Memes are part of what fuels the cryptocurrency industry. From the exploitable image macros, in-jokes and shareable acronyms, Ethereum has had its fair share of memes. While to most, memes can look like unfathomable gibberish, to the Ethereum community, they offer internal communication and meaning.
Memes are also popular due to the ease of learning. Crypto and blockchain technology is associated with technical aspects. Some people even think that the crypto space is a reserve for the tech-savvy. However, through memes, the complex intricacies of crypto are all toned down. They are presented in a fun and relatable medium hence more people can embrace digital currencies.
The growth of social media communication has also seen memes to be the preferred use by the new general who tends to drive crypto uptake. The memes relay even the most serious of trends and changes in regulations in the crypto world in a fun and basic way. An example is when crypto memes started trending online following the Indian government proposing a new crypto regulation bill.
The same meme power can be seen in the rise of the meme tokens like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu rising to become some of the top valued tokens based on market cap.
Ethereum crypto memes
As one of the leading cryptocurrencies, Ethereum through its decentralised applications (Dapps) support and other functionalities has been crucial in charting trends in the crypto world. It is therefore obvious that it is impacted by the leading communication method in memes. The token has multiple dedicated memes shared about it on Twitter, Reddit and other social media platforms.
Some of the most popular Ethereum’s crypto memes over the years include;
A star is born
“A star is born” is all about Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin and the drive for blockchain technology. On his about.me page, Buterin says that he was born in Russia in 1994 before moving to Canada aged 7.
He then says on his motivation to decentralisation, “I happily played World of Warcraft during 2007-2010, but one day Blizzard removed the damage component from my beloved warlock’s Siphon Life spell. I cried myself to sleep, and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring.”
Buterin then discovered Bitcoin in 2010. While he was sceptical about the token in the earlier days, he soon took a keen interest in starting to write more about it. Before later teaming with developers to create Ethereum.
Congrats on this. Seriously.
Another of the popular Ethereum is derived from a tweet by Vitalik Buterin congratulating Bitcoin Cash for surpassing Ethereum’s market cap. In the earlier crypto days, while Bitcoin had an outright market lead, the other tokens like Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash were fighting for the next market leader. It, therefore, came as a surprise when Buterin congratulated BCH on surpassing ETH’s market cap.
While he had to later apologise for the ill-taken stance, the Ethereum world took it on a lighter note turning the tweet into a popular meme.
Vitalik Clapping
The impression of Vitalik clapping is a popular Ethereum meme used in the gif form mostly to show approval in social media. It is an image drawn from the Cosmos, Ethereum, OmiseGO & Plasma Panel Blockchain Week at the point where Buterin is impressed by Jae Kwon’s rhymes at the panel discussion.
The (Fake) Death of Buterin
The death of the founder of a crypto project is such big news. The crypto market felt its effects when an anonymous post on 4Chan reported that Buterin died in a car crash. The news impacted the market as most of the token holders opted to panic sell, leading to a market decline of around 20%.
Buterin had to move fast to quell the news of his fake death. He tweeted a picture of himself with the latest transaction to prove that he was alive. The Ethereum community found the funny side to it claiming it a “proof of life” blockchain use case.
HODL
Hodl (a deliberate misspelling of hold) is one of the most used crypto terms originating from a drunken guy’s post on a crypto talk space. It implies buying a token then holding it for a long time. It is a popular trading strategy that favours mostly the new entrants into crypto trading. One does not have to keep updated with market movements unless they hit their target.
The strategy has become so popular with the Ethereum community with most merchandise and crypto interactions bearing the term. The meme is mostly shared online by the Ethereum community to urge traders not to panic sell in case of a value decline. This helps ensure faster market correction and avoid massive devaluation.
Wen Lambo?
“Wen Lambo?” meme is a popular Etherum meme that depicts Ethereum as the path to massive wealth. The meme came from a Reddit discussion group that was depicting the token to hit higher levels. The meme can be used to reference one holding much Ethereum until they can afford to purchase a Lamborghini.
The “Wen Lambo?” meme was inspired by a user who claimed they bought a Lamborghini using 216.8433BTC, which by then was valued at $297,798AUD. Given how much Ethereum has been operational as the only coin to challenge Bitcoin, buying a Lamborghini using the token seems an attainable target.
While the Ethereum community is all pumped for the token’s value to rise, Buterin is not a fan of the use of the token for showing off and sloshing around without achieving anything meaningful for society.
Through a tweet, he even claimed that he would leave if all the community achieved is Lambo memes and immature puns about “sharting”.
Wen Moon?
“Wen moon?” is yet another Ethereum meme that is all about the token increasing in value. It is used within the crypto community when the market is on a bull run and the prices are skyrocketing and are entering outer space.
The “wen moon?” memes are part of the bullish culture of the Ethereum community.
Ethereum gas fees
While Ethereum enjoyed massive gains with the platform supporting several functionalities, it came at a cost. The more the platform attracts users, the costlier it becomes to operate.
The Ethereum gas fees wars came up at a time when the platform was experiencing a massive inflow following the decentralised finances (Defi) rise. This came from the network miners prioritising the high fees based transactions to increase their earnings. It means one has to pay more for their transactions to be approved fast enough.
Even though the upgrade to the ETH2.0 was meant as a way to solve the gas fees concerns, the fact that miners still control transactions means the wars are there to stay.
Got rugged?
A rug pull is one of the most common crypto scams. It involves a developer creating a malicious crypto project only to exit with all the investors’ money after some time. There are various forms of rug pulls like letting investors put money in a non-existent project, disabling the ability of investors from withdrawing their money, or exchanging investor money for non-legit tokens. In all of these, the investors lose their money.
The “Got rugged?” meme applies to Ethereum as the network supports the development of Dapps, where one can still create a malicious token for a rug pull.
Laser eyes
Laser eyes was a popular crypto trend that was all about celebrities and other Bitcoin experts looking to push the token to hit $100,000. It involved celebrities adding laser eyes to their profile pictures on social media. The movement was huge with even the El Salvador president joining in.
For Ethereum, its version of the laser eyes is the ETH 10K. This involves the Ethereum community working together to push ETH to the promised land of the $10k valuation.
Paper and diamond hands
Paper and diamond hands are memes used to describe the trading tendencies of Ethereum investors. The diamond hands are massive HODL-ers. They hold on to their tokens at all times irrespective of market movements.
Paper hands are the traders who sell off their tokens immediately after the market takes a hot or even a slight drop. The paper hands are also known as weak or noodle hands.
1 ETH for 2 ETH
The 1 ETH for 2 ETH is one of the oldest yet still widely used scams in the Ethereum space. It involves scammers creating profiles using the names of celebrities like Elon Musk. They then promise to give back 2 ETH for every 1 ETH they are sent.
Even though this should be the easiest scam to note, they are quite successful. A news report intimated that Elon Musk impersonators stole more than $2million in crypto scams.
1 BTC = 1 BTC/1 ETH = 1 ETH
This is the ultimate goal of the cryptocurrencies; when the value of the tokens would no longer be priced as fiat. Instead, the crypto would be seen as crypto.
Bottom Line
The meme culture has been part of the Ethereum development. The vibrant Ethereum community will keep on creating and popularising new memes as the tokens achieve different milestones and developments. There are several more memes in the history of Ethereum, and more will come up as the market expands.
