Author: TechFlow
In the early morning, two special Pump.Fun Memecoins on the Solana chain began to pump, and the two Memecoins had the same feature that they were launched almost simultaneously, and the token name and token icon were both blank, reaching a market cap of 4 million/6 million USD within two hours of launch.
In the recent Meme market, there must be a novel angle and background behind such a sudden pump of new tokens.
What's the story? After investigation, TechFlow found that the two "blank Memecoins" are related to the anonymous artist @SHL0MS, and this artist's past experience is also quite artistic.
Art is Explosion
Speaking of the protagonist of this event, @SHL0MS, the NFT OG players in the last bull market may have some impression. In February 2022, SHL0MS blew up a second-hand Lamborghini Huracan and issued related Non-Fungible Tokens CAR by SHL0MS based on this performance art. At that time, crypto art Non-Fungible Tokens were still widely "recognized" by the market, and SHL0MS's explosive art also attracted enthusiastic buyers, with a market cap of over 1000 ETH (3 million USD) on the launch day, and the current price is 0.169 ETH.
Talking about this performance art, SHL0MS claimed that this act was to criticize the greed phenomenon of the Crypto industry's pursuit of speculation and manipulation, and not just to make money for himself.
After that, SHL0MS also gradually faded out of the market spotlight, until the blank Memecoin event that happened in the early morning today.
Criticizing Speculation and Manipulation Backfired by Issuing Tokens?
The wealth creation effect of Memes need not be elaborated, and in the narrative of AI+Meme, one hot project after another has emerged.
Regarding the current Meme frenzy, @SHL0MS, who has never been too fond of the speculative and manipulative attributes of crypto, has also been continuously voicing criticism on Twitter, saying "I am deeply bearish on the AI industry because many of them are being drawn into the Meme coin game, which will make them dispirited, either bankrupt or too rich to care about the industry" and "If a niche internet celebrity endorses a token randomly issued by someone, it will deceive your fans without making any money, and permanently destroy your reputation, which is stupid".
At the same time, SHL0MS also believes that if the reason for hyping a Meme is just because it has gone up in price, then these theories are meaningless, and he believes that an effective Meme value theory should be able to:
Predict which Memes will be successfully propagated
Or at least be able to explain afterwards why some Memes succeed while others fail
If a theory cannot do these two things, then such a theory is meaningless. He used the term "tautological price apologistics" to imply that these theories are just defending the prices of Memes that have already succeeded, without truly explaining the reasons for their success.
SHL0MS's passionate speech also attracted some discussion from Twitter users, but beyond rational discussion, there were also some people who "stayed true to their original intention" and said to SHL0MS: "You've said so much, where's your token?"
SHL0MS replied that he had already issued a token earlier, and this token has no value at all, and it is a satire of speculative and manipulative behavior, and he said that only those who are invited can own his worthless token (I'm very noble, don't come near me).
SHL0MS's move is inevitably "politically incorrect" in the current value-crazy environment, and as SHL0MS's discussion has gradually gained some heat, the playful players immediately released a parody token $SHL0MS named after the artist SHL0MS on Pump.Fun, and posted the token link in SHL0MS's comment area.
SHL0MS, seeing this prank, also directly exploded, saying "If you get rug pulled, it's your own fault."
From the chart, the parody token $SHL0MS did indeed go to zero, but it also surged to a market cap of millions of dollars, and there were still some quick-handed players who made money.
Getting Angrier and Angrier, Issuing Tokens Himself?
Possibly because he couldn't hold it in and got angrier and angrier, in order to "oppose" the token rug pull prank, SHL0MS chose to issue tokens himself on Pump.Fun. It wasn't long before he released the first contract address (called Blank One).
It is said that at first SHL0MS mistakenly sent his own wallet address, and he had already bought a large amount of tokens, but later he burned the tokens he had bought earlier.
And soon after, SHL0MS also released the contract address of another blank token (called Blank Two), and said the difference between Blank One and Blank Two is some kind of formatted blank character, etc...
Apparently, the market also sees SHL0MS's token issuance as a resistance move that can be manipulated, and the blank tokens have surged in market value in a short period of time, with the two tokens reaching a total market cap of nearly 10 million dollars at their peak.
There are also observers who expressed to SHL0MS: "OMG, I didn't expect you to start issuing tokens too, then it's a bit hard to say."
SHL0MS then began to make a small apology, saying "It was they who forced me to do it..."
After that, SHL0MS did not make any major publicity for his tokens, and has been using relatively "abstract" tweets to explain and introduce his actions, and made some jokes with Meme memes. He also said that he has been burning tokens, and the tokens he pre-purchased have been mostly burned.
Summary
Perhaps the market hotspot has changed too quickly, or this token issuance was originally based on a short-term hot-headed manipulation, as of the time of writing, the two blank tokens have gradually gone to zero.
The token price performance is no longer the most interesting part of the whole thing, after all, "the reason for issuing tokens is to complain about making money from tokens" is already abstract enough, and the superficial words and abstract expressions cannot truly judge whether this is an accidental performance art or the artist issuing tokens to make money while taking a few legitimate detours.
Perhaps the artist's abstraction is ingrained, and the token issuance that is hypocritical can also be covered up with the name of "performance art", but in the whole thing, who made a fortune and who spent a lot of money to watch the show, only the participants and their wallets know.
