The rise of MEME coin from the perspective of Ponzi's three-plate theory

Author: CaptainZ Source: X, @hiCaptainZ

The Three-Disk Theory is a cognitive model of Ponzi proposed by Crypto Skanda (@thecryptoskanda). This article explores the reasons for the three bull markets based on this theory: MEME coin is a mutual aid disk, DeFi is a dividend disk, and ICO is a split disk.

What is the Three-Disk Theory

Crypto Skanda believes that one of the greatest values ​​of Crypto is the first democratization and tradability of Ponzi.

Everyone can issue and trade plates. Putting aside external factors, each round of Crypto bull market is driven by Ponzi's fundamental innovation. By studying Ponzi, you can find the big trend level alpha in the market based on the first nature required by Ponzi's innovation.

Although Ponzi schemes are dazzling, in the final analysis there are only three models: dividend plate, mutual aid plate, and split plate. All Ponzi schemes are a combination of these three models. Based on this logical analysis method, he called it the "Three Plate Model". The three plates can appear alone or in combination, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, corresponding to the corresponding logic of starting, operating and crashing.

- Dividend plate: Invest a whole sum of money at one time, and obtain income through linear dividends over time

- Mutual aid plate: A pays B, B pays C, and C pays A, thereby forming a flow mismatch, and settles income by pen

- Split plate: Continuously split an asset target into new targets. Attract incremental funds through new low-priced targets. The income is realized through the appreciation of the target

In terms of logical design, the characteristics of the three disks are as follows:

MEME is a mutual aid disk

The core of the traditional mutual aid disk lies in the mismatch of funds. This model usually involves multiple participants transferring money to each other in sequence to form a capital cycle. Generally speaking, a user receives more money from the next party than he gives to the previous party, so he earns more money than his original investment. The project party generally earns returns by pumping water from each transfer.

This Ponzi model is the most decentralized model among the three models, because once the rules are formulated, there is no need for the "management party" to intervene later, because pumping water is essentially a tax.

The traditional mutual aid is a kind of capital mismatch on a spatial scale, so it does not need to form a capital pool, and most of it cannot freely enter and exit the funds, but it must promise high returns. So why is MEME coin a mutual aid?

We generally believe that MEME coins have two most important attributes:

Fair launch: everyone can participate (everyone can help each other)

Full circulation: no need for project parties to reserve

The so-called "cultural attributes" and "large total amount" are not necessary.

MEME coins are actually a kind of capital mismatch on a time scale. Let's assume that in a bull market context, a certain MEME coin has been rising strongly. In fact, those who bought coins at a high price today pay money to those who bought coins yesterday, and those who bought coins yesterday pay money to those who bought coins at the lowest price the day before yesterday. Because of the uniqueness of time itself, "passive lock-up" is formed (people cannot always step into the same river). So we have the comparison below:

DeFi is a dividend plate

DeFi is the core narrative of the last bull market (2020). Technically, it is to write financial rules into smart contracts (a way to combine blockchain technology and a certain field). From the perspective of token economics, it is to distribute protocol tokens in the form of liquidity mining: deposit money into the protocol to obtain tokens.

For example, the two most important aspects of the financial field are trading and lending, so there are Uniswap and Compound. In Uniswap, users form a trading pair LP of token A and token B and deposit it into the capital pool to obtain income. In Compound, users need to deposit the tokens that can be borrowed into the fund pool to obtain returns. Most of the returns are protocol tokens, and a small amount is real money (stablecoins).

DeFi is a typical dividend-sharing plate, because the basic logic of the dividend-sharing plate is "invest a whole sum of money at one time, and obtain returns through linear dividends over time", is it exactly the same as the above approach? We also have the following comparison:

ICO is a split plate

ICO is the core narrative of the last bull market (2017). The general gameplay is that an idea in any field is written into a white paper, and then financing is carried out to issue tokens, so that most people mistakenly believe that the only application scenario of blockchain is "issuing coins" (another way to combine blockchain technology with a certain field). So in that cycle, many strange tokens appeared, such as "issue a coin for environmental protection", "issue a coin for computers", "issue a coin for charity", etc.

We know that splitting is to continuously split an asset target into new targets. Incremental funds are attracted through new low-priced targets. The income is realized through the appreciation of the target. Isn't this the performance of ICO? If we regard the cryptocurrency track at that time as a capital plate, the emergence of various ICOs is to continuously split the asset target of cryptocurrency into new investment targets (new ICO tokens) through "new stories" to attract incremental funds. So we still have a comparison chart:

The coin circle is the disk circle

If we ignore the specific technical evolution and only look at it from the perspective of token economics, it seems that the past decade has indeed represented the evolution of the Ponzi model, and we can even regard Bitcoin mining as a dividend disk (staking mining machines to generate BTC income).

Is the order of evolution: dividend disk (BTC mining)-- split disk (ICO)-- dividend disk (DeFi)-- mutual aid disk (MEME)? At the same time, the project is becoming more and more decentralized.

On the other hand, if we regard MEME as a track, the emergence of more and more MEME coins is actually a manifestation of split-up. So we can think that MEME is a combination of (mutual assistance + split-up).

Mutual assistance may be the real answer to the "no mutual assistance" in this round of bull market (Restaking is a dividend-sharing plate, DePin is a dividend-sharing plate, and Layer2 is a split-up plate. Obviously, retail investors only want to play mutual assistance in this round of bull market).