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Meme coins are a big deal in the crypto industry at the moment. However, Binance cofounder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao has spotlighted the wild west nature of the ecosystem. Taking to his official X account, CZ said that though he is not against memes, he claims "meme coins are getting 'a little' weird now."

Meme coin super cycle

The grand meme coin revolution started with Dogecoin (DOGE) but soon expanded to Ethereum and other blockchain protocols. Currently, protocols like Solana have Pump Fun, a meme coin launchpad that makes it easier for anyone to launch meme coins.

Like Pump Fun, the Tron ecosystem also has Sun Pump, with other layer-1 outfits looking to get in the game. The explosion in meme coin adoption has helped Solana achieve an impressive transaction count milestone over Ethereum.

To CZ, these meme coins are derailing the market from the general goal of blockchain technology. In offering his recommendation, he said that now that the weirdness is visible, it is time to "build real applications using blockchain."

The CZ post has garnered many reactions, with community members attesting to the weirdness in the sector. One commenter, @IncomeSharks, noted that memes "went from being fun, then being funny, to being extremely weird and desperate."

Promising projects recommits

The backlash for the meme coin ecosystem partly stems from abusing the Pump Fun launchpad’s livestream feature. Meme coin launchers have been committing online offenses to pump liquidity into their tokens.

Amid this backlash, Shiba Inu lead developer Shytoshi Kusama has recommitted to staying ahead of the pack. 

Already, Shiba Inu has proven its affinity for building with the launch of Shibarium, an Ethereum L2, to develop usable applications. Beyond SHIB, other projects, including BONK and PEPE, have grown a dedicated community that has earned them a huge market capitalization.

With the growing call, it remains to be seen what the future holds for the meme coin ecosystem or whether the longevity of established projects will be retested.