I wrote the last Notcoin blog entitled “Artful ridiculousness”. I mentioned that this project utilizes ridiculousness as a tool and is intentionally designed to be ridiculous; thus, I deemed it artful and valuable.
It’s akin to expensive paintings where even the artist might say they created it as a ridiculous painting. I said this precisely when blockchain experts couldn’t believe that valuable tokens could be created simply by spending time and tapping on a screen. They couldn’t believe it because it seemed unbelievable, unaware that their disbelief benefited the project and that its creators had deliberately made it unbelievable. For a project, the worst thing is to be rejected by the elite of society. Because if the sharp-eyed elite does not notice us, we will undoubtedly and forever remain hidden from the eyes of the masses. This is why projects always start with the elite community to capture the hearts of the masses. However, with enough finesse and a bit of luck, one might arrive at the solution differently—something I always call “smarter”. Meme coins were the first generation to solve the problem through this different approach. They went straight to the core: the masses!
Pulp Coin, Generation 1:
Dogecoin is a meme coin that used the famous image of a Shiba Inu dog to introduce itself in 2013. This coin was born amidst the blockchain revolution and during the era of specialized blockchain community gatherings. Its founders created it just for fun and perhaps never had a visionary approach in its creation. However, the smarter Elon Musk knew that if blockchain were to spread, it shouldn’t remain just among the elite. Bitcoin and Ethereum were too tedious to capture the hearts of the people. So that if someone had one of these tedious coins in their wallet out of greed, they couldn’t explain to their friends why they bought it in a comprehensible manner. Because it was intangible to themselves, too; they only knew that they had bought something that made some people rich. But what if an internet meme was used instead? In that case, it would be like having a Bitcoin in their wallet with at least a tangible image. Now, what if the project’s technical side, instead of explaining the complex and mathematical details, said it was a joke akin to Bitcoin’s fate? Now it shifts their focus from the complex part to a fundamentally archetypal aspect of human life. Everything is designed for the masses, but when it comes to specialists, they would never accept such a thing! Not at all! Yet, this advantage shouldn’t be overlooked because it can aid in the project’s marketing exponentially. Opposite the elite community, there’s always another group more closely connected to archetypes and more readily accepts uncomplicated things. This is where hot and organic marketing begins—the clash of two completely opposite groups and their efforts to convince each other!
Pulp Coin, Generation 2:
In 2024, a very simple game called Notcoin astonished all experts with a new method. This occurred while a portion of the general public had started to believe in earning income by tapping on a screen. The clash between these two groups became the talk of the town and the main driving force behind the exponential growth of this project, aiming for the hearts of the masses. Specialists, without realizing that this project was targeting their knowledge, unwittingly worked for the project and helped it achieve its goals. They tried to provide precise information by writing blogs and recording educational videos. I remember that in my cryptocurrency community, I was the only one who wrote two blogs in praise of Notcoin. While they criticized me for it, they didn’t know that I was fascinated by the project’s purposeful absurdity. I referred to this in my second blog as “artful ridiculousness” and knew it would become a unique phenomenon. After this project brought significant profits to players and investors (who participated in the project’s presale), many other projects tied themselves to this 2nd-generation phenomenon, much like what happened with Dogecoin in Pulp Coin, Generation 1.
Hamster Kombat is another game that has recently gained attention. This project has correctly aligned itself with this wave because when the main idea is revealed, the only thing that matters is adding creativity and improving the original idea. Just like SHIB Token in the previous generation, Hamster Kombat, as a Pulp Coin Generation 2, has successfully and purposefully differentiated itself from Notcoin and established its own independent identity. It has added a lot of artful ridiculousness to the original idea of Pulp Coin 2 and has creatively convinced me that its success is strategic for Telegram, the TON blockchain, and the entire blockchain community. Therefore, I want to support it, even though I know the project faces challenges in profitability like Notcoin.
I also want to delve into this topic a bit for my friends and colleagues who still find Pulp Coins, Generation 2 hard to digest. If we look back at the early days of Bitcoin, we’ll see that the game governing Bitcoin seemed even more ridiculous than Notcoin and Hamster Kombat. Especially in the early days, when there were very few real transactions happening on the network. The game governing Bitcoin didn’t even require tapping on a screen to earn money. All you had to do was install the game software (!) and keep your laptop running to make money! A zero-player game, haha!
Because of this, one could argue that Satoshi Nakamoto, by creating Bitcoin in 2009, started the movement of Pulp Coins, and in fact, the beginning of this movement could be called Pulp Coin Generation 0. I didn’t write about this generation separately in this blog because Generation 0 seems very different from the other two generations. At that time, there wasn’t even a cryptocurrency community to divide into elite and mass. Moreover, Bitcoin was considered a complex invention for its time, and its creation was by no means aimed at technical simplicity. As mentioned, Generations 1 and 2 emerged to make Bitcoin and more complex matters popular among the masses. They aimed to be attractive and understandable to the public, just like pulp fiction in the 1920s to 1950s!
Pulp Coin Generation 3:
In the near future, the blockchain community should expect a new generation of such projects that, in the first step, will pave their way into the minds and hearts of the masses with their simplicity and artistic absurdity better than any complex invention. In the second step, by giving the project purpose and writing a good white paper, they will add fundamental and technical dimensions to the project. This way, the elite community (now amazed by the project’s success) will also join in, and the project will achieve complete success in a smarter manner.
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.
