I make some time to explore publishing platform and social media in crypto space. Recently it was expanding and added few exiting features that ride the meme coins wave.

Originally, I just wanted to visit this publishing platform caller Mirror. It was kinda similar like Substack but the underlying stack was based on crypto. It was stored in blockchain, NFT, yada yada yada. You got the idea. I understand it was bought by similar platform called Paragraph, which using crypto stack too.

While Mirror has few interesting features, per ChatGPT, eventually it will merge into Paragraph. I was advised to use Paragraph instead investing my time in Mirror. Registered in Paragraph. Smooth experience. So not yet reach Substack level in term of functionality and features. But I believe sooner or later they will add all those things that Substack has.

What’s interesting is that, recently they activated this coin features. It turns your post (or stories as they call it) into a single (meme) coin. Which means EACH post is tradeable. User can buy the coin by “Support” the post. It set default price for you to buy; either $1, $5 and $10. You then receive the coin and obviously you can sell the coin afterwards.

The same goes to Zora. I take Zora as same like Instagram. The UI or layout looks like underground zine. My feed full of AI generated content. Not really pretty. Zora need to do some curation. Maybe update their algo. Zora did the same thing. The turned EACH post as coin and tradeable. Even better, each user profile now is also coin and tradeable. Amazing.

Doom scrolling will give it benefit finally. You just need to deposit some ETH into your wallet and be the early adopter.

But I don’t know what the value and benefit here. There’s millions of tradeable coin now. The meme coins with thousands of launchpad still not enough. It just feels like this going to make users keep on chasing that carrot without any finishing line. Are we really that desperate to make money? (I am yes actually :P)

Per what they say, the intention is noble. I have no issue with it. For some users its true and really bring value to them. But what will be the impact then? On social, on economic and life value. Probably in the coming generation, their value is based on their profile market cap.

Now this coin feature was shipped, I hope the platform could lower their priority on this and pivot their focus on something else.

I think the best way to play this game is to buy the platform’s official coin. Then wait. Chasing the coin inside the platform will not go anywhere. But I still want to play. As a social experiment. And let’s see what’s the result later.