Meme coins have also started live streaming calls.
Author: Gyro Finance
For the public, live streaming e-commerce has become a very common shopping channel, and a more intuitive and immersive way of conveying information ignites users' shopping needs from small screens, and finally becomes a tool for promoting transaction behavior.
But have you ever thought about what would happen if one day, "321 link up" happened in the coin circle? After all, even coins, in a sense, are also a kind of investment commodity. If insurance can be bought in live broadcasts, why can't virtual currency?
Not long ago, Pump.fun successfully turned this idea into reality. On May 29th, the meme coin issuance platform Pump.fun announced the launch of live streaming functionality on the X platform.
As of now, the live streaming function has been implemented for half a month. In this short two-week period, the live streaming effect has brought not only a surge of traffic to the coin circle, but also exaggerated speculation that surpasses human limitations.
Although mainstream institutions do not favor MEME, it must be admitted that MEME represents a cultural landscape of Web3 spirit. In the speculation of MEME this year, with low cost and high efficiency, Solana has successfully stood out in the public chain and become the most concentrated ecological public chain for popular MEME culture, and Pump.fun has been established for this purpose.
In short, Pump.fun is a MEME issuance platform established for Solana, and users can deploy and issue tokens at a cost as low as $2, breaking away from the liquidity arrangement and high cost of traditional token issuance. In terms of token issuance, Pump.fun implements two paths: the issuer gives up the minting right and establishes liquidity on DEX such as Raydium, or adopts a presale model.
Overall, Pump.fun is almost a completely fair launch platform, with simple operation, no team allocation, and no insider trading. Apart from the potential selling pressure brought by presales, it is more fair for users. Before Pump.fun, there was no dedicated website for distributing MEME, and early MEME could not even be purchased through wallets. Therefore, after the website went online, Pump.fun quickly gained popularity.
According to data from Dune, as of June 4th, Pump.fun has captured nearly 203,000 SOL in total revenue since its launch in February, with a current value of approximately $33.468 million. The number of MEME tokens deployed exceeds 832,000, accounting for over 70% of Solana's historical token issuance (over 1.1 million), with an average of over 6,300 tokens launched daily, making it a well-deserved MEME launch king.
Due to its inherent viral nature, Pump.fun has also been well received on overseas social media, making it the first choice for many overseas KOLs and even celebrities to get in touch with crypto. From the above description, it can be seen that Pump.fun naturally has the foundation to breed fraudulent activities without jurisdiction. Not surprisingly, various improper behaviors have also spread, with numerous counterfeit tokens issued by impersonating celebrities.
Last month, Gyro reported on the Jenner token scam by a member of the Kardashian family on Pump.fun. At that time, it was a period when celebrity token scams were frequent on Pump.fun, so even if the person appeared in person, some claimed it was a "Deep fake." Perhaps it is precisely because of security considerations, or simply to add marketing points, Pump.fun officially launched the live streaming feature on May 29th.
In terms of user experience, the operation is quite smooth. After the token is launched, there will be a button to create a live broadcast in the upper right corner, and clicking on it will start the live streaming call. Thus, the wind of Web2 has finally blown into Web3. Compared to traditional page descriptions, live streaming has more appeal, as it can more intuitively feel the horn of impending wealth. "Spend one more SOL, and you will become the next millionaire."
After the launch, MEME live streaming quickly spread, and the effect of live streaming was obvious. Although the data is difficult to quantify, most tokens experienced higher price fluctuations during the live broadcast. Some users on the platform claimed that compared to live broadcasts on other platforms, Pump.fun's live streaming room had more traffic and more obvious actual investment. But as the lambs danced with joy, problems also emerged.
Behind traditional short videos, there is a strong audit and operations team. Live broadcasts that do not conform to mainstream values will be popped up or taken down. However, even in this situation, various anchors still make more sensational behaviors to attract more attention, such as borderline pornography, exaggeration, and so on.
If there is a free live streaming platform without review and supervision, in the name of the coin circle, which is already known for its extravagance, combined with the overseas young generation jokingly referred to as "loving to court death," all of this has turned Pump.fun's live streaming into a pornographic playground.
In fact, before the live streaming on Pump.fun, many people had made crazy live streaming behaviors to promote MEME. Previously, a meme coin developer named Mikol, who developed a coin called DARE, covered himself in alcohol during a live broadcast and had a friend set off fireworks, resulting in self-ignition and ultimately being diagnosed with third-degree burns. There was also a mother and son claiming that when a certain amount was reached in the live broadcast, the son could unlock the mother's private body parts, which was truly unsightly.
