Editor's Note: This article discusses the insider operations and the ethical and market issues in the issuance of cryptocurrencies, especially meme coins and hype coins, revealing the private transactions, information leaks, sniping behaviors, and how insiders manipulate the market using technology and capital, making it almost impossible for retail investors to buy tokens at low market value. The article also discusses the widespread disappointment in the cryptocurrency industry and points out that the crypto market is largely seen as a zero-sum game speculation arena. Although the industry has widespread moral issues, public discussion of these phenomena is still insufficient, and effective solutions are lacking.

The following is the original content (edited for easier reading):

The interview with Hayden Davis of Coffeezilla on the launch of LIBRA sounds quite interesting. It reveals some common practices that most people assume are facts but have never publicly acknowledged, as well as the extent to which these practices have spread.

But in my view, the interview also touches on some very interesting topics, especially regarding the issuance of meme coins and hype coins, which go beyond the criminal acts described and I think deserve a broader discussion in this field.

Or, this is a "The Emperor's New Clothes" moment, unveiling truths that can no longer be hidden. Let's list some important highlights:

1. The large-scale launch of most "meme coins" only happened after private transactions, with some or most of the supply being purchased or allocated to KOLs and other entities at prices below the offering market value.

2. Due to the involvement of many people and the different agendas and affiliations of each, early information about these tokens/transactions is often "leaked" to other parties not involved in the transactions.

3. In Hayden Davis' own words: "So how do you make money?" That is, all these entities are convinced that the only way to make big money is to be an insider in a manipulated game, with no fairness and no room left for those excluded.

4. Partly due to the point in 2 (information leaks), but also inevitably, once the tokens are effectively deployed on the public blockchain and have smart contract addresses, there are many technically sophisticated, well-funded ("millions of dollars") "snipers" who occupy a large portion of the supply in the first few seconds of the token's lifecycle, and since they have no association with the "team", they don't mind dumping their tokens to disrupt the market chart.

5. So far, the "team's" response to the problem in point 4 is that they also engage in sniping (I think on a commission basis) to "limit" the supply that other snipers can grab and dump.

6. There is a gray area where Hayden mentions that the portion of the supply/liquidity obtained (also by "extracting" part of the funds from liquidity pools like meteora) is seen as a "treasury" to maintain the medium-to-long-term market chart, but is also a source of profit for the team. It seems there is a lot of mixing of funds, with the "retail" having no idea of the true purpose of these funds.

7. The only "organic" meme coins have mostly died, or been resurrected (often by teams similar to those in point 1).

8. The teams managing these large-scale hype issuances hope the tokens will be active for a few months, "ideally 1-2 years", but the reality is that the tokens are hard to keep alive for more than a few days. They blame the problem on point 4 (snipers).

9. Among these insiders, there is a widespread and consistent cynical view that cryptocurrencies, all cryptocurrencies, mostly have no utility or use case, are a zero-sum game, and the purpose is to find the next bigger fool to take the bag, a game of maximizing value extraction. According to Hayden, this extends "from top to bottom, even including Bitcoin".

10. They have a distorted moral view that, while traditional capital markets (such as stocks) are seen as "manipulated and corrupt", despite all the regulations and laws, accusing cryptocurrencies of being a manipulated game is hypocritical. The idea that cryptocurrencies can serve as a new platform to build a fairer playing field is seen as naive and childish.

As I wrote above, although the interview acknowledges widespread criminal behavior, I think some of these views have hardly been addressed in the public crypto discussion, and as for "solutions", they seem scarce, idealized, or the problem itself is trivialized as insignificant.

First, the public transparency of the blockchain makes it an "already solved problem" that once a token's smart contract address (CA) is established, there are participants with the necessary technical capabilities and almost unlimited capital to occupy a large portion of the supply in the first few seconds of the token's lifecycle.

Essentially, the chances of retail investors buying tokens at low market value are almost zero, unless it is a "dead coin" and you happen to catch someone's subsequent operation (these tokens are usually first occupied by insiders).

This is a huge unresolved problem for any token, even if it is genuinely pushed to the market (but even these may be sniped at the TGE).

There are some possible temporary solutions and workarounds that I haven't seen tested yet, such as massively deploying 50 tokens to pumpfun, then keeping the real CA address unknown after binding and reaching sufficient market value. This would force snipers to either diversify their capital or gamble on guessing the right CA, limiting retail losses, but it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem. It would also be affected by insider leaks of the real CA address (possibly sold to snipers for money, etc.).

Another big issue is cynicism.

This may be worth a separate article (or more!), but basically, the dominant theme of this cycle so far has been disappointment: in my view, most participants, especially newcomers, are not optimistic about the promise of cryptocurrencies to establish decentralized finance (DeFi), where people can become sovereign holders of their own funds, operate without third-party intermediaries, and be free from the constraints of national borders and fees.

Now, cryptocurrencies are mostly seen as a wild gambling arena, with no token considered innocent, just speculative assets without support or utility, everything viewed as a zero-sum game where one person's loss is another's gain, everyone playing the "greater fool" game until the music stops.

I'll add that this is not their fault, because even if we see Ethereum as the first mature step towards a "world computer" and "DeFi", its smart contract technology and this industry are now approaching 15 years, and while there are a few respectable protocols that have met the DeFi needs of thousands of users, 15 years is a long time in technology and finance, and I think we can say it has "largely failed" to deliver on its promises.

But I see so much focus on criminal behavior, loss of money, and moral decay, and not enough discussion to ask ourselves: what are we really building here? Are we really providing an alternative to the shackles of traditional finance, banking, and institutions, or are we building an alternative?

Or have we really just left Bitcoin roughly becoming a traditional financial asset, with the rest of the space being a haven for bandits trying to extract money from hopeless individuals with no direction?

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