Breaking Free of the Extractive Economy: The Future of Ownership and RWA
From Shiba Inus to frogs, memecoins have come a long way – from community pranks to psychological exploits. Behind the “overnight” stories are clever marketing campaigns designed to trigger greed and impulsive behavior.
The Dark Side of the Speculative Economy
Most of today’s memecoins are not community products but the result of professional launch strategies. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on advertising aimed at the most vulnerable groups – especially young people who are new to the market. FOMO (fear of missing out) is fostered by time-limited pre-sales and artificial price charts.
The asymmetric liquidity structure makes the market susceptible to manipulation, where early adopters cash out when there is enough retail capital inflow. No real value is created – just a zero-sum game where most participants must lose for a few to win.
Case in point: LIBRA
The memecoin LIBRA made headlines when it received (then retracted) support from Argentine President Javier Milei. However, the coin quickly collapsed, causing some 44,000 investors to lose a total of $251 million, according to data from Nansen Research.
More worryingly, exchanges and KOLs knew about the launch in advance but kept quiet, creating an asymmetric information ecosystem where insiders had a huge advantage over the public.
This repeating cycle – where:
Inner Circle: Developers, early investors control information
KOLs and Influencers: Get notified early, keep secrets to profit
Technical Team: Use bots and automated tools to buy first
Retail Investors: Get in last, often at the top
is the formula for most memecoins today.
The Rise of RWA – Real World Assets
While memecoins rely on the expectations of the next buyer, real world assets (RWAs) operate on the principle of creating intrinsic value. Some examples:
Real estate: Generates cash flow from leasing
Industrial infrastructure: Generates revenue from operating activities
Intellectual property (IP): Generates sustainable royalties
Unlike memecoins, where value comes from speculation, RWAs have the potential to generate real returns – meaning that if the asset performs well, all investors can benefit. This is a rare positive-sum model in the blockchain world.
RWA is democratizing asset ownership
Blockchain technology is unlocking assets that were previously reserved for the wealthy and institutions:
Fractional ownership: Turning multi-million dollar assets into fractions worth a few hundred dollars
Global access: Anyone, anywhere can invest
Programmable compliance: Legal guarantees through smart contracts
Secondary markets: Improving liquidity for traditional assets
Unlike memecoin, RWA is not a game of greed but an economy based on real production.
Two parallel worlds
Memecoin and RWA will likely coexist. But if memecoin is a symbol of extreme speculation and unsustainability, RWA is a step toward more practical, transparent, and equitable economic models.
Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, has emphasized that asset tokenization is more than just a new way of speculating – it is a reshaping of how assets are owned and operated.
With the technical infrastructure in place, the next challenge is distribution: connecting these assets to the global investor community.