The chaos of MEME live streaming, from X platform
After Pump.fun opened live streaming, it also encountered the same problems. Meaningless behaviors such as sleeping during live broadcasts were just the beginning. On the second day of opening live streaming, a female anchor appeared naked in the live broadcast. What's even more frightening is that the token quickly rose in value while she was naked, until the live broadcast was inexplicably cut off, and the token then fell again. Even now, explicit images can be seen everywhere on the Pump.fun interface. Some netizens joked, "While everyone is studying macro fundamentals, Pump.fun has already fast-forwarded to pornographic live streaming."
Violent scenes are also everywhere. Someone took a hostage and said that once the token reached a certain market value, the hostage would be released. There were also teenagers performing live boxing matches, claiming that as the market value increased, their level of violence would double. Scammers can openly cheat for money, with one man claiming that he did not use his hands to operate, but then directly reached out to withdraw liquidity.
The various operations mentioned above have also caused dissatisfaction among insiders, who believe that MEME spirit represents freedom and openness, but does not equate to violence and vulgarity. Many people have begun to express the need for certain content restrictions on Pump.fun, but Pump.fun has not responded to this.
As a platform that issues thousands of tokens daily, increasing content review is not only difficult and complex, but also requires additional costs for maintenance, which is clearly not in line with its lightweight and high freedom positioning, so the lack of response is expected. However, as mentioned above, Pump.fun's protocol itself is quite profitable, with monthly revenue once surpassing that of the largest decentralized exchange Uniswap Labs, and the highest daily revenue reaching $1.48 million.
However, for Pump.fun, the chaos of live streaming does not seem to be a top priority to address, as there are more deadly challenges. Firstly, the platform does not restrict any token issuance, leading to a proliferation of MEME tokens, but with low trading activity and a lower wealth effect. Secondly, due to the existence of presales, the phenomenon of buying in advance and selling immediately upon listing is significant, resulting in more robot front-running trades, eroding the interests of ordinary users, and serious control by the project team. Lastly, there are celebrities with their own traffic scythes. With the widespread influx of KOLs, they easily leverage their popularity to gain benefits, but ignore subsequent operations, turning celebrity MEMEs into a purely shearing behavior. As mentioned earlier, Caitlyn Jenner from the Kardashian family, for example, issued as many as 12 tokens recently, with a total profit of 2,381 SOL, equivalent to $405,000.
Returning to the issue of live streaming, freedom and boundaries have always been a difficult topic that cannot be separated from the entire Internet world. In traditional short video platforms, there are also various complaints about overly strict censorship and serious self-censorship. But whether unfettered freedom without boundaries can really stand, perhaps Pump.fun is a good example.
Taking social platforms as an example, before Pump.fun, the Web3 world had seen several decentralized platforms, such as the once high-profile "Twitter killer" Damus and the earlier Mastodon, but almost all platforms tended to devolve into chaotic content due to lack of review and control, and ultimately were short-lived. Even on the X platform, there is no shortage of explicit and violent messages.
Trash information on Damus, source: publicly available online
Unfortunately, the question of whether this violent marketing approach is effective has a visible answer. In the human gambling arena, attracting attention means having traffic, and having traffic means having benefits. The coin circle simply takes this human nature to the extreme. Whether this approach should exist for Web3 is still questionable.
From the perspective of information dissemination, the trend from text, audio to video is inevitable, stemming from the effectiveness of information diffusion. Therefore, the arrival of live streaming in Web3 is predictable, even though Web3 was once labeled with anonymity. However, the natural limitations of decentralized platforms in carrying social needs and public discourse have always been a major obstacle to their development as public network hubs. The core issue lies in human nature. Some people effectively use the platform, while others use it ineffectively or even for malicious purposes, making humans the most difficult factor to control. In response, the Web2 world has spent decades researching and has only found crude methods of restriction, and Web3 has clearly not found a better solution.
In various discussions about live streaming and celebrity MEMEs, it can be seen that community members believe that this is not conducive to the large-scale application of Web3, but rather adds more stigma to Web3, associating it with financial fraud and bad practices. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin expressed dissatisfaction with celebrity MEMEs, stating publicly, "So far, I am very dissatisfied with this cycle of celebrity experiments. Financialization is a means to an end. If the purpose is worthwhile (healthcare, open-source software, art, etc.), I can respect financialization as the end product."
However, for the MEME gambling arena, live streaming may still be an innovative mechanism. After all, compared to the previously unseen false hype, the participation of real people will give users more trust and further make them feel the unique carnival atmosphere of MEME. On the other hand, the emergence of live streaming also means simpler price control, as the audience is more intuitive, and the more intense price fluctuations during live streaming will undoubtedly attract more tech-savvy and ruthless participants.
As the saying goes, MEME is very exciting, but if you dare to gamble, remember to accept defeat as well.
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