Our story begins with some very smart and idealistic developers, known as cypherpunks, creating a new technology know as a blockchain. Blockchains are databases, but decentralized. Advertised as being "censorship-proof," they reduce the possibility of users being subjugated to third-party interference.
Cypherpunks have always wanted their tamper-proof databases to flourish, go mainstream, and improve regular people's lives. A video from 2015 pans out from an interconnected power plant, grocery store, hospital and airplane before loftily declaring that Ethereum, one of today's largest blockchains, will be "the secure backbone for everything from e-commerce to the internet of things."
Some of you may remember another famous video from the mid-2010s, in which a young Vitalik Buterin, co-creator of Ethereum, challenged viewers: "What will you build on top of Ethereum?" The world has responded. Forget interconnected power plants and grocery stores. The most popular thing being built on top of blockchains are memecoins.
A memecoin is a pure gamble. These valueless tokens, typically created anonymously, usually have a mascot, or meme, loosely associated with them, some well-known examples being dogecoin, pepe, HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu , gigachad and dogwifhat. A memecoin provides no dividends and leads to no productive activity. Its price depends entirely on subsequent players emerging to repurchase it at a higher price. The result is a hyper-volatile pyramid betting game.