I’ll start by noting that I’m by no means a critic of the cryptocurrency market in general – although some cryptos I believe investors should sell. The promise of decentralizing authority connected to finance and money is as appealing to me as it’s ever been. The more one learns about traditional finance the more apparent the need for the development of alternatives becomes.
Thus, I’m all for the adoption of cryptos, especially those that provide real-world utility. That’s one of the distinguishing separators of the useful and the useless: building projects that act as real currency. That should clue readers into where I’m headed when it comes to cryptos to sell, as they aren’t worth your time or money.
Pepe (PEPE-USD)
Pepe (PEPE-USD) isn’t particularly different from the other meme coins that have paved the way for its development. Its predecessors include DogeCoin (DOGE-USD) and Shiba Inu (SHIB-USD) among others. Popular because of memes – and ultimately useless.
Each differs in terms of the memes and their meanings and followers. However, they all have little to no real world utility and seem complacent in that fact. That’s why I believe meme coins that fail to develop utility will ultimately fail. I make an exception for DogeCoin because it has carved out a niche as a reliable mechanism for speculation. As fear rises it tends to rise as well. It is the leader in this regard and others like PEPE are trying to usurp that position.
The problem is that Pepe is too late to the game to do so. There will be other meme coins following Pepe, I’m sure. None of them are DogeCoin, though, and I don’t see how they can take its place.
ApeCoin (APE-USD)
ApeCoin (APE-USD) fuels a network built to take advantage of the Bored Ape Club. The Bored Ape Club, you may remember, sprung to prominence at the height of crypto mania. It’s a collection of 10,000 NFTs that are all a variation of the same ape NFT. The only thing that varies are facial expression and clothing worn by the apes.
Actually, prices also vary wildly. An entry-level ape will set you back by 31 ETH, or roughly $57k. Prices only go up from there, approaching $13 million at the top end. Frankly, you’d have to be an idiot to buy any of them. Then again, more power to the marketing minds that can pull it off and separate a customer from that much cash for so much nothing.
ApeCoin has never become anything of substance because it is fueled by something that never had any substance, maintaining its status as one of the cryptos to sell. Don’t waste the few dollars its costs to buy it either. It may seem absurdly cheap in comparison to the bored Ape NFTs but that doesn’t matter.
Decentraland (MANA-USD)
Decentraland (MANA-USD) is actually pretty interesting in my opinion. I just don’t think it’s quite ready to increase in price just yet. It’s a virtual world allowing users to create virtual lands and experiences on plots of digital land. Ultimately, successful entrepreneurs will build in the Decentraland sandbox I believe.
They’ll come up with creative methods to derive revenues from the plots of land they develop. That may be through unique virtual experiences, advertising or other methods. There are obviously a lot of possibilities. However, it remains too early to say when that definitively will be.
My guess is that Decentraland could foreseeably improve next year. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will be releasing its Vision Pro mixed-reality headset early in 2024. It is therefore reasonable to anticipate that integrations with Decentraland will truly begin to take shape next year. For now, MANA remains as cheap as it has been for the past year and there’s no immediate reason that it should reverse course.
On the date of publication, Alex Sirois did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.