Blowing up luxury cars and issuing "blank" coins, why are memes becoming more and more abstract?

Author: Deep Tide TechFlow

In the early hours of the day before yesterday, two special Pump.Fun Memecoins began to surge on the Solana chain. The two Memecoins share the same characteristic of being launched almost simultaneously, with blank token names and token icons, reaching market capitalizations of $4 million and $6 million respectively within two hours of launch.

In the recent Meme market, such sudden surges of new coins must have intriguing angles and backgrounds behind them.

What exactly is going on? After investigation, Deep Tide TechFlow found that both "blank Memecoins" are related to the anonymous artist @SHL0MS, whose past experiences also exhibit a strong performance art style.

Art is Explosion

Speaking of the main character @SHL0MS, NFT OG players from the last bull market might have some impressions. In February 2022, SHL0MS blew up a used Lamborghini Huracan and used this performance art as material to issue the related NFT CAR by SHL0MS. At that time, crypto art NFTs were still quite "recognized" by the market, and SHL0MS's explosive art attracted passionate buyers, with a market cap exceeding 1000 ETH ($3 million) on the day of launch, currently priced at 0.169 ETH.

Regarding this performance art, SHL0MS claimed that this act was to criticize the greed phenomenon of speculation in the Crypto industry, rather than just to make money for himself.

After this, SHL0MS gradually faded from the market spotlight until the recent blank Memecoin hype occurred early this morning.

Criticizing Speculation but Being Mocked by Token Issuance?

The wealth effect of Memes needs no elaboration, and one after another, miraculous projects have emerged in the AI + Meme narrative.

In response to the current Meme frenzy, @SHL0MS, who has always been averse to the speculative attributes in crypto, has continued to voice some criticisms on Twitter, stating, "I am deeply bearish on the AI industry because many of them are getting caught up in the Meme coin game, which will leave them spiritually drained, either bankrupt or so rich that they don't care about the industry," and "If a niche internet celebrity endorses a token randomly issued for someone, it will deceive your fans without earning any money, while permanently ruining your reputation; that's foolish."

At the same time, SHL0MS also believes that if one only praises a Meme because it has risen, then such theories are meaningless. He argues that a valid Meme value theory should be able to:

1. Predict which Memes will successfully spread

2. Or at least explain post-facto why certain Memes succeeded while others failed

If a theory cannot achieve these two points, then such a theory is meaningless. He used the term "tautological price apologetics" to imply that these theories are merely justifying already successful Memes without truly explaining the reasons for their success.

SHL0MS's passionate remarks also attracted discussions among some Twitter users, but beyond rational discussions, some people "stayed true to their original intentions" and asked SHL0MS, "After saying so much, where's your token?"

SHL0MS replied that he had issued a token earlier, and that this token had no value, serving as a satire of speculative behavior, and stated that only invited individuals could own the worthless tokens he issued (I am noble, don't come near).

SHL0MS's actions, in the current environment of value frenzy, inevitably seem a bit "politically incorrect." As discussions around SHL0MS began to heat up, playful players quickly launched a parody token named $SHL0MS on Pump.Fun and posted the token link in SHL0MS's comment section.

Seeing this mockery, SHL0MS exploded, stating, "If you get Rugged, it's your own fault."

From the charts, the parody token $SHL0MS indeed headed towards zero, but it peaked at a market cap of a million dollars, allowing some quick players to make a profit.

Getting More Upset, Issuing a Token Himself?

Perhaps out of frustration, to "oppose" the mockery of token issuance, SHL0MS chose to issue a token himself on Pump.Fun. Not long after, he released the first CA (which he called Blank One).

It is said that initially, SHL0MS mistakenly sent his own wallet address and had already bought a large amount of tokens, but later he burned the early purchased tokens.

Shortly after, SHL0MS released another CA of a blank token (which he called Blank Two), stating that the difference between Blank One and Blank Two was some format of blank characters, etc.

Clearly, the market also viewed SHL0MS's token issuance as a hot topic for speculation, and within a short period, the market cap of the blank tokens skyrocketed, with the total market cap of the two tokens nearing ten million dollars at their peak.

Some followers commented on SHL0MS's token issuance, saying, "OMG, I didn't expect you to start issuing tokens too; that's a bit hard to say."

SHL0MS quickly began to save face, stating that they forced me to do this…

After this, SHL0MS did not engage in any major promotional activities for his token, instead using relatively "abstract" tweets to explain and introduce his actions, while joking with Meme memes. He also stated that he had been burning tokens, and the pre-purchased tokens had been mostly burned.

Conclusion

Perhaps due to the rapid shift in market hotspots, or because this token issuance was originally based on short-term speculative hype, as of the time of writing, the two blank tokens have gradually headed towards zero.

However, the price of the tokens is not the most intriguing aspect of the entire affair. After all, the fact that "the reason for issuing tokens is to accuse token issuance of making money" is already abstract enough. One cannot truly judge whether this is a case of mistaken performance art or whether this artist took a few legitimate detours to make money from token issuance based solely on superficial remarks and abstract expressions.

Perhaps the artist's abstraction is ingrained, and the seemingly hypocritical token issuance can be masked under the guise of "performance art," but in the end, only the participants themselves and the balances in their wallets know who profited immensely and who spent a lot of money to watch the spectacle.