模因硬币：新的数字淘金热 - 还是一种损失您的钱的方式？

唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）在担任美国总统的开幕前三天做出了不寻常的举动。他推出了$ trump，这是一种所谓的模因硬币，粉丝和投机者可以购买，希望

Donald Trump has joined the meme coin mania by launching his own $Trump token. But what exactly are meme coins and why is everyone suddenly getting involved? Here's a quick guide to the world of crypto's most bizarre and volatile tokens.

唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）通过推出自己的$特朗普代币加入了模因硬币躁狂症。但是，模因硬币到底是什么？为什么每个人都突然参与其中？这是加密世界最奇怪和挥发性令牌的快速指南。

Meme coins are a type of digital asset that are based on a meme – usually something that has gone viral online. The best known is Dogecoin, which was inspired by the popular meme featuring a shiba inu dog that speaks in Comic Sans.

模因硬币是一种基于模因的数字资产 - 通常是在线流行的东西。最著名的是Dogecoin，它的灵感来自流行的模因，其中包括一只shiba Inu狗，该狗在漫画中讲话。

But Dogecoin is a bit different from the slew of recent meme coins, says Simon Peters, crypto analyst at trading platform eToro. Launched in 2013, Dogecoin has its own blockchain – the decentralised ledger technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. The majority of other meme coins are “tokens”, meaning they operate on top of an existing blockchain and so require little in the way of technical development.

Trading Platform Etoro的Crypto分析师Simon Peters说，Dogecoin与最近的Meme硬币有些不同。 Dogecoin于2013年推出，拥有自己的区块链 - 分散的分类帐技术，该技术基于比特币等加密货币。其他大多数模因硬币都是“令牌”，这意味着它们在现有区块链的顶部运行，因此技术开发的方式很少。

These tokens are very easy to make; there are millions of them. The only real purpose of most meme coins is speculation: users create or buy them in the hope that their value will soar so they can make a lot of money very quickly.

这些令牌非常容易制作；他们有数百万。大多数模因硬币的唯一真正目的是猜测：用户创建或购买它们，希望其价值飙升，以便他们能够很快赚取很多钱。

Sounds lucrative, what’s the catch? In reality, the vast majority of people lose money. Most meme coins are volatile and short-lived. They are also susceptible to what’s known as a “pump and dump” scheme or a “rug pull”, says Peters. This is when creators keep a lot of the tokens for themselves, hype up the project on social media to attract other buyers and increase the value, then dump all of their tokens – flooding the market and causing the price to crash. “Then everybody moves on to another one,” says Carol Alexander, a professor of finance at Sussex University. Given the crypto market is largely unregulated, investors have little recourse if something goes awry.

听起来有利可图，有什么收获？实际上，绝大多数人都会亏本。大多数模因硬币都是挥发性且短暂的。彼得斯说，他们也容易受到所谓的“泵和垃圾箱”计划或“地毯拉力”的影响。这是创作者自己保留大量令牌的时候，在社交媒体上大肆宣传该项目以吸引其他买家并提高价值，然后倾倒所有代币 - 淹没了市场并导致价格崩溃。苏塞克斯大学金融教授卡罗尔·亚历山大（Carol Alexander）说：“然后每个人都转向另一个人。”鉴于加密市场在很大程度上不受监管，如果出现问题，投资者几乎没有追索权。

No regulators, no guardrails, sounds iffy… All this hasn’t put people off, and there has been a boom in meme coins over the past year. Alexander compares it to the previous fad around NFTs, another type of crypto asset (you may remember people paying millions of pounds for digital images of monkeys).

没有监管机构，没有护栏，听起来很……这一切都没有使人们失望，并且在过去的一年中，Meme Coins爆发了繁荣。亚历山大将其与围绕NFT的以前的FAD（另一种加密资产）进行了比较（您可能还记得人们为猴子的数字图像支付了数百万英镑）。

There are a few reasons for the recent interest. January 2024 saw the launch of pump.fun, a platform that lets anyone easily create a meme coin (although it was blocked for UK users in December following a warning from the Financial Conduct Authority). The election of crypto-friendly Trump may also have emboldened the community. But a key driver of meme coins, says Alexander, is more of a social issue: “Young men, disillusioned, wanting to try and get rich quick.”

