In recent months, memecoins popularity surged within the crypto ecosystem. These assets had captured community attention with their origins rooted in beloved internet animal memes and shared interests among various crypto communities.
However, the frenzy surrounding these assets recently veered into unsettling territory as new memecoins bearing offensive names and symbols, including racial slurs, anti-Semitic references, and Nazi imagery, emerged.
Racist Memecoins Irks Crypto Community
This development sparked swift and severe backlash, drawing condemnation from the cryptocurrency community.
Camila Russo, a respected cryptocurrency journalist, expressed dismay at those purchasing these tokens in the present era. However, she acknowledged the freedom for anyone to create tokens on permissionless blockchains. Still, she stressed the importance of centralized platforms having the discretion to filter and delist such tokens.
Hayden Adams, the creator of Uniswap DEX, echoed similar sentiments, advocating for protocols to be able to block these abhorrent tokens.
“Protocols should be permissionless. But if you run a frontend with the ability to easily block these disgusting racist tokens, you should. I have no interest in serving or profiting off this trash,” Adams remarked.
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“We won’t be the gatekeepers of what happens on-chain, but we’re definitely not here to spread hate,” the platform added.
Interestingly, in response to these negative memecoins, some blockchain users have launched positive alternatives and underlined the favorable developments within the sector. Notably, a memecoin named Stop Racism on Solana has surged by around 19,000% in the last 24 hours.
Additionally, developers behind the Floki memecoin unveiled plans to introduce Floki-powered digital banking services, including debit cards for token holders. This initiative aims to enable users to fund their accounts with Floki and conduct transactions in major fiat currencies like Dollars, Euros, and Pounds. At the same time, the development would also provide banking services to the unbanked population and facilitate global money transfers.
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An unnamed fintech company licensed in several countries will create these bank accounts. The account would have access to debit cards and support SWIFT Payments and SEPA IBANs.
“These accounts will be facilitated through a key partner licensed in four key jurisdictions: Canada, Spain, Dominica, Australia, and the UAE. Users will be able to create digital bank accounts and generate debit cards linked to these accounts,” Floki explained.
This move, along with creating a domain name service, is expected to enhance the utility of the memecoin.
“[Floki plans] to introduce a decentralized website service that will allow people to host their decentralized website, blog, or resume using their .floki domain name,” the project added.