Elon Musk and Vance step into the ring—how can a spelling mistake stir up emotions in American politics and the crypto world?

Author: Azuma

Who is currently the most influential person in the United States? The answer may not be the well-known Trump or Musk, but a man named Nick Shirley.

Who is Nick Shirley? He is an independent investigative journalist stirring up social sentiment in the United States. On December 27, Nick Shirley posted multiple videos of his investigative visits on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, and YouTube, accusing Minnesota of rampant fraud and corruption.

In the videos, Nick Shirley visited a daycare in the state. Although the facility was operational at the time, it was not open to the public, and the 99 registered students listed in public records were nowhere to be seen. Nick Shirley then asked a local resident who had lived in the area for 8 years, and the interviewee said: “I’ve been living here since 2017, but I’ve never seen any children.”

Nick Shirley said in the video: “This is one of hundreds of ‘daycares’ that received millions of dollars from the government. This daycare, which even misspells ‘learning’ as ‘learing,’ received $1.9 million in tax-exempt funding… And this is just one case among thousands of businesses in Minnesota suspected of fraud… Minnesota Governor Tim Walz knows about these fraud cases but has never reported them.”

Nick Shirley’s videos have sparked massive attention and discussion across the United States. Within just two days, the total online views reached hundreds of millions. The full 42-minute investigative video on X alone garnered over a billion views.

Prominent figures from politics and business have also engaged with Nick Shirley. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris retweeted and responded multiple times, stating that Nick Shirley’s investigation is more valuable than all the works that have won the Pulitzer Prize in 2024; Elon Musk also followed Nick Shirley’s account and highly praised his media contribution, calling ‘learning’ the “Word of the Year.”

Here is some background on U.S. politics: Minnesota is traditionally considered a Democratic stronghold, but in recent years, the political landscape has shifted significantly, showing characteristics of a swing state. More importantly, the current governor, Tim Walz, was a running mate of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election and had a chance to become Vice President Vance currently holds… So it’s no surprise that Harris personally stepped in to criticize.

Given the hot topic and its meme-friendly social and political attributes, the on-chain world naturally wouldn’t be late.

First, the community spontaneously started hyping the most abstract misspelling in this investigation—‘learing’—on the Solana chain, where the meme token’s market cap temporarily reached $3.34 million.

Next, the community discovered that Nick Shirley seemingly registered on Zora’s creator platform and issued his personal creator token $thenickshirley on Base. Subsequent interactions between Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong and Nick Shirley confirmed that the token was indeed issued by him.

As of the time of writing, the market cap is approximately $5.65 million (peaking at $9.02 million), and Nick Shirley has earned $41,646 in creator royalties.

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Brian Armstrong stated that this demonstrates that monetization on Base outperforms other platforms. Nick Shirley also didn’t forget to thank Brian Armstrong after earning money, praising Base and Zora as “legends.”

Additionally, prediction market Polymarket quickly followed up with speculation about the next “handling” of this topic, with the odds shown below:

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An hour ago, Nick Shirley posted his Venmo and crypto addresses on X, openly accepting “tips.”

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From the rising meme hotspot $thenickshirley, to Nick Shirley’s token issuance, and to the launch of “omnichannel crowdfunding” and ongoing market fermentation, we have witnessed a performance of media and open finance working in harmony.

This is not merely a meme speculation; it resembles a real-world experiment on “creator economy + on-chain content monetization”—a person with significant influence and public impact in the real world, without sponsors, platform revenue sharing, or advertisers, directly completing the monetization of attention through on-chain tools.

What it proves is not “how much this token can rise,” but a deeper question: whether content can truly be monetized on decentralized platforms in a lower-friction, more transparent way. Perhaps, this hints at the future evolution of the media industry.