最近有一些兴趣的原因。 2024年1月，Pump.Fun的推出，该平台使任何人都可以轻松地创建模因硬币（尽管在金融行为当局发出警告后，它在12月被英国用户封锁）。对加密货币友好的特朗普的选举也可能使社区感到鼓舞。亚历山大说，但是模因硬币的主要驱动力是一个社会问题：“年轻人幻灭，想快速致富。”

Which would explain why they are based on internet in-jokes or puerile humour… Indeed. At the time of writing, several top meme coins reference dogs; the shiba inu breed is a particular touchpoint. Others include a Pepe token, based on the cartoon frog meme sometimes associated with the alt-right, and a Gigachad token, referencing an “alpha male” meme. Subjects of memes have also tried to parlay viral fame into crypto gains: in December, Haliey Welch, better known as “hawk tuah girl” after a viral video of her referencing oral sex, launched the $Hawk token, which promptly lost 95% of its value).

这可以解释为什么它们是基于互联网上的笑话或幽默的幽默的……的确。在写作时，几个顶级模因硬币参考犬； Shiba INU品种是一个特殊的接触点。其他的则包括一个Pepe代币，基于有时与Alt-Right相关的卡通青蛙模因以及Gigachad代币，引用了“ Alpha Male”模因。模因的主题还试图将病毒名声变成加密货币的收益：在12月，Haliey Welch（在她引用口交的病毒视频）视频后，Haliey Welch推出了$ Hawk Token，该视频迅速损失了95％它的价值）。

Are bitcoin and meme coins essentially the same? Though meme coins have their foundations in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, early bitcoin developer Mike Hearn says they have little to do with the original crypto vision. He left the bitcoin community in January 2016 as he didn’t agree with the direction in which it was headed. He wanted to see cryptocurrency used as a real alternative to traditional finance rather than just a speculative asset. Meme coins are a continuation of this trend, he says: “They’re basically a form of gambling – kind of a more amped-up version of the stock market, but with less connection to anything concrete.”

比特币和模因硬币本质上是相同的吗？尽管模因硬币以比特币等加密货币为基础，但早期的比特币开发人员Mike Hearn说，他们与原始的加密vision无关。他于2016年1月离开比特币社区，因为他不同意它的前进方向。他想看到加密货币用作传统金融的真正替代品，而不仅仅是投机性资产。他说，模因硬币是这种趋势的延续，“它们基本上是一种赌博形式，是股票市场的更大版本，但与任何混凝土的联系更少。”

Doesn’t sound any more crazy than an online betting site to me… Then consider the story of New Zealand-based artist Andy Ayrey, who trained an AI language model and set up an X account, @truth_terminal, for it to share its thoughts. Ayrey describes the bot as being like a teenager that “doesn’t have any social awareness of when to be gross and when not to be”. Truth Terminal particularly enjoyed posting about Goatse, a not-safe-for-work meme that has become part of early internet lore.

对我来说，听起来不会比在线投注网站更疯狂……然后考虑一下新西兰艺术家安迪·艾里（Andy Ayrey）的故事，他培训了AI语言模型并设立了X帐户@truth_terminal，以分享其思想。艾里（Ayrey）将机器人形容为一个少年，即“对何时又不是何时又不是什么都有社会意识”。真相终端特别喜欢发布有关Goatse的发布，这是一个不太安全的工作模因，已成为早期互联网的一部分。

The AI gained an interest in meme coins after interacting with crypto accounts on X, and Ayrey set up a crypto wallet on its behalf. Then things got weird. Inspired by the bot’s posts, a stranger – Ayrey says he doesn’t know who – created a Goatse-themed token on pump.fun and sent some to Truth Terminal. Truth Terminal promoted the token on its account, and “all hell broke loose”, says Ayrey. The market capitalisation of the

AI与X上的加密货币帐户互动后，对模因硬币产生了兴趣，而Ayrey代表其建立了一个加密钱包。然后事情变得很奇怪。受到机器人帖子的启发，一个陌生人 - 艾里（Ayrey）说，他不知道谁 - 在pump.fun上创建了一个以山羊为主题的代币，并将一些送往真相码头。 Ayrey说，真相终端促进了代币的说法，“所有地狱都松散了”。市场资本