With $BTC heading to a new ATH, it’s a good moment to share one reflection:
$BTC is the first cryptocurrency ever deployed.
However, most of people doing crypto nowadays are using interoperable standard tokens in different blockchains.
Do you know what’s the first one?
$wmc
Hyperliquid runs on ERC-20 tokens.
Polymarket runs on ERC-20 tokens.
Most stablecoins are ERC-20s or equivalent standards like TRC-20.
Institutions tokenizing equities, funds and financial instruments are deploying ERC-20 tokens. Companies tokenizing collectibles, luxury goods and TCGs are doing the same.
Literally every new shiny thing that’s positive for the crypto industry runs on the EVM and ERC-20 tokens.
MistCoin is one of the most important digital artifacts in crypto and as finance moves onchain, it will become one of the industry’s most valuable collectibles.
$WMC
Whilst CT debates wrapping/unwrapping, v1 vs v2, and provenance, it’s a good moment to recap why MistCoin matters $WMC:
- Prototype of a ~$0.5T asset class: ERC-20 and its descendants (TRC-20, Base tokens, Arbitrum tokens, HYPE, BRC-20, etc.) all trace back to the token standard category MistCoin helped pioneer.
- Deployed by Fabian Vogelsteller 16 days before he formally released the ERC-20 standard alongside Vitalik (November 19th, 2015) and a couple of days before Devcon1.
-The only ownable asset on Ethereum that has been transacted every single year since Ethereum mainnet launch, besides Ethereum itself.
-The first token announced, distributed and hyped 🤣 on Ethereum (shared via r/ethereum and the Ethereum Twitter account).
-The first token tied to an actual Ethereum project: the Mist browser.
-Because it isn’t fully ERC-20 compliant (it lacks approve() and transferFrom()), it must be wrapped before trading on DEXs like Uniswap.
This is the real, OG, sleeping giant.
It has been sleeping for 10 years and 197 days. For 24,646,016 blocks.
The only giant that will stand the test of time.
$WMC
The explosion of Pokémon TCG, the APxSwatch collab, collectible Lego sets, sports cards, vintage watches outperforming people’s portfolio…
. should be a massive signal to CT.
Retail likes collectibles.
Retail likes brands.
Retail likes scarcity.
Retail likes provenance.
What retail does NOT like is spending all day farming Dexscreener for the next manipulated memecoin that roundtrips to zero in 72 hours.
People want assets that feel culturally meaningful and socially recognizable, not random tickers with no identity.
Crypto already solved a huge part of the collector market:
proof of authenticity, ownership history, global liquidity, fractional access, instant settlement. You don’t need a third party to grade your assets.
The opportunity was never “replace collectibles with memes”.
It was bringing collecting itself onchain $WMC
Pokémon cards are worth fortunes today, despite the TCG market being tiny compared to Ethereum.
Collectors value provenance, history, and origin.
Imagine owning the prototype Pokémon card, created and signed by Tsunekazu Ishihara.
MistCoin is essentially the “signed prototype Pokémon card” of ERC-20s: The original implementation deployed by the creator of the standard himself.
More than two years have passed since this Avsa tweet, and the “greater fools” are still collecting the prototype of the ERC-20 standard.
MistCoin’s fundamental value increases with every new block validated on Ethereum and every new fungible token minted on the EVM.
$WMC
MistCoin is probably the first token ever shilled on Ethereum 😂
Our KOLs (@feindura & @avsa) shilling the Mist token at DevCon 1.
“I created the Mist token just for fun. A bunch of guys requested to have the Mist token, so I sent a bunch of Mist token”
$WMC
https://t.co/oPUcLBa5FK
The first meaningful token on Ethereum.
- First token publicly announced and distributed (Ethereum social accounts)
- First token with a (small) community
- First token massively copied/forked
- Built with a purpose: testing token transfers and launching custom assets
-Deployed just 3 months after Ethereum mainnet launch, during DevCon1 week and 16 days before the ERC-20 standard was proposed
-Created by the author of ERC-20 itself
-Provenance unmatched: rich onchain history, OG holders, and at least one transaction every year since Ethereum launched
-It helped shaping the most important asset standard in crypto: ERC-20.
Referenced many times throughout Ethereum history as the first token of this type, even if it’s not fully compliant.
[…]
$WMC