Memecoin on Layer-3 Degen Chain "explodes" in transaction volume

Layer-3 blockchain Degen Chain is attracting hundreds of millions of USD in transaction volume even though it is only 4 days old. The native token DEGEN also increased in price more than 50 times in 1 month.

Recently, the cryptocurrency market is witnessing a memecoin fever in the Solana system with prominent names such as Dogwifhat (WIF), Bonk (BONK), BOOK OF MEME (BOME), Slerf (SLERF)...

Besides Solana, the "memecoin hunt" is also spreading to other networks such as Base, and now Degen Chain, a only 4-day-old layer-3 blockchain built on Base.

Data from on-chain analysts shows that Degen Chain recorded a transaction volume of nearly 100 million USD in the past 24 hours with more than 272,000 individual transactions. Since the launch of Layer-3, there have been 7,500 contracts and 2,300 tokens launched on the network - although the majority of them are rug pulls or scams.

The largest token by market capitalization on Degen Chain is Degen Swap (DSWAP), a decentralized exchange (DEX), valued at over 14 million USD.

Meanwhile, the Degen Pepe (DEPE) token - a memecoin with no utility except for speculative purposes - has a valuation of up to 20 million USD, along with a series of other tokens with a market capitalization of less than 1 million. USD is mainly for speculative purposes.

Degen Chain is a layer-3 network built by the Degen memecoin project based on Arbitrum Orbit technology, to improve the trading environment on Base, layer-2 on which DEGEN is being launched. At the same time, Degen chose AnyTrust as its Data Availability solution. DEGEN tokens will be used to pay for gas on the layer-3 network.

As of the time of writing, this network does not yet support stablecoins and users can only trade or buy on the system using DEGEN tokens. However, thanks to benefiting from the current memecoin fever, DEGEN's total capitalization is at 697 million USD with a price trading around 0.049 USD, equivalent to an increase of 200% in the last 7 days, and more than 50 times only 1 month.

In the latest blog post posted on the afternoon of March 29, 2024, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin shared his comments surrounding the utility and positive potential of "Memecoin" in the cryptocurrency space.

Vitalik Buterin begins the article by stating that memecoin seems to be the main topic of discussion in the crypto field recently and even throughout the years.

Dogecoin is one of the memecoins that started the trend in 2015, until the 2020-2021 season called "dog" memecoins. This topic is "hot" again in 2024, but in many different ways, making most investors feel dissatisfied because "there is nothing new and more interesting than when they appeared in the past." .

However, the founder of Ethereum "would rather accept the trend to integrate with the trend instead of trying to fight it, if these memecoin projects can bring you joy and make a positive contribution to the cause." ecosystem or create a certain influence on the surrounding world."

“We need to have more good memecoins than bad, ideally memecoins that support community benefits rather than just enriching insider holders or creators.”

In the list of cryptocurrencies that are interesting to the community, Vitalik sees coins that share the majority of their supply or fees with charity as a potential example. Or coins with the theme AntiCancerCoin (supporting cancer research), ClimateCoin (supporting environmental protection),...

He offers several typical projects that have appeared in the past such as "GiveWell Inu", donating income to GiveWell - an American non-profit charity organization focusing on altruism. Or "Fable of the Dragon Tyrant" - supports projects related to anti-aging research. However, both of these projects failed a short time later because of a lack of community.

In particular, Vitalik Buterin was impressed with the memecoin Dogelon Mars (ELON) and happily donated half of ELON's supply as charity money to the Methuselah Foundation - a global non-profit organization focusing on technical support and Tissue regenerative medical therapies. Since this time, the project has created a "close" relationship with the investor community until now.

Vitalik realized that this could be an untapped potential niche, if there is a chance to create something better, and even have a reason to build more long-term and active projects. .

·      At the end of the article, Vitalik proposed a few solutions to change "investors' views on memecoin":

·      Don't just create a project whose utility and purpose revolves around "inflating" the value of the coin;

·      Let's create a project, a game that really creates fun for investors;

·      Always consider negative reviews from users to bring positivity to the project;

·      Ideally, aim to create a co-creation environment that makes all participants feel comfortable, with coins maybe just the basic reward, but fun should be the priority;

·      Charity and game coins can be combined: allowing players who complete certain tasks to participate in voting on the charities to which the coins will be distributed.

The founder of Ethereum pointed out that the above has been successfully designed by the 0xPARC team in the two games Dark Forest and FrogCrypto - where players participate purely for fun, not because of the desire to make money.

Notably, Vitalik Buterin's post comes after others in the industry recently expressed disappointment towards memecoin.

Ki Young Ju, founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, recently posted on Our hard-working teams are building legitimate products every day to advance the entire crypto sector."

In addition, the post was also posted by Vitalik Buterin after he interacted with the community on X (old Twitter) about charity issues. In July 2021, the founder of Ethereum donated $1 billion in Shiba Inu (SHIB) tokens to the Covid Crypto Relief Fund in India for distribution to aid recipients.