Have you gotten your Asscoin yet? How about some PooCoin?

Memecoins are proliferating on social media, offering laughs and the chance of a quick buck for some, while inducing cringes in those who hope to get cryptocurrencies taken seriously as a medium of exchange and a store of value.

The latest to take over social media is “Australian Safe Shepherd” (ASS) coin, started a few days ago by a Canadian developer who doesn’t seem shy about posting shots of her posterior on social media.

This afternoon there were nearly 10,000 users in a Telegram chat devoted to the risque memcoin, where a team leader was urging people to send tweets to Elon Musk, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.

“To get trending, your tweets should have: #asstronauts #ass $ass #facedownassup“, they wrote.

“If you care about ASS as much as I do then we will ride together and FULL SEND THIS ASS TO THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON”

The Binance Smart Chain token can be tracked on – we swear we’re not making this up – a website called Poocoin, which has its own namesake cryptocurrency.

Musk’s coin

Then there’s Elongate, which was started last month based on a tweet from the Tesla Motors CEO.

At least that memecoin seems to be devoted – at least in part – to something other than getting its founder and early adopters rich.

There’s a 10 per cent fee on each Elongate transaction and half is donated to charity, with the rest split between Elongate holders.

The project donated $US325,000 this week to Children International, a global nonprofit humanitarian organisation, and says it has given a total of over $US1 million to charity. The team has also taken out a billboard in Times Square.

Because nearly all cryptocurrency projects are open source, it’s easy for someone with a bit of know-how to “fork” or clone one project into another while adding little original value aside from making it more meme-friendly.

While the original memecoin, Dogecoin, has shown remarkable staying power, some in the crypto community are urging caution.

‘99% lose’

Alex Saunders, the Tasmanian host of the Nugget’s News YouTube channel, posted a video yesterday decrying the speculative mania.

“People are going wild at the moment, it’s all over the place, there’s scams all over the place – it reminded me of 2017, and I honestly haven’t felt that yet this cycle,” he said.

While some may say the schemes sound harmless and there might be money to be made if you get out early, Saunders has worked with regulators and has heard of people who have taken their lives after losing everything in similar scams.

It’s also not as easy to get out in time as one might think, he added.

“Ninty-nine per cent of people lose,” he said. “You might hear the survivor bias. The few people that make money, they make noise on social media. … I guess the main reason I don’t like these get-rich-schemes is, they never work. One hundred per cent of the time, they fail.”

 

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