Memecoins mass appeal makes it worth it for DEXs: Kain Warwick
Syntex founder Cain Warwick said Memecoin trading on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) could be highly valuable because it could attract traffic from more non-traditional DeFi traders.
“There is an argument that Memecoins is pure speculation, in my view speculation is good. It's worth it,” Warwick told Cointelegraph at MemGlobal Sydney.
He added that he's not entirely sold on memecoin critics' arguments that the assets aren't generating utility.
Warwick – who is set to launch his “on-chain gateway” platform Infinex this month – explained: “From memecoin trading, you get DEX volume, and then DEXs have to respond and build better tools.”
Even if the investment is in a speculative tool that has no use, the ecosystem around it will start to form and the money will go to infrastructure, which I think is good.
Memecoin trading has increased over the past two months. Because token tools like pump.fun make them easy and cheap, most trading happens on DEXs – most of which are short-lived and don't last long enough to get a centralized exchange listing.
Monthly DEX volumes hit a nearly two-and-a-half-year high in March at $267.9 billion — below the $292 billion November 2021 record reached in the last market cycle, Defilama said.
April figures saw $196 billion in DEX volumes – down 26.8% from March but the seventh-strongest month overall.
Speaking at EtheGlobal's Pragma Sydney event on May 2, Warwick said memecoins, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and GameFi “tap more into the human emotion and cultural ideal, which is much more appealing and accessible and accessible to the average person than DeFi.”
“Financial engineering is not that interesting,” he added. “There aren't that many people, which is really exciting.”
Warwick says that while finance is “good for everyone” it's not something people think about every day – “the average person doesn't care”.
Related: Fantom bets on ‘safe memecoins' with $6.5M dev fund launch
Games, Movies and Music But Warwick believed that the average person was “too loving and too thoughtful.”
“I think memes can be a very simple connection between money management and everything and culture.”
He added that memecoins are very useful for “getting people interested” in DeFi and crypto.
“There is something beautiful in its simplicity,” says Warwick. “No production or revenue or cash flow or anything. It's just, ‘Is this a stupid cool idea that I want to own or not?' no more.”
Magazine: Meme Coins: Betraying Crypto Ideas… Or Its True Purpose?
Additional reporting by Felix Ng.
