Besides the $VINE with a market value of 400 million dollars, which other Silicon Valley tech companies might issue tokens?

Author: BUBBLE, Rhythm BlockBeats

A week after Trump launched his coin, the on-chain activity remains crazy. Today, another tech mogul has launched a coin. First, the late legend "Crypto Punk" and "Father of Cybersecurity" John McAfee has been cyber-resurrected, with his widow Janice using McAfee's X account to release $Ainti, claiming to have revived McAfee's legacy with AI. Meanwhile, one of the founders of the legendary short video platform Vine, Rus Yusupov, has launched the $Vine Memecoin, sharing the same name as Vine. This is likely the first known tech company founder to personally launch a coin after the Trump coin craze, and as of the time of writing, its market cap has reached $400 million.

What is Vine

Vine was one of the first platforms to popularize short video content. It featured 6-second looping videos as its core characteristic, forcing creators to tell a complete story or convey an idea in a very short time. American users began to get used to consuming quick short video content, and this "short and fast" model laid the foundation for later short video platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Snapchat.

Vine videos became part of popular culture, with many classic short videos being repeatedly referenced or imitated, even entering mainstream entertainment. Figures like Logan Paul and Jake Paul transitioned from Vine stars to YouTube celebrities. King Bach gained fame by creating humorous short videos on Vine and later became a well-known actor and producer. Liza Koshy and Shawn Mendes also evolved from niche Vine personalities to mainstream artists. Although Vine was acquired by Twitter in 2012 and forced to shut down in 2016, it remains for American users not just a short video platform but also a starting point for individual content creation and the rapid dissemination of cultural consumption.

How Vine Became a Token Worth $250 Million

This morning at 8:17, the $Vine token created by Pumpfun initially seemed no different from previous meme coins until its market cap soared to $30 million. The long-silent Vine founder Rus claimed the CA on his X account and posted a GIF holding that tweet as proof. Meanwhile, multiple addresses buying from CoinBase collectively sold off, leading to widespread FUD claims that the GIF was AI-generated, as the Memecoin $STONKS, which was hacked on Nasdaq, plummeted, causing panic and driving the $Vine price down by 90%, leaving only a $3 million market cap.

An hour later, in a style reminiscent of Vine's short videos, Rus posted a 3-second video proving he was not AI. At the same time, multiple addresses ending with "waamGQ," "MGVWa," and "qedvzf" began buying heavily, occupying the top 30 holders, most of whom still hold their tokens. Subsequently, Rus posted a bullish chart with the Vine logo, and after this on-chain Degen-style tweet, the token price surged to around a $50 million market cap.

Two hours later, it was announced that the DEV wallet's tokens would be locked until April 20 at 4:20 PM, along with retweets of comments from several top Alpha Groups about $Vine. Under the control of a professional team and the market's anticipation of Musk discussing Vine again, combined with the positive sentiment of Vine's 12th anniversary, the market cap soared, breaking through $400 million after a period of consolidation at high levels. Despite discussions in the market about Rus launching the token to ride Musk's coattails without any beneficial announcements for Vine's development, this is the essence of Memecoin; when it shifts from a cultural core to an application core, it transforms from a memecoin into a coin, so this article will not discuss the pros and cons involved.

How Relics from Web1.0 and Web2.0 Revive in Web3.0

Given the hype generated by Vine, it is bound to trigger a series of internet companies that have exited the stage to regain some attention through Crypto, whether they genuinely seek rebirth or simply aim to profit from attention finance, it presents opportunities for retail investors.

The president or first lady may only have this one opportunity in four years, but tech companies have countless chances. Taking Rus's launch of $Vine as an example, companies that incorporate several key elements are more likely to participate in this game.

