be is just corporate stuff from here on out: “Pleased to have met person XYZ. Excited about the launch of product ABC. Thank you so much, Prime Minister XYZ, for this and that.” There you go; I might as well turn the Twitter account over to somebody else if this is the end result of it. I don’t need this criticism; I really don’t. I don’t need the constant toxicity and pathetic nature of this stuff. Guys, it’s gotten too hot for too long. It’s been going on for so long. Look at my Twitter feed; look at every tweet; look at what people say; look at what people do. It’s abusive.
This meme coin stuff is just the latest in a long line of it. It really is, and it has to stop. Honestly, in this industry, it has to stop. The vitriol and this crap in our own community—stop playing the victims, please. Stop clutching your pearls. Stop looking for people to blame. Stop saying that we’re the worst people alive after all we do every day, waking up and doing hard work. Stop taking advantage of our good nature and our goodwill.
It was Halloween; I put on a costume. It was a pretty good one. I didn’t even expect to have it; it was a surprise. My EA surprised me and laid out a costume and said, “Hey, you mentioned Waldo.” It was a joke I had a few weeks ago, so I took it and put it on and shared it with the community. And you guys just couldn’t resist but do this. Are you happy now? Did you get something out of it? Is it really awesome? And now you’re going to blame me and say I should pay you back because you gambled and lost on something of me saying “Degen’s gonna Degen”?
What am I supposed to say then? This industry is a paradox to me; it’s a strange thing. You know, we say we want to change the world. We say we want to change the economic, political, and social systems of the world. We say that cryptocurrencies are different and that the reason they exist is to liberate mankind and give us something new and better than where we came from. We say we want to overcome the evils of BlackRock and the big centralized corporations that control our lives, every aspect from cradle to grave.
We say we want our votes to count. Half of you, no matter who wins the election next week, are going to dispute it and be angry about it, filled with rage, and say America’s dead and it’s over. Person XYZ is going to destroy us. The democratic process has come to an end. The most powerful country in the world, no matter what the outcome is next week, you’re going to say that. And when I look you in the eyes and say, “Do you want something different?” you look at me and say, “Yes, I do.”
So what have we done with the last 15 years of crypto? The last three years of growth, the predominant growth in trading volume and excitement, has been literally around coins that, by their very design, have no value. By their very existence, they do nothing and serve no purpose other than to be trading sardines that people purchase and push around the desks to each other and brag to their friends about how they found the latest degenerate meme to trade.
We tell the world we’re going to change the world, but then when we’re given the power to do it, we burn it down and then blame anybody else but ourselves for it. What do you want out of this crypto revolution? Honestly, what do you want? All these other things in life, how much abuse are you just going to dole out before you start looking in the mirror?
It’s a tough thing being a founder of these types of projects; it really is. It’s a tough thing running a layer one protocol. It’s a thankless job. It’s thankless to have convened and bring people together. I’m very excited that we have decentralized governance coming, and I’m very excited that so many people will be able to hold up everything that’s been accomplished. Hopefully, that’ll smooth everything out and moderate everything out, and people will start realizing that it’s a road to nowhere with the conduct that’s been happening, the lack of wisdom and foresight in these things, and the vitriol that’s being thrown around.
Maybe, just maybe, people will realize they have to grow up and they have to ask, “Why are you here, and what are we trying to do? Where are we trying to go?” For my part, I try hard every day; I really do. I put in the time. I realize I’m not perfect; I realize I make mistakes. A lot of you hate me now because I’ve taken political stances that weren’t popular, but I took them because I’m so tired of being abused by the U.S. government. I’m tired of being told that despite being abused, I should shut up and give bribe money to the Democrats like Chris Larsen did. It’s wrong then; it’s wrong now; and it always will be wrong.
This government did terrible things to our industry, and the people who did these things should not be rewarded with power. We have a binary system, unfortunately. I tried very hard to make it not a binary system. I campaigned and pushed for Robert Kennedy; he joined alongside Elon Musk and others, Donald Trump. Do I like that option? Do I think it’s an ideal outcome? Is it what I would have chosen if given a chance? No, it’s him or the other person, and the other person represents everything that’s wrong with America right now: the nepotism, the corruption, the woke cult.
