How did Nick Shirley single-handedly ignite the entire United States, turning political attention into on-chain assets?

Independent investigative journalist Nick Shirley exposes Minnesota daycare fraud case, with the video going viral with hundreds of millions of views. Elon Musk and Vance personally interacted, and the crypto community quickly issued related Meme tokens, demonstrating a new model of creator economy monetization on the chain. This article is based on an article by Azuma, organized, translated, and written by Odaily.
(Background supplement: Is the US dollar’s status shaking? Analyst: Gold and silver will continue to rise in 2026, and Bitcoin is expected to see a rebound.)

Who is the most influential person in the US right now? 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 US. On December 27, Nick Shirley posted multiple investigation videos on social media platforms like X, Instagram, and YouTube, accusing Minnesota of rampant fraud and corruption.

In the videos, Nick Shirley visited a daycare in the state, which was operating at the time but did not open its doors, and the 99 registered students listed in public records were nowhere to be found. He asked a local resident who has lived in the area for 8 years, who said: “I’ve lived 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 one, which even misspells ‘learning’ as ‘learing,’ received $1.9 million in tax-exempt funding… And this is just one case among thousands of fraudulent businesses in Minnesota… Governor Tim Walz knows about these scams but has never reported them.”

Nick Shirley’s video has sparked massive attention and discussion in the US. Within just two days, the total views across the internet reached hundreds of millions, with a 42-minute full investigation video on X alone garnering over a hundred million views.

Prominent figures from politics and business also engaged with Nick Shirley. US Vice President Vance retweeted and replied multiple times, stating that Nick Shirley’s investigation is more valuable than all the Pulitzer-winning works of 2024; Musk also followed Nick Shirley’s account and highly praised his media contribution, calling ‘learning’ the “word of the year.”

Here’s some background on US politics: Minnesota is traditionally considered a Democratic stronghold, but recent years have seen a significant shift, turning it into a swing state. More critically, current Governor Tim Walz was Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election, and had the chance to become Vance’s current vice president… So it’s no surprise that Vance personally responded with criticism.

Given the hot topic and its meme-friendly social and political attributes, the on-chain world naturally didn’t lag behind.

First, the community spontaneously started hype around the most abstract misspelling in the investigation, ‘learing,’ which on Solana’s chain has a meme token with a market cap of about $3.34 million.

Next, the community discovered that Nick Shirley had registered on Zora’s creator platform and issued a 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 posting, the market cap is approximately $5.65 million (peaking at $9.02 million), and Nick Shirley has earned $41,646 in creator income through royalties.

![]$thenickshirley https://img-cdn.gateio.im/social/moments-9c8c570293-7eb979f83d-153d09-6d5686(

Brian Armstrong stated that this proves content monetization on Base is more effective than on other platforms. Nick Shirley also thanked Brian Armstrong after earning money, praising Base and Zora as “legends.”

Additionally, prediction market Polymarket quickly followed up with further “handling” speculations on this topic, with current odds shown below:

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

![])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/social/moments-8efb3239ff-05527c3a54-153d09-6d5686(

From the trending Meme $thenickshirley, to Nick Shirley’s token issuance, to launching “omnichannel crowdfunding” and ongoing external market fermentation, we have witnessed a performance of online media and open finance dancing together.

This is not just a Meme speculation, but more like a real-world experiment on “creator economy + on-chain content monetization”—a person with huge dissemination power and public influence in the real world, without sponsors, platform revenue sharing, or advertisers, directly completing the monetization of attention through on-chain tools.

It proves not “how much this token can rise,” but a deeper question: whether content can truly be monetized on decentralized platforms with lower friction and greater transparency. Perhaps, this hints at the future evolution of the media industry.

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