1. The company was a pioneer in a certain field or was once well-known in a particular region.

2. The company should not be currently operating well to avoid greater losses from subsequent legal troubles.

3. The company is related to Crypto, whether through founder interest, investment, or subsequent acquisition teams.

The author has compiled several projects that fit the above criteria:

Napster

Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker in 1999, before that, record companies had a close relationship with artists, controlling distribution and promotion, and users could only access new songs through record stores, television/radio, etc. The profit margins for physical records were high, especially in the 1990s, when CD sales peaked. Napster used peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to allow users to share their MP3 files directly, creating a global music download network. It quickly amassed tens of millions of users. Its decentralized server model made it impossible for record companies to cut off the source, profoundly impacting the traditional recording industry. However, due to copyright lawsuits, it was ordered to shut down by the courts in 2001, but it influenced the entire music industry's model and the subsequent thinking about legal digital music rights like iTunes and Spotify.

After multiple acquisitions and transformations, the Napster brand was acquired in 2022 by Hivemind Capital Partners and Algorand, with plans to launch a "Napster Web3 Music Platform," and it was announced that they would issue a Napster Token, "but no token has been launched yet."

Napster Twitter: @Napster

Shawn Fanning Twitter: @ShawnFanning

Sean Parker Twitter: @sparker

Hivemind: @HivemindCap

Algorand: @AlgoFoundation

Myspace

Founded by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, later sold to Specific Media, with Justin Timberlake also participating in its investment. Before MySpace, internet social interactions were scattered, mostly occurring in forums, instant messaging, and personal blogs. MySpace allowed users to showcase personalized homepages on a large scale, interact with friend networks, and access a vast array of music artists. If Napster was about letting users hear songs, MySpace was about allowing artists to better promote themselves and connect with their fans, laying the groundwork for later social media forms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) in terms of user habits and technological models.

Currently, this project has little connection to Crypto, but the author believes that founder Tom Anderson's three-year-old tweet "Buying The Dip" combined with his laser eyes makes him seem very meme-worthy.

Tom Anderson: @myspacetom

Chris DeWolfe: @Chris_DeWolfe

Mark Cuban

Dallas Mavericks owner and well-known Silicon Valley investor Mark Cuban expressed his intention to launch a MemeCoin on X, with a mechanism similar to $Trump, the only difference being that all profits would go to fill the U.S. Treasury. The market is very excited about this approach, as players prefer a more transparent process compared to $Trump, which might end up in individual pockets. Although every businessman's actions are likely to consider risks and returns, the narrative of meme coins is indeed worth looking forward to.

Mark Cuban: @mcuban

Netscape

Founded by Marc Andreessen and co-founder Jim Clark in 1994. The famous Netscape Navigator browser opened the era of commercial browsers. There are currently no Twitter accounts for Jim or Netscape.

LimeWire

Like Napster, it launched in 2000 and was also a P2P file-sharing software commonly used for downloading music and videos. It was forced to shut down around 2010 due to copyright and infringement disputes. In 2022, Austrian entrepreneurs Paul & Julian Zehetmayr bought the LimeWire brand and announced a transformation into an NFT trading platform. Although there is already a platform token, it does not rule out the possibility of the founders launching a Memecoin.

Paul Zehetmayr: @pzehetmayr

Julian Zehetmayr: @julianzehetmayr

Yahoo!

Founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, it held global leadership in portal search, email, instant messaging, and more, once dominating internet traffic. In the early stages of the Chinese internet, Yahoo! was almost universally known. After leaving Yahoo!, Jerry Yang founded AME Cloud Ventures to invest in technology and startup projects, including some in the crypto space.

Jerry Yang, David Filo: No X

AME Cloud Ventures official website "amecloudventures.com"

AME Managing Director Jeff Chung @jefchung

In addition to the projects mentioned above, many excellent products from that time may participate in this movement, whether to bring back memories of the 00s or simply as a new round of meme coin gameplay. The impact caused by the Trump coin is gradually spreading, and as influencers launch coins with abandon, it is hoped that everyone remains calm while following the Alpha and stays away from SCAM.