Explaining My Investment in Memecoin

Blockchains are public ledgers. This adds amazing transparency to actions people are taking and positions that they have with regards to the “things” that a particular Blockchain tracks. In the case of the major L1s, these “things” represent ownership of digital assets that include established tokens like BTC, ETH and SOL, Stablecoins and NFTs.

This transparency means you can with certainty know the activity of any wallet, and if the wallet is associated with a “known” person on entity, it means that you can watch and report on every move they make. And since I started my crypto journey as a Doxxed individual who set about to learn in public, my wallet address has been very public.

I bring this up because a few people have been sharing the fact that “my wallet” has taken a position in a Memecoin (GME on ETH) which feels incredibly counter to anything that “Frank Rotman the Professional Investor” would do given my known fundamentalist views on what investing is and should be about.

But like everything I do there’s a well thought out reason behind my decision to make this personal investment (not associated with my firm). Those of you who know me wouldn’t expect anything less.

At a high level, I’m a learning machine and pride myself on having the superpower of complete open-mindedness. And I also pride myself on being a hands-on, in-the-trenches student rather than an ivory tower academic. In the case of crypto, I went on a multi-year learning journey and shared my insights along the way. It turned some people on and others off (which surprised me). It was me behaving the only way that I know how to: Tackling a new learning opportunity with an open mind. My goal wasn’t financial in nature…it was about gaining an understanding of a potential new financial technology/mega-trend so that I could do my day job better and be “the best Advisor to fintech companies bar none.”

So while the entire concept of Memecoins might turn people off, it’s an undeniable trend that I feel like I need to know more about. I’ve been studying the broader topic of financial nihilism and will be publishing a thought piece on it sometime soon, and Memecoins are one of many “signs and portents” that act as soft proof that the nihilism is a real trend.

As for why I decided on GME on ETH, here’s my thought process:

It starts with my belief that Investing in Memecoins is a negative sum game (the house takes a very large cut and there’s lots of fraud). Every Memecoin millionaire is created by thousands of Memecoin participants losing money. This is the opposite of WAGMI. It feels like a hungry hungry hippo game where one person wins when they get everyone else’s marbles.

But what’s interesting about Memecoins is that there is a real value proposition for participants that’s being overlooked and treated as “invalid” by the establishment. The product is the promise of generational wealth. The value proposition is that one good click can change your life forever. The belief is that it’s a game of skill that requires the ability to spot cultural relevance.

The game is designed to make 95% of the people who participate a little bit more poorer and 5% of the people wealthier. The many elevate the few. It’s a speed run on gains and losses and it’s a game that you can watch being played out in real time.

And if you’re really “in it to win it”, you can be a participant in the game by sharing memes and onboarding new people to play with you. Whether an individual wins or loses “fun” was had on the way. Even though a lot of money is being lost by a lot of people, the entertainment factor is real and therefore shouldn’t be deemed “invalid”.

As for GME on ETH, I picked it because I found the entire concept funny and knew some major investors who plan on supporting the movement. I’ll get a front row seat to what makes a Memecoin tick and I’ll get to experience the highs and lows along the way.

The concept that a token that has no intrinsic value could gather momentum to flip the value of the “thing it represents” is actually quite meta and a clear shot at “the establishment”. Gamestop was a traditional stock that became a Memestock and a fascinating game was played out in public between an army of retail traders and professional investors. Money was made. Money was lost. And a new playbook emerged that will have a lasting impact on the financial markets.

Which leads us to GME the Memecoin (vs. GME the stock). The Memecoin has no functionality. It does nothing and it represents nothing except a movement. So what if “the thing with no value” ends up worth more than “the thing of value” which already has memetic value that exceeds its intrinsic value? People were already trading GME (the stock) based on the memetic value of outlasting the professional traders and HODLing in spite of the financial performance of the company. So why care about the financials at all? Having a villain on the other side is powerful but the movement itself is where the real power lies. So wouldn’t GME on ETH running into the billions be a meta-statement about our world and how this new generation is feeling? I think so.

To be honest, I find the whole thing funny and we’re living in an age where being funny is rewarded. If it’s funny, it can go viral. If it’s funny, people remember it. Funny wins.

So, my personal investment in a Memecoin might seem strange but for me it’s a way of getting close to an emerging trend and a way to understand it from the trenches. So many people I know miss trends because they refuse to look at things from a fresh perspective.

The truth is that I’m not always right. In fact, I make mistakes every day. But I don’t mind making mistakes in the pursuit of knowledge. It’s what I do and who I am. No apologies.