Unpopular (popular) opinion: memecoins on hype were fun because they were the old meta we had just graduated on. People knew how to play that game. And they served a function, they validated that Hyperliquid was its own real chain with “real chain things” to trade.
They don’t really have any value now. And they aren’t interesting in comparison to the Hyperliquid ecosystem the way they were a year ago with a lot less to do as a user of the network. I’d have a lot more money if they were worth something today, so I’m pretty unbiased saying this.
That doesn’t mean none of them will ever be worth anything. I like seeing people post fat neko memes and still trying to do things with sincerity here. It’s the seed of what might become something real in time. But that’s not what most of last year was. Most of it was broke, desperate people pretending to like things so they could dump it on someone else. I’m happy to say most of the Hypio community as it stands today can count ourselves free of these types.
The point stands, though. Those degen cultural primitives pale in comparison to what Hyperliquid has become.
You can trade Chinese and Korean stocks this summer. On leverage. There are the beginnings of a prediction market layer. Yeah perps are more serious, Hyperliquid itself is more serious. The degenerate side of crypto gets relegated to a smaller part of this ecosystem, an ecosystem which in time will be massive.
When we see projects shutting down HIP-3 markets and other way more ambitious things than a memecoin or an nft, we can see that Hyperliquid is still wanting when it comes to competent teams. But the cultural side, the “old crypto” energy side is way worse off - almost entirely bereft. It is literally just us and a few other people who rep Hypurr or no nft at all.
There’s almost no one with anything worth selling on the culture side and almost no one interested in buying. For the time being it is all about $Hype and the cultural energy will have to be earned, brick by brick, like everything on Hyperliquid.
Hyperliquid
I think part of the reason HyperEVM lost its spark is that we lost the cultural side of Hyperliquid.
Every time I talk to people outside the eco they're all like "I'm not interested in Hyperliquid, I don't trade perps."
To them Hyperliquid is just a perp dex, they have no idea it's a whole ecosystem full of communities, builders and culture.
That side of Hyperliquid lives on EVM, we just stopped showing it.
For me, HyperEVM is the reason I joined Hyperliquid in the first place, I wasn't even trading before that. Everything and everyone I know here is thanks to the communities I was part of.
A lot of my closest friends in the HL eco come from those early EVM days, back when we'd just sit around trading NFTs, talking in spaces, sharing memes, shitposting and having fun. That's what made it feel like home.
At some point Hyperliquid got very serious, maybe a bit too institutional. The growth is incredible and I'm here for it, but I don't see why we can't have both.
We dropped the fun part and I will make it my mission to bring it back. More soon.
Hyperliquid.
Tommy's Takes, June 19th ed.
BTC: $62,760.39, 24H: -2.1%
ETH: $1,690.83, 24H: -2.9%
SOL: $68.51, 24H: -4.1%
HYPE: $67.95, 24H: -4.9%
NEWS📰📰📰:
1. Iran officially posts the fully executed “Memorandum of Understanding” which has now taken effect.
2. Spot Bitcoin ETFs Saw $90.66M in Net Outflows on June 18
3. Franklin Templeton files for ETFs that would reinvest stock dividends into Bitcoin.
4. @hwwonx ANNOUNCES "AFTER MY SABBATICAL, I HAVE DECIDED TO STEP DOWN AS CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND BOARD MEMBER OF THE ETHEREUM FOUNDATION (@ethereumfndn), EFFECTIVE TODAY"
5. @krakenfx INTEGRATES @solana DEX TRADING INTO CORE APP.
TOP PROJECTS🚀🚀🚀:
1. Hypurr
Volume: $276.9, Sales: 18
2. Bored Ape Yacht Club
Volume: $162.5, Sales: 6
3. Pudgy Penguins
Volume: $84.7k, Sales: 11
MOVERS🔥🔥🔥:
1. Lab
Price: $2.04, Volume: $78,976,734, 24H: 25.4%
2. Provenance Blockchain
Price: $16.40, Volume: $24,257,266, 24H: 14.7%
3. 币安人生 (BinanceLife) 币安人生
Price: $0.03114, Volume: $364,201,131, 24H: 2.7%
Yeah you are right that it is not just memecoins or garbage nft spamming every week, it is almost everything from that era. Most of these points programs have proven to be worthless or almost malevolent-style farming of users for fees.
Shedding the weight of how crypto was and used to work isn’t easy and will take time and experimentation. But it will continue to evolve and has evolved on Hyperliquid already so far
A couple of years ago, a young chap named Ansem urged me to purchase something called solana:EKpQGSJtjMFqKZ9KQanSqYXRcF8fBopzLHYxdM65zcjm at nearly $4 a pop.
I foolishly obliged.
Today it trades at $0.17, and I'm still holding the blasted coins.
