By now you’ve probably heard of Dogecoin, the popular cryptocurrency named after the popular internet meme “doge”. During the recent cryptocurrency boom, supported by the few successful examples like Dogecoin and the similarly inspired Shiba Inu coin, memecoins became quite popular among get rich quick scams want to make quick money with quick pump and dump schemes.
The memecoin craze is now very popular again among the cryptocurrency community, especially on the Solana blockchain. But in the past few days, memecoins have not been based on cute internet animal memes. No, they are named after incredibly racist slurs and concepts.
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Among some of the new memecoins you can now find on decentralized crypto exchanges? Multiple cryptocurrencies with the n-word, a token called “Jews did 9/11” and “NAZI” appearing on exchanges only as a swastika as a trading symbol.
List of some of the racist memecoins on the Solana blockchain.
Credit: Mashable screenshot
What is happening?
Bitcoin’s value soared to a new all-time high this month, surpassing $70,000 for the first time. Many cryptocurrency tokens have also risen in value alongside Bitcoin over the past few weeks, in a minor crypto revival not seen since the 2022 market crash.
With all this money moving around the market, some memecoins have also seen a sudden spike in value, especially those housed on the Solana blockchain. Solana has raised hundreds of millions in venture capital funding from firms like Andreessen Horowitz and investors like Kevin Rose. Solana is the network of choice for many of these coins as it is relatively easy to mint a new token on the blockchain. Solana is also popular among NFT trading communities for the same reason.
Late last year, a new memecoin called dogwifhat, or WIF, was minted on the Solana blockchain based on an internet meme showing—you guessed it—a dog wearing a knit hat. The token slowly spread among the memecoin community, reaching a price of around $0.04 shortly after launch. On March 15, dogwifhat hit a high of $3.47.
There are several other similar examples of niche memecoins like dogwifhat making easy money for insiders and a few lucky early adopters in recent months. And as always, cryptocurrency is full of people looking to make some quick and easy money. For a memecoin to take off, however, it needs to go viral. Quite a few memecoin founders decided that creating memecoins named after racial slurs like the n-word and allusions to white supremacist rhetoric was the way to go. This became a trend among certain crypto communities and more racist memecoins were created.
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Crypto traders then actually started buying and selling these racist memecoins, pushing them up the cryptocurrency trend charts of major crypto listing platforms.
There have been some backlash from the crypto community, with traders sharing their concerns on social media platform X about how this would taint Solana for the mainstream audience. However, industry leaders did not say much or act on the matter.
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Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, released a statement on X condemning those who created the racist and anti-Semitic memecoins.
“For these anti-Semitic racist insels”, Yakovenko published.
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However, it is unclear whether Solana Labs is willing or able to take any action to stop the creation of these tokens.
As mentioned earlier, racist memecoins can also be found on most of the major crypto token listing websites. One venture, the decentralized exchange analytics platform DEX Screener, did statement saying they will be “reviewing our token profile moderation policy in the coming days.”
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“We won’t be the gatekeepers of what happens on the chain, but we’re definitely not here to spread hate,” DEX Screener said in a post on X.
According to CoinMarketCap, as of the publication of this article, the two most popular tokens on the Solana blockchain are “Jews did 9/11” and an Adolf Hitler token.
Themes
Cryptocurrency on social media