No matter how good your defi is, there is no Ph.D. math that can stop a useless token from going to 0. And despite what techies may say, tokens aren't made useful or useless through fruitless sustainability tactics. The community gives value to the token. Crypto is no more complicated than that.

A dearth of culture is a huge part of the reason for crypto's stagnation in 2024. The bright spots — Bitcoin runes & memecoins — are maintaining their market share solely on the community around them.

Runes may larp as next gen tech on Bitcoin; so far, they haven't been able to drive any market expanding innovation. Bitcoin memes are just as annoying to trade on Magic Eden as they ever were. BTC L2s haven't scaled the number of people using Bitcoin as a performant chain. The tech isn't the reason Runes are taking market share from the rest of crypto. Community is.

Bolstered by the Solana degens, the concept of the responsibility-free token is the only token subset outside of "Bitcoin stuff" to build market share in 2024. On every chain, the only projects people really support with time and volume are the memes. By definition, these tokens are devoid of a technical deliverable. It's all about culture.

So where is culture going next in crypto in the second half of 2024?

Culture into Value

Believe it or not, there are projects being built in crypto that people can actually use. Check the Masq Browser or the Enqai LLM, both fully functional and holding strong to the belief that web3 has new utility to bring into the mainstream.

Eventually, the memecoin craze on Bitcoin and Solana will dry up. We see this happening already, actually. The arc of any market like this is to consolidate funds into fewer and fewer wallets over time, because losers will far outpace winners in this market. Once the best traders, grifters and hackers have taken all liquidity from the suckers, memecoins will no longer be the fun-filled casino. Losers will bash memecoins into a death spiral on Twitter, and winners will look for other places to turn a profit.

Where's the best place to flip money you gained in a casino? That's right — in a sensible, value-oriented investment. We're already familiar with the pendulum swinging between value and spec markets in traditional securities; the same will be true in crypto as increasing efficiency brings the two markets into parallel with each other.

As the fun speculation of the memecoin market moves into value-oriented plays, projects gain the leverage to focus on community. The community is stickier because they have an actual product to use. Value plays are the 2024 bull market endgame. Might want to get well placed now while that market is in the toilet.

Culture into Publishers

Can we start calling blockchains what they actually are — publishers? The final form of a blockchain — whether created for a specific market like Hychain/Treasure Chain or a general interest publishing house like Blast/Scroll/Monad — is to employ builders and pick winners encultured around a common theme. Blast is yellow and future gamey. Monad is purple and Redditish.

What's becoming truer about each new generation of blockchains is the substantiation of a culture format around which builders and artists pursue compliance. You can build whatever you want, but it's not getting public backing from the underlying infrastructure unless you adhere to the color scheme, the memes and the tastes of core team. Same as the publishing houses or music labels that differentiate themselves by genre — you know what you're getting when you hear an artist's been signed to Cash Money Records.

Have you seen how many new chains there are with overlapping tech? There are very few with unique tech. As blockchains proliferate, their only unique quality will be branding differentiation. And if early 2024 has told us anything, that's more than enough for the crypto audience.

Culture into Subgenres

AI, RWA and DePIN were supposed to be sure things this bull cycle. Every influencoor you know was (and is) telling you to buy the dip on any alt associated with them.

How'd that work out for you so far? 😂

Expect the fomo to increase when these utility based subgenres add culture branding into their roadmaps. And they will. Ph.D. techies will inevitably realize they need to sell the sizzle in order to keep their grants coming. Garbage like Partisia will turn into garbage like Polkadot, which is just Partisia with $50 million spent on branding.

I believe defi will be the next useful subgenre to pop. The next step for defi is to infuse culture into financial sophistication. Pendle tries, but it's not exactly the Wells Fargo wagon. But it will get there, again, because teams will realize money flow stops when branding stops.

You can expect AI, RWA and DePIN to follow. Maybe they won't get the same kind of powerful mnemonics Monad has cultivated, but the branding will be there. The standouts in an increasingly crowded technical space will be the projects that win the culture war.

So even if you're losing in the memecoin market, that experience will be important in the last part of the bull run. As money flows back into value plays like $MASQ and $ENQAI, it will also flow into an endless gaggle of competitors with copypasta tech and paid KOL shilling. It will be up to you to discern the projects creating true culture alongside their tech and invest in those inevitable winners.

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