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“The north star should be: to have a project where even if eventually all tokens involved go to zero, the average person who participated is happy to have done so. Regular businesses and charities accomplish this goal all the time! It's a low bar, but things we build should meet this bar as well.” https://x.com/vitalikbuterin/status/1798293391144366184
Another way to think about it. Memecoins can be a finite game. But finite games take place in infinite games (eg, after a soccer match, the players might go to a pub together). Celeb memecoins do provide entertainment even if it can be somewhat zero-sum. The outcome afterwards should ideally result in "it's all about the friends we made along the way". Like, how sports-betting is more fun with friends and chatgroups.
Great point, @simondlr. I play some zero-sum games with my friends, and a few of them - like poker - even include money. But (after the anger of losing wears off :)) we are better friends after the game, not worse.
I recently read that the purpose of betting on sports is to amplify the experience. Maybe you‘re bored of going to your favorite team‘s match and so next time you put down $100 on the team‘s win. Suddenly you‘re more emotionally involved (and by extension you may also experience more enthusiasm if your team wins). I never did sports betting but this made a lot of sense to me and now I kinda wanna try it too. But back to the zero sum thing: Here the betting itself is zero sum on the market, but if you‘re winning, you‘re obviously not only doing it to make 200 bucks from 100 bucks - you do it to intensify the moment, so there is another element to it but the „rational actor theory.“ It‘s more like taking MDMA for a rave. It‘s amplifies what you experience. Please don‘t try this at home