If only someone had known how this would end and said it publicly many times…
The only NFT that spits facts when no one wants to hear them
They’re calling us the Lee Kuan Yew of NFTs
Hyperliquid nigga
I can’t stand watching people speak with absolute entitlement about situations they really know nothing about. I feel like I’ve stayed quiet long enough.
The constant disrespect, the daily assumption that my silence equals to weakness, it’s become unbearable. Not just for me, but for everyone who actually believes in me and trusts me.
I did not “leverage” Megaeth to mint out Netizens. It was the other way around.
So if you think this, stop being delusional and so incredibly disrespectful, i've had enough.
Let me be crystal clear: the team reached out to me in October and asked if I could launch something on @megaeth because they were “not satisfied with the NFT projects that were already on the chain, in terms of taste and culture”.
It appeared to be very clear since the beginning how netizens could’ve been a great opportunity for the ecosystem to flourish. We were defined as the key to reach a new audience and stop stagnating. We were supposed to be the catalyst and the first brick for a new cultural development and the mint itself was meant to be an event of wider adoption.
My aim was, from the start, to create a space where people could feel part of something for the first time, welcome as their unfiltered selves. Just pure art, pure culture.
I believed in Mega, and I trusted their team with my work, my reputation and my efforts. But it didn’t take long for them to show their real nature.
Mainnet was supposed to launch in November. I worked night and day, without breaks, to meet the deadline, only for the launch to be delayed repeatedly without proper notice (mid-November, late November, early December, and so on, until February). The constant disorganization and inconsistent communication made everything incredibly difficult. We had to coordinate an entire project under uncertainty, which even prevented us from announcing a firm mint date until the very last minute.
I poured my soul into Netizens because that’s what I always do and I thought we all shared the same mission.
Despite all the sugarcoated praise, they were, in reality, not ready to embrace the kind of culture they were asking for, and that we finally brought. Instead of trusting the vision, they chose mediocrity and neutrality. They let people attack me daily, calling me a scammer, undermining everything while I was doing all in my power to make the chain look good. All our efforts felt invisible. Promises were constantly made and broken.
We were used for attention and clout, then quietly discarded every time any existing “community” felt threatened by something superior and actually relevant outside their small bubble.
I was lied to countless times, the team was clearly not coherent or transparent with us and it started being obvious how they were just promising the same exact things to everyone else.
Every time we raised real issues, we were either ignored for days or given empty reassurances that solved nothing.
I had made it clear that I would rather leave than stay where I felt unwanted and unappreciated. I thought they understood. I’m no longer sure they ever did.
Four days before launch, I was still questioning whether the mint should even happen, given the terrible state of the chain.
When I shared my doubts with the team I was told “it’ll be fine because you’re you.”
I was then called delusional for thinking netizens looked to me like the only reason for people to come to mega. Turns out the delusional ones were them.
They couldn’t even sit still and let the magic happen.
Couldn’t trust.
Couldn’t support.
And especially could not protect the few projects they themselves said deserved it, even up to today.
Instead, they enabled the noise, the yes men, the total NPC behavior, all while claiming to be pro-innovation “gen-Zers”.
However, It’s ironic how the same people who watched me get disrespected in silence suddenly praised me after we successfully minted out or after I worked at the EF mandate.
After all these months passed, the team has gone silent, they haven’t done anything for netizens if not disappointing us.
On top of all they’ve acted as if we brought nothing to the chain, turning all my work to dust.
As if Netizens mint didn’t bring an insane momentum, that they were not able to make the most of.
I’m exhausted from taking the blame for other people’s mistakes.
Most atrocious of all, we were never even warned about Terminal shutting down, despite it directly affecting us. Terminal was always presented as our flywheel. We were told to push it hard to our community, it should’ve been our main focus for the future.
Guess what? They just let us down again, empty handed.
Because they lied to us, we ended up lying to our community.
When we questioned about their plans after Terminal ended, they lightheartedly said, “Oh well, we don’t have any plans for NFTs!”
It feels like all my efforts were wasted. I feel fooled and disrespected. They leveraged my reputation and my name for their benefit, without any regard for the consequences on me or the people who trusted me. It’s simple soulless behavior.
To those who still think they can have a word on this, double check your sources. Question what you’re told.
I defended myself when people painted me as the villain for simply pushing back against lies. I was told to stay quiet “to avoid conflict.”
As if the internet wasn’t built on friction, on real time conversation, on calling out what’s broken.
As if I could just pretend all those words didn’t break my heart.
I refuse to waste any more energy trying to save people who don’t want to be saved, as much as I refuse to be disrespected further.
I have more important things to do.
I have to draw.
And that’s irrelevant for so many people
But its so relevant for me.
And hopefully, I can still do something good for everyone
That’s all I’ve always hoped for.
You will not bring me down, ever
If there’s something that will outlive this, is my art. Forever.
Let it be a scar.
congrats on fumbling something genuinely special.
The curse is real. Have fun dealing with the consequences.
@megaeth