So, another day, another "revolutionary" crypto launchpad promising to clean up the meme coin cesspool. This time, it's America.Fun, brought to us by World Liberty Advisor’s Ogle. The claim? A "safer, more legitimate place" than the Pump.Fun wild west.
Ogle's big innovation? A small fee – a whole $20 worth of AOL tokens – to launch a token. The idea is to deter bot spam and copycat scams. Seriously? You think a measly $20 is going to stop determined scammers in the crypto world? That's like putting up a "no soliciting" sign and expecting the Jehovah's Witnesses to vanish.
He also boasts about restricting duplicate tickers. "You don’t know which one’s real on other platforms," Ogle says. "Here, there can only be one." Okay, that’s… marginally better. But let's be real, how hard is it to slightly alter a ticker symbol and create another near-identical scamcoin?
And then comes the "walled garden" analogy. Ogle compares America.Fun's moderation to early AOL, with "safeguards in place to stop racism and abuse." He thinks that’s why it worked back then. Dude, AOL worked because it was the only game in town for dial-up internet. It wasn't the moderation. Let's not rewrite history here. It was a simpler time. I miss the days when my biggest problem was whether I could download that new Limp Bizkit song before my mom picked up the phone and kicked me off the internet.
Then there's the whole USD1 stablecoin thing. America.Fun pairs all new tokens against it, rather than the more common USDC. Ogle says it's intentional, to boost USD1's liquidity. Okay, sure, but is it really about user experience, or is it about propping up a less-popular stablecoin? I smell a self-serving motive here.
Oh, and speaking of user experience, what about that AOL token, the platform’s native token? Down 54% since launch. Ouch. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? I mean, if the platform's own token is tanking, what hope is there for the meme coins launched on it?
He claims 39,000 active users in the past 30 days and 222,000 page views, mostly from Asia. Unverified, of course. Why am I not surprised?
Look, I get it. The meme coin market is a chaotic mess. Pump.Fun is basically a digital casino where anything goes. But is another launchpad the solution? Are we really lacking platforms for people to gamble their money on poorly conceived internet jokes? I think not.
Maybe I'm just jaded. Maybe I've seen too many of these "revolutionary" crypto projects come and go, each promising to fix everything and ending up as another footnote in the history of digital grift. Maybe I should just accept that the crypto world is always going to be a haven for scams, pump-and-dumps, and offensive memes. I'm probably just getting old.