I understand if you from those political persuasions don’t seem to think that that’s a problem at all, or you seem to think that it’s somehow better or more desirable than what’s been going on. But what’s been going on has 12 years of history behind it in division and hate and vitriol, and it’s turned Americans insane. It’s made everybody crazy at their core, and it can’t keep going on. It just can’t. It’s not fun anymore. You can’t have any conversations with people. You can’t go to Thanksgiving; you can’t go to Christmas. Every single thing now is egg shells and political.
Every single thing now is, “How do I not offend this person?” Every corporate communication is so thoroughly sanitized. Every attempt to do anything creative in any endeavor, any joke, any creative output, any picture, you instantly think, “God, who’s going to be offended? How is this going to be received?” I just wait for the shoe to drop. No matter what you say, no matter what you do, you can’t win as a public figure in the public sphere. That’s why Satoshi stayed anonymous. It’s so easy to venerate a ghost; it’s so easy to venerate a mask like Guy Fawkes. Nobody knows who the real man was, but the mask was there, and we can venerate that. We can put it on, and we can pretend like he’s great, never mind that he probably did a lot of bad stuff in his life, never mind that he probably lied once or twice or had a problem here and there because he’s human like all human beings.
But not human when he has the mask on. At least the protocol founders who had the courage to be not anonymous, at least they had the courage to go out there and talk to you guys and show the world who they are. The reward you get for it is to be hated by a lot of people, and you can’t even share a Halloween costume anymore. That’s where we’re at in 2024, on November 1st. It’s a tough thing.
So decentralized governance will fix that. People will come together; we won’t have just a single point of contact to hate, blame, and throw crap at. We will have decentralized and constitutional committee members, and every single day they’re going to have to make very, very hard decisions. They’re going to have to think carefully about where to go and what to do and how to get there. I’ll, of course, give them advice, but you know, at the end of the day, that’s the point of decentralization, and that’s the value of it. That’s why I said it’s one of the most important things we can do as an ecosystem because the human race needs to have that level of decentralization and facelessness in order to move forward with social projects.
We can’t do it anymore because of social media with a single leader or a single agenda or a single movement. We just can’t; it’s not possible to do that anymore. We are so enthralled and in love with the idea that the minute someone has any modicum of power or prestige, we burn that person to the ground, focusing on their flaws, the things they shouldn’t have said, instead of the things they did and said. We’re so in love with the idea of escaping any personal accountability and transitioning all of that to the person at the top. Somehow, that makes us feel better, like we have some agency or control over our lives, even if the people at the top are actually trying to give you power or give you agency and control over your life.
That’s the human condition as of 2024, and that’s why I shouldn’t be surprised that the dominant economic force in the cryptocurrency space over the last few years has been meme coins because it’s the most honest parody of the laborers that we who started things a long time ago have done. So the people who tweet these things, grow up. Honestly, it’s not my fault that you decided to buy a meme coin. It’s gotten me to a point where I’m honestly asking if I should share anything at all.
I know a lot of you have come to know me and love me and care about my life and really enjoy the adventures and the cool things. Perhaps there’s a different medium or format now where this makes more sense, but honestly, I think Twitter has become kind of the ID of the internet. It’s the lowest common denominator, and it’s so filled with the casual take. There’s got to be a better way of communicating; there’s got to be a better way of sharing.
So when I come back, I’m going to write a lot more. I’m going to write blog posts and be more cautious and deliberate in these types of things. I’m going to be more reticent to invite people in anymore for these types of events, and that’s just the way it has to be. I’m glad; it’ll be a lot healthier, I think. I’m also going to focus a lot more on the nuts and bolts things, and I’m going to travel a hell of a lot less in 2025. I cannot wait to see how the decentralized government steps up and deals with the big challenges and the big fights. There will be very loud voices, and people will continue throwing their hand grenades and doing their things. But you know what? That’s for other people to deal with. I’m just going to do the work I do at IOG.
So that’s the one more thing. Congratulations, meme coiners; you got what you wanted. You won.
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