Memecoins are integrating into pop culture: increasing influence, according to crypto pioneer Olaf Carlson-Wee.

It’s easy to overlook memecoins – types of cryptocurrency tied to trends on the Internet but with almost no fundamental purpose – and to regard them as the worst form of “gambling” in the crypto world. However, according to Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder of one of the first crypto venture capital funds and a special guest on the latest episode of Fortune’s Crypto Playbook podcast, memecoins can be seen as part of a new information ecosystem that is forming.

Carlson-Wee is a visionary with many important milestones in the crypto industry. He wrote a thesis on Bitcoin in 2012 and then joined Coinbase as the first employee, before leaving in 2016 – a time when Ethereum and smart contracts were still very new – to establish Polychain Capital.

In the program, he shares his views on the next direction of the industry, including the recent explosion of potential meme coins, driven by platforms like Pump.fun – where anyone can easily create a new cryptocurrency.

Most of these coins are virtually worthless in terms of practical application and speculative ability. However, many coins still have a market capitalization of over 1 million USD, and some like Dogecoin even reach tens of billions of USD. More notably, according to Carlson-Wee, all memecoins, when viewed as a whole, are gradually making their mark in popular culture.

“Whenever there is a new news event or a meme trending on social media, almost immediately a coin associated with it will appear,” he said, citing an example of someone learning about Pope Francis through a memecoin.

Carlson-Wee predicts that in the future, memecoin could become a form of content, and based on the trading activity of investors, they will become a part of the natural information flow on social media. For many people inside and outside the crypto world, this could be an attractive option compared to the current system, where content is dominated by the algorithms of large tech corporations.

“These new memecoins function as an information discovery system for the latest information market,” Carlson-Wee said. “On social media, you can imagine that each post is a coin. I think this is the direction we are heading towards.”

In addition, the founder of Polychain also mentioned other new trends that could become an important part of the crypto industry. At the intersection of crypto and AI, Carlson-Wee noted that blockchain is the natural foundation for deploying “agents” – automated software – as traditional systems find it difficult to execute autonomous transactions, while blockchain can use smart contracts to achieve this.

“Agents can enter into contracts using software or mathematics such as smart contracts on the blockchain, own assets in a crypto wallet, and trade with humans or other agents through the crypto wallet,” he explained.

Previously, in another discussion about the list of coins to hold for the long term, Carlson-Wee had chosen Bitcoin Hyper – a Layer-2 project for Bitcoin – as a prime example in place of projects that have not yet achieved widespread acceptance. This choice indicates a shift towards assets that have been and are providing core functionality for the blockchain ecosystem, instead of projects that remain only at the potential stage.

Bitcoin Hyper – From Layer-2 technology to the future of potential memecoin

Bitcoin Hyper not only provides an advanced Layer-2 solution for the Bitcoin network, enabling faster transactions and lower fees, but also opens up the potential to combine with the promising meme coin trend.

With the ability to support DeFi, NFTs, blockchain games, and Web3 applications, Bitcoin Hyper is positioning itself as a project that has both a solid technological foundation and strong community appeal. The combination of modern blockchain infrastructure and the popularity of meme coins could make Bitcoin Hyper one of the most prominent coins in the new crypto era.