Slap Token shows the Potential and Dangers of Meme Crypto Projects

The world took less than 24 hours to create a meme token that capitalizes on the biggest shocking moment in Oscars history. That moment took place when the megastar Will Smith walked onto the stage where the host of this year’s Oscar was performing and slapped him during a live broadcast. The images and the video clips of the same event quickly washed over social media, esports communities, streaming services, and practically all other sources of global information. The crypto sphere was naturally quickly enveloped as well, and many insides of it got to work on the same subject. That is why at least two projects on the topic of slap appeared on blockchains and with them, on the markets. 

One of them managed to take off in terms of price and market capitalization and do it in a spectacular manner. While the crypto domain is no stranger to weird movements of money and attention, the slap tokens took that meme potential even higher. But, that once again shows the inherent need for additional maturity in the markets as well as the fact that many in the cryptosphere just want to have fun, even if that fun might mean a loss of very real money. For everyone else, this is another cautionary tale about losing funds on absurd things that only happen to be very popular in a very short amount of time.

Will Smith Slap DAO

The journalists from BuzzFeed were the first to notice that the crypto domain reacted with some force and determination to the Oscar incident. On Monday morning, barely a day after the Oscars, they found the Will Smith Slap DAO. It was selling NFTs on the OpenSea marketplace and many users of social media were using the term SlapDAO. At the same time, a token called Will Smith Inu also appeared on Uniswap, as well as other decentralized digital currency exchanges. The token saw a strong but short burst in price, which managed to attract nearly two million USD in trading volume that day. 

So, these two crypto projects not only capitalized on the Oscars moment when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, but also managed to actually generate a lot of money for their creators. Furthermore, the same happened in a space of hours and reached maturity – if one can call it that – in less than a couple of days. Whatever monetizing mechanisms lie in these NFT and token projects, they have managed to generate substantial amounts of money nonetheless. That fact is hard to ignore as it offers a pathway for others who would wish to capitalize on global phenomena in a spectacularly short amount of time. However, the same might be very bad in the long-term for the maturity and credibility of crypto markets as a whole.

Reasons Why

To someone watching all of this from the sidelines, the question appears naturally – why? Why would any of this take place in the cryptosphere and why would anyone in their right mind want to participate, especially with their hard-earned money. Also, why would Will Smith approve anything like this and how would the proceedings from such a venture be distributed across those parties that are involved. But, the short answer to all of that remains that the same space remains completely unregulated. 

Projects like these two are completely illegal in terms of any regular laws related to intellectual property and copyright restrictions. Anyone can create any kind of token or NFT and call it whatever they want. When they do, the chances of them seeing any kind of legal trouble is next to impossible. Until now, at least, there have been no such instances when a creator of a token, for example, would end up in any kind of legal hot waters.

Joke Altcoin History

The history of such events goes back a long time. Back in 2014, a coin called Coinye West was launched and it had no legal or any other kind of affiliation with the artist Kanye West. Since then, coins like Squid Game, Elon Doge, and many others appeared, all determined to capitalize on a global trend. The crypto markets themselves are completely global and many are unregulated to a very high degree. Some are based on peer-to-peer interactions and come with no regulations whatsoever. 

These tokens appear on decentralized exchanges that can generate millions of USD in BTC over a short time frame and end up in thousands of digital wallets. However, the truth remains that all of them quickly descend from their short-lived fame. Once that happens they take their price and market cap down with them as well. Dogecoin might be an exception to this rule somewhat, but it too is a specific project with a very specific history.

Space for Memes

There is no doubt that there is a lot of need and even a necessity for memes inside of the crypto culture as a whole. They act as communication tools and provide a whole lot of enjoyment for their users and creators. It is fair to say that their makers should be able to capitalize somehow on the same products. However, memes are not a value proposition and should not be a selling point. That means that those who spend their BTC coins on short-lived meme coins will gain neither communication nor enjoyment from the same process. 

Instead, they will lose their funds and get something that will most likely be meaningless in six months or less. There is a need to educate potential investors on all of this and help them differentiate projects that offer something beyond a short flash in the pan and those that are actually feasible. Nothing is promised with either of these, of course, but the meme coins bring an insane level of flaws and a baseless proposition of value. Of course, those who understand this are more than welcome to gamble on them no matter what. The problems will come to those who believe they can gain something in the long term from things like Will Smith Slap DAO.