Large market waves are being produced by the implosion of the ad-funded bubble in social media. After over a decade of cumulative stock market underperformance, Twitter is now privately owned by Elon Musk. Meta Platforms Inc. is worth less than Home Depot Inc., Snap Inc.
However, the depressing sight of Dogecoin increasing 100% in value in a single week on expectations of Twitter moving in a more cryptocurrency-oriented direction suggests we are still far from a new model that could benefit humanity or that is truly “decentralized,” ambitions Musk has expressed for his newly acquired platform. After Musk posted a photo of a Shiba Inu sporting a Twitter t-shirt on Tuesday, the coin received a further boost.
Although Dogecoin’s current value pales in comparison to its all-time high last year, when peak pandemic irrationality led to the crypto-desperate being seduced by Musk’s support of the token, its theoretical market capitalization of $15 billion demonstrates that speculative habits still persist among the billionaire-worshipping faithful.
According to the myth being spread in the cryptocurrency community, Musk’s previous public endorsement of Dogecoin would result in the token’s inclusion as a payment mechanism on Twitter. Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange that assisted in financing Musk’s buyout, has announced that a team will be formed to investigate “ways that blockchain and crypto may be useful to Twitter.”
Don’t worry about the fact that this is all still hypothetical or that Dogecoin has obvious problems that would only be shown if it achieved popularity. According to the guidelines of herd-following “mimetic” investment, one should dance until the music stops, which, based on previous Dogecoin surges and slumps, is soon to happen. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the rush to purchase today is motivated more by a desire to enter and exit the market at the correct time than by any need to accumulate funds to spend in the future. In solidarity, other meme coins have gathered.
A basic argument may be made that adding payment options to social media could benefit battered tech companies when advertisers pull back and inflation takes a blow. If consumers and their data are the results of today’s ad-funded tech empires, then some type of paid-for model may provide an alternative. It’s worth a shot if encouraging users, paying friends, or rewarding users for verification — as one research proposes — promotes increased content filtering, increased data privacy, and a better user experience on Twitter.
Dogecoins aren’t money, though. For them to appreciate, artificial speculative excitement is necessary. And as usual, Twitter was a great tool for disseminating information. Among those proclaiming promises of tremendous fortune ahead led by Musk’s makeover is one of the crypto-famous “Dogecoin Millionaires,” who, based on his entry point when he started building his cache of the tokens, is no longer a millionaire.
Despite Musk’s claims that he will advance mankind, it is unclear whether or how he will be able to rid the network’s crypto marketing, hype, and scams, which, together with NSFW content, have been a major source of activity, according to Reuters. A digital crypto wallet on top of Twitter wouldn’t be particularly disruptive, despite the decentralization doctrine.
It implies that even billionaires find it difficult to abandon tried-and-true business models, much like Meta’s more agonizing attempts to cram crypto-fueled Web3 concepts into antiquated social-media jars. Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, has been working on the decentralized BlueSky project for years; Mastodon, a more established social media competitor, has some backing from Jackson Palmer, the co-founder of Dogecoin, but hasn’t been able to unseat the current leaders.
What’s occurring with Dogecoin is a depressing portent of what’s to come when Musk’s online personality cult goes supernova, judging by the harm crypto pumps leave in their wake. Helping mankind seems like a long way off, even without assuming what will happen with Twitter in the future.
