Memecoins are a controversial matter that I often exit of my strategy to keep away from. Whereas some view them as a lighthearted strategy to have interaction with the crypto community, others see them as nothing greater than a speculative gamble with no actual worth. Additional, my private view is that a lot of the memecoin sector hurts blockchain greater than it helps. I’ve nothing in opposition to folks playing with memecoins, however we must always deal with playing as playing and never conceal behind the false narratives of ‘community.’
That mentioned, and amid this debate, the Lens Protocol-based undertaking Bonsai has emerged as an outlier.
Not like many memecoins that rely solely on hype and hypothesