Why Meme Coins Took Off on Solana but Not BNB Chain

I was like, okay, so mean coins do have some utility, as you said, they do grab attention,

they actually have some really interesting good causes too. I think just before, historically,

I did not understand mean coins that much myself. I'm not an arts kind of guy,

I'm not very culturally tuned, if you can say that. So even NFTs, I was like, okay,

like JPEGs for millions of dollars, I didn't quite understand that, to be honest. I don't

mind people trading it. I think, look, I don't understand art. When people pay a lot of money

for art, I'm like, okay, that's just a painting. But I'm not against other people paying for it,

right? So it looks beautiful, it's fine. I think as long as somebody else is willing to pay for

it, then it's worth that much. An item should be worth the highest price anyone in the world

is willing to pay for it and is able to get it. So I'm fine with that free market principle,

for sure. We run an exchange, I used to run an exchange. So memes, I think for me, it was kind

of interesting to see how memes took off at Solana, because Solana FTX went down, they

crashed with like $1, $4, and then they were really suffering. And then what did they do,

right? So now they don't have an exchange associate kind of close to them. And also

the three or four years ago, the previous SEC in the US, they sued everybody with a utility coin,

right? So now you have a meme coin, which just said, look, this coin has no utility,

you're not going to get sued. So now you're just going to have a bunch of meme coins that's just

really for fun, for the culture aspects of it, for the community. And then that took off, because

nothing else can be done. If you launch a utility token, you're going to get a lawsuit from the SEC,

from Gary Gensler. And then if you think about it, in the Binance, in the BNB chain ecosystem,

because people kind of view that there's a big exchange Binance, if there's a platform called

Pump, Binance is already under regulatory scrutiny. If there's a platform in the BNB

chain ecosystem called Pump, that thing is going to be sued by SEC for sure. The market manipulation,

all this kind of stuff. I'm not a lawyer, I don't know. But I cannot fathom a platform called Pump

in the BNB chain ecosystem and getting away with it. So Asalona is like, look, they don't have

exchanges, it's just meme tokens. They use the word Pump and Dump all the time. My communication

gets scrutinized, like otherwise, if I use the word Pump, I'll get into trouble. So that's kind

of how the meme coins kind of develop on Asalona. And that's also why it kind of did not develop on

BNB chain. So I think that little bit of background probably will make sense once I say it. I think

all of you guys have been in the space for a long time. So kudos to that. Asalona developed that,

which is good. And then this year, you know, the attitude in the US changed. And then, you know,

we were more free to do meme coins, etc., to support more meme coins more openly.

And still, I, from a utility, I'm a big utility type of guy. I'm more of a functional type of guy.

So I don't like, I don't do art. I don't like fancy restaurants. I just like, when I eat,

I want to eat something that's really tasty really quickly, and I'm done. So I'm a very

functional driven guy. So that's why memes is not kind of deep in my personal DNA.

But recently, look, a bunch of memes changed my view. So I think I was, no, I really,

really underestimated memes. I really underestimated the culture, arts, fun,

exposure aspects of things, just because I'm personally weak at it. That's just my personal

view. And I'm personally weak at it, right. So, but yeah, I think, you know, it's an open

ecosystem. We welcome everything. Yeah. Well, I got one last question for you,

and I appreciate your time, man. What is your thoughts on meme coins that garner like a big

community, like a really solid community, and then as they grow and they have some time in market,

they start to add utility to the meme? Because some people are bearish on that. Some people

aren't. What's your thoughts on meme coins that kind of expand out and then start, you know,

working more into the utility side, but then kind of weaponizing that community as a marketing funnel

to basically promote whatever utility they bring to the ecosystem? Do you,

are you bullish or bearish on that? I'm bullish on that. I think that's great. So I think there's

multiple paths to success, or there's multiple paths to value, right. So you can start with,

you know, some companies are great marketing machines, right. So they're great at marketing,

and then eventually they provide some value. I think, you know, Gillette, the Razor,

Procter and Gamble, they're just fantastic marketing machines. The product, you know,

Razor, like it's not that different, but you know, they make it, the ads make it so much,

so much better, make you feel so much better using them, right. So that's, you know, that's

fantastic. There are other companies which technology-driven technology, or technology-driven

company who do no advertising, they become very successful too. They create a lot of value.

So there's multiple paths to success. So if you can garner a community, a loyal community,

if you can garner a community, that itself is very valuable. If you can garner a loyal community

that you can weaponize to advertise for you, that's even more valuable. And then it's much

easier to add some utility to it. I think building utility is not rocket science. Somebody else can

do it, you can do it. If you have a fellowship already, then it's easy for you to do it, right?

So to some extent, right? So now, for example, when I back up, like when I tweet about a project,

that project gets a lot of views. So, no, that's a bonus that we should leverage, right? So,

yeah, so I think that path is definitely totally workable. I think we will see many

meme coins go that route. And also, given the success of the fundraising efforts on Kegel

Academy, and there's a lot of discussions, or there's a few discussions about how to use meme

coins for charity, fundraising, etc. And if it's for a good cause, that cause will be promoted by

some KOL, some influence, somebody with a high influence. And it doesn't have to be a KOL,

it could be some really important figure, right? But those kinds of things will bring more

attention to the meme coin, and the meme coin will go up. And then the meme coin, when for

every transaction, 5% of that goes to charity, it helps the charity. So that logic actually kind of

makes sense to me. Whether how many of those things become successful, I don't know. But I

think it's definitely possible to add utility once you have a popular meme coin.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it, CZ.

Great work, man. Great questions. Gary, what's up, man?

Hey, guys. Thanks. CZ, Gary Cardone here. We haven't met. You're one of two people I've wanted

to meet in the last five years that I haven't been able to. So whenever I can do that, that'll

be cool. Hey, I just wanted to, one, congratulate how you came out of this. I don't know all the

details, but I think you did an awesome job. And I actually admire your humility on what you do

and don't know about the business. And you know, the challenges