No, I do not feel good at all hearing these things

Though Vitalik’s PvP KOL degen casino critique is consistent, he criticized the misuse of ZK technology in casino-like projects (ZKasino) and last year he explicitly criticized crypto casino investments, advocating instead for sustainable growth in the blockchain space, but I feel he could have critiqued it much louder. In his April’s fool post ‘Degen communism: the only correct political ideology’ he even seems to embrace PvP KOL degen casino https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/04/01/dc.html

Obviously PvP KOL degen casino culture has been going on for years, not even starting with the first memecoin on Ethereum. In a way the NFT collectibles, the PFPs collections can be seen as a prelude to memecoins. Memecoins are just an abstraction of what NFT collectibles provided for the PvP KOL degen casino. It is also not surprising that the demise of NFT collectibles coincided with the rise of memecoins. It is the same people gambling.

I guess the Ethereum space could get to this point because so many people and projects were also wildly profiting from the degen spoils. If it brings in the bacon, why not somehow incorporate it? Maybe it is a good thing?

I have read so many blogs pumping all kinds of scenarios why memecoins are good for all kinds of growth of Ethereum ecosystem and bringing in the longed-for mass adoption. Looking back it might have been selfserving, creating a narrative that would make openly gambling salonfähig in order to keep on filling the wallet without shame.

I can’t escape the feeling that now Solana has captured a large chunk of the PvP KOL degen casino and numbers are dwindling for Ethereum, finally more people dare to openly speak up against the casino. Maybe better late than never. Or is it already way too late?

Better late than never

The degen memecoin casino has generated revenue for the DeFi infrastructure. MEV income was generated, trading fees were accruing at the AMM pools, frontends were able to monetize their order flow, and new applications like pump.fun allowed the creation of a new form of free and permissionless speculation. The block space has mostly been filled from these transactions, whereas before, the block space was empty. People arguing that the casino is an integral part of Ethereum or the crypto space say we cannot afford to lose this revenue, as it would collapse a large fraction of the block demand. This is an innovator’s dilemma because we know that Ethereum is capable of more than just hosting memecoin trading. Even within DeFi, there is the idea of hosting RWAs, and tokens are useful way beyond just memecoin speculation. However, within DeFi, memecoin trading takes up a huge amount of the traffic in the block space, which is why people are so scared of limiting memecoin gamblers’ access to the Ethereum block space. They see an inherent connection between Ethereum the asset and its price and the use of its block space. In the innovator’s dilemma, the issue is that a company isn’t innovating because it is scared to disrupt its non-speculative income source. In the case of Ethereum, this would be disrupting memecoin gambling to embrace the vision of a world computer. The vision of a world computer is much greater than that of a decentralized casino for obvious reasons. The concerns people have when arguing against embracing the world computer are that this will yield many unknown roadmap items that are not de-risked, take a lot of research to complete, and might affect the Ethereum price negatively. In the short term, the price might depreciate because the block space is not filled with memecoin trading anymore, leading to less demand for ETH. The opportunity is that Ethereum as a world computer can provide much more functionality than it currently does. For example, the vision of network states, under-collateralized loans, better voting infrastructure, anonymized finance infrastructure, better social media, and uncensorable social media and communication. All of these visions can only be achieved if the Ethereum roadmap is inclusive of these visions and not specific towards enabling more DeFi and memecoin trading. The inclusive approach, or the pluralistic approach as Vitalik calls it, means that all of these use cases have to be served by Ethereum.

I can’t escape the feeling that now Solana has captured a large chunk of the PvP KOL degen casino and numbers are dwindling for Ethereum, finally more people dare to openly speak up against the casino. Maybe better late than never. Or is it already way too late?

I have the same impression. Feels like a big chunk of these BAYC hfsp vibes went there, and we can now focus on doing real things.