Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump's launch of a surprise meme coin on X has been followed by a deluge of scams. The UFC, the Nasdaq and the former president of Brazil are all among those whose social media accounts have been hacked so that bad guys could spruik cryptocurrencies that they quickly dumped.
Yet this revived meme coin mania is also being exploited for a purpose that claims, at least, to be legitimate: fundraising for new ventures.
First was the co-founder of Vine, Rus Yusupov, who released VineCoin. What was first sold as an opportunity to “relive the magic” of the defunct social media platform, which was bought by Twitter in 2012, has now turned into an attempt to revive it. Yusupov has said he is developing something and created a waitlist for a new Vine.
Then there is JellyJelly. Founded by Iqram Magdon-Ismail and Sam Lessin, respectively the co-founder and early investor of Venmo, JellyJelly is a short-form video podcast platform that has been in the works for a while. Lessin last week used the app's video format to announce a coin tied to the company. The crypto will now be used in their app to tip creators, among other things.
