Get live statistics and analysis of Arjun Balaji's profile on X / Twitter

Memecoins were once fun and pure, but the industrialized trenches have turned a harmless PvP game into a predatory one, dominated by insider edge. Traditional casino games and memecoins share a core design idea: a high “return to player” (RTP) that masks a built-in edge while delivering intermittent, variable rewards to players. Traditional casino games like slots and blackjack offer high RTPs (90-99%+), meaning you might lose $1-10 in expectation on $100 of wagers. These games work because they leverage near-miss effects and the gambler’s fallacy, ensuring that the lure of a big win (variable payoff) keeps you in the game even as you’re bleeding bankroll. As I see it, the main issue with memecoins-as-gambling-game today is that they have moved away from their purest form to a fully industrialized version of the trenches. Initially, they functioned more like a PvP slot machine: most bets evaporate, but there’s a small chance to graduate with a 5-25x+ multiplier, or even hit a jackpot-level payout of 100-1000x+ when they temporarily become PvE. The thrill is from “catching a runner” or watching someone hit a massive win. Now, only 1-1.5% of PumpFun launches graduate every day. I would guess nearly all of these are industrialized, operated by sophisticated insiders and influencers (“eca”) like [REDACTED] who launch them to their audiences with ever shortening half-lifes. All of this lowers the effective RTP for casuals, transforming memecoins from a pseudo-random high RTP slot-style game to a predatory, low RTP insider game where casual users are set up to lose. The death knell for these games is when RTP drops so low that uninformed players have ~no chance to profit. Gambler’s fallacy and social media can temporarily keep the game alive by spotlighting winners. Over time, if nearly all profits are captured by house edge, the player pool is liable to dry up and destroys the original, harmless PvP thrills that made memes fun in the first place.

Prediction markets are maturing. A cottage industry of forecasters is emerging, but the tooling is not there. I’ve been prototyping some of these sharp tools like advanced order types, activity tracking, cross-venue routing, etc. for myself. If you are building here, DMs open.

In hindsight, talent density in the 2015-16 era sneakerbotting scene was astounding

Often, philosophy is better produced by investors than academia: the former is grounded in pragmatism, the latter is rewarded for esoterica.

My avatars are limited edition collectibles offering specific utility. Your PFPs require complex crypto transactions to buy. Their "NFTs" are useless digital art jpegs.

If you are fired up to build something new at the crypto frontier, we would love to jam on it together. I'm particularly interested in taking new approaches to older ideas like prediction markets.

Stoked to see the Phantom team cook up butter-smooth UX to trade perps from your pocket Hyperliquid

You get news from the Bloomberg Terminal I get my news directly from Walter Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg We are not the same

Memecoins were once fun and pure, but the industrialized trenches have turned a harmless PvP game into a predatory one, dominated by insider edge. Traditional casino games and memecoins share a core design idea: a high “return to player” (RTP) that masks a built-in edge while delivering intermittent, variable rewards to players. Traditional casino games like slots and blackjack offer high RTPs (90-99%+), meaning you might lose $1-10 in expectation on $100 of wagers. These games work because they leverage near-miss effects and the gambler’s fallacy, ensuring that the lure of a big win (variable payoff) keeps you in the game even as you’re bleeding bankroll. As I see it, the main issue with memecoins-as-gambling-game today is that they have moved away from their purest form to a fully industrialized version of the trenches. Initially, they functioned more like a PvP slot machine: most bets evaporate, but there’s a small chance to graduate with a 5-25x+ multiplier, or even hit a jackpot-level payout of 100-1000x+ when they temporarily become PvE. The thrill is from “catching a runner” or watching someone hit a massive win. Now, only 1-1.5% of PumpFun launches graduate every day. I would guess nearly all of these are industrialized, operated by sophisticated insiders and influencers (“eca”) like [REDACTED] who launch them to their audiences with ever shortening half-lifes. All of this lowers the effective RTP for casuals, transforming memecoins from a pseudo-random high RTP slot-style game to a predatory, low RTP insider game where casual users are set up to lose. The death knell for these games is when RTP drops so low that uninformed players have ~no chance to profit. Gambler’s fallacy and social media can temporarily keep the game alive by spotlighting winners. Over time, if nearly all profits are captured by house edge, the player pool is liable to dry up and destroys the original, harmless PvP thrills that made memes fun in the first place.

In hindsight, talent density in the 2015-16 era sneakerbotting scene was astounding

Prediction markets are maturing. A cottage industry of forecasters is emerging, but the tooling is not there. I’ve been prototyping some of these sharp tools like advanced order types, activity tracking, cross-venue routing, etc. for myself. If you are building here, DMs open.

My avatars are limited edition collectibles offering specific utility. Your PFPs require complex crypto transactions to buy. Their "NFTs" are useless digital art jpegs.

Stoked to see the Phantom team cook up butter-smooth UX to trade perps from your pocket Hyperliquid

society if there was a cross-platform standard for custom chat sticker packs

Elon is turning this site into Steemit with algo changes + creator payments

You get news from the Bloomberg Terminal I get my news directly from Walter Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg We are not the same

Often, philosophy is better produced by investors than academia: the former is grounded in pragmatism, the latter is rewarded for esoterica.