2025 is off to a really bad start. In the first month, there is explosive news that the 45th President of the United States issued a meme coin named after himself the day before taking office. I can't wrap my mind around this. Why would a president do such a thing?
The next morning, I received a text message from my uncle, a carpenter in his 50s, who had almost nothing to do with the Internet, stocks, and finance in his life:
"Trump issued a new Trump coin (similar to Bitcoin) on the 18th. Have you operated it now?"
I was waiting for the train at the train station. I read the text message and felt fear. What force has infiltrated this meme coin into the lowest level of Chinese society?
I couldn't figure it out, and then I forced myself to think of indulgences. Behind these meme coins, there may be a similar operating logic to the "indulgences" of the medieval church - both use the deepest fears or desires of human nature to harvest.
"When the coins jingle in the box, the soul will fly out of purgatory."
We should have seen this sentence in the history book of junior high school. The original text comes from the slogan of indulgences in the Middle Ages. Let the people spend money to buy indulgences. This is the most important way for the medieval church to make money.
It may be difficult for us now to imagine the importance of God to people in the Middle Ages hundreds of years ago. At that time, the European people were generally full of fear and desire for the salvation of the soul after death. We are alive and no longer need God. We are all materialists.
But now the importance of money to us has replaced the position of God.
The people in the Middle Ages longed for the salvation of their souls, while the current retail investors are eager to get rich overnight. At that time, people's belief in "heaven" and "hell" was deeply rooted. Similarly, our belief in wealth now seems to be deeply rooted. Today, when we, the retail investors who speculate in cryptocurrencies, face the seemingly low threshold and high return meme coins, we will ignore the project risks and rush into the market due to our strong desire for wealth. Everyone is afraid of losing at the starting line, because we all know that this is a game of running fast. We don't even want to miss any shortcut to wealth. This is FOMO---Fear of Missing Out. Maybe people in the Middle Ages were like this too. They didn't want to miss any way to heaven, even if they had to spend a small amount of money to buy indulgences.
The church in the Middle Ages had a monopoly on the channels of communication with God. Only priests could read the Bible, and the church was the center of authority at the time. The indulgences they issued allowed others to go to church. The church took advantage of the public's superstition about religion and information asymmetry to harvest wealth on a large scale.
In today's cryptocurrency trading circle, celebrities have huge social influence, or a certain meme with spreadability has become a new wealth gathering point.
We retail cryptocurrency traders are always looking for carriers of such influence and spreadability, hoping to hand over money to such carriers to take us flying. Putting the hope of getting rich on this god-like meme is the same as the superstition and information asymmetry of the people in the Middle Ages. It's just that everyone was superstitious about God back then, and now we are superstitious abouttrumpand musk.
From the Middle Ages to the modern times, from selling salvation to selling wealth, selling indulgences has become selling meme coins.
Martin Luther's "Ninety-five Theses" was aimed at the church's rampant sale of indulgences in order to make money. Now that we are credulous about meme coins and crazy about chasing wealth, do we also need some kind of "awakening" to break superstition and information monopoly?
What is the potential "religious reform" plan? Government supervision, industry self-help, financial knowledge education...?
I think the cryptocurrency circle is actually quite small. As of January 222025January 2225Month (from 18issuing coins, a total of four days to 22day), the on-chain trumpcoin holding address is 9210,000 addresses. Not many.
With so few people participating, there is no need for religious reform.
Is Trump an archbishop?
In fact, I am very reluctant to imagine the most powerful person in the world today as a bad person. I think this is a very stupid and naive way of thinking. A better way of thinking should look at the advantages of awesome people instead of staring at their butts. No matter how bad he is, how can he become president? We should look at what he did right.
I have been collecting positive information about Trump coin everywhere these two days to see if I have missed anything.
The most positive description I have seen is from Gu Heng, a columnist of the Get app. Teacher Gu said that Trump issued the coin to raise funds to repay US Treasury bonds.
Well, I think this assumption is a bit outrageous. There is no evidence that the income from Trumpcoin will be used to repay the national debt. Including when NFT was popular a few years ago, Trump also issued four sets of NFT. It has been several years, and he has not contributed to the country.
Maybe Mr. Gu just saw what Mark Cuban in the billionaire class said about using meme coins to make money to repay the national debt.
The current evidence can only say that this meme coin is based on personal interests, not national interests.
Besides, can we cut leeks based on national interests?
Think about it, even the pastor who prayed at Trump’s inauguration ceremony actually issued coins. A pastor, oh, think about it, isn’t this related to indulgences again?
Another thought: Is a world where everyone (at least celebrities) can issue meme coins (without providing any promises and value) a better world?
Hayek's currency is not nationalized. Instead of letting the state monopolize the right to issue currency, private individuals can also issue currency, and the currency is determined by market competition.
This concept is quite advanced. I used to believe it very much. Some of my early articles on Bitcoin were based on this concept. Now I see this concept being realized in the way that everyone issues memes, which makes me feel that my soul is being tested.
But Hayek's currency is not about everyone issuing worthless coins.
The popular meme coins and Hayek's ideas are similar only in that "everyone can issue them" on the surface, but the endorsement of coins and currencies is completely different. Hayek still advocates that everyone should be responsible for the coins they issue.
The currency issuer must have credibility or collateral;
The currency market needs to be open and transparent;
The currency itself must be stable or meet the actual transaction/value storage needs...
These have nothing to do with meme coins. The current meme coins are a complete zero-sum game.
The core of Hayek's multi-currency competition is to improve the stability of the currency and the interests of users through competition, while the core of meme coins is speculation and short-term wealth, and there is no real value commitment to the holders.
The core of meme coins is to make a fortune by speculating on meme coins.
Alas, we can laugh at the ignorance of the Middle Ages, and we can also laugh at the fanaticism of the present, but as long as the desire remains unchanged, the harvest and the harvest will continue to be staged. History has been reincarnated for thousands of years, and it is so similar.
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