MetaMask Co-Founder Dan Finlay’s Experiment on Memecoins Highlights Debates on Consensus and Their Speculative Nature

Dan Finlay, co-founder of MetaMask, conducted an experiment on memecoins that sparked a debate on Web3 and AI consent. Here's what emerged.

MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay conducted an experiment with memecoins that highlighted debates on consensus and speculation.

The experiment involved minting two tokens, “Consent” on Ethereum and “I Don’t Consent” on Solana, and observing the reactions and participation.

Finlay aimed to explore the boundaries of consent, trust, and responsibility in the web3 domain, particularly in the realm of memecoins and decentralized decision-making.

Participants were enthusiastic about the tokens, with the value briefly exceeding $100,000 for “Consent.” However, this positioned participants for potential financial losses.

The experiment sparked discussion on the speculative nature of memecoins and the risks involved for participants who may not fully grasp the nature of the assets they're purchasing.

Finlay encountered backlash from investors, including threats and inquiries about long-term plans for the assets, despite their simplistic design and lack of intrinsic value.

“The only act of consent that seems unequivocal in this memecoin environment is that buyers are definitely agreeing to put their money into something. But without this thing being well defined, what kind of consent is it?”, Finlay noted.

While the experiment highlighted the consensus aspect of memecoins, it also brought to light their speculative nature, making meme cryptos inherently risky.

Finlay personally experienced how crypto liquidity is often tied to speculation, which isn't always beneficial. Memecoins thrive on extreme volatility, often influenced by social media trends rather than utility or value.

The speculative aspect makes memecoins susceptible to market manipulation, such as pump-and-dump schemes, where investors risk losing if prices crash after the hype fades.

Finlay's experiment and observations underscored the need for clear systems of consent, trust, and responsibility, considering the blurring lines between public visibility, user expectations, and collective decision-making.

In his experiment, Finlay also drew parallels between memecoin consensus and consent in digital platforms integrating AI, such as Bluesky.

Finlay noted how Bluensky utilized a public post data set for AI training without explicit user consent, highlighting a disconnect between the protocol's and society's consensus expectations.

Recently, the memecoins sector was analyzed precisely because they too are riding the bullish wave following Donald Trump's victory in the USA 2024 presidential elections.

First of all, the memecoins of the moment were analyzed, with an exception for Dogecoin (DOGE), which is the meme crypto par excellence. And then Bonk emerged, the meme crypto on Solana, and PEPE.

In any case, it was also noted here the high attention that must be paid to these crypto which are simply the representation of high-risk speculations. In fact, often their market performances are due to real pump&dump schemes that always end in a crash.

These schemes create real speculative bubbles around these simple assets, which are fundamentally based on nothing useful. When the bubble then bursts, the harsh truth arrives, which is why investors can no longer remain unaware of this high risk of their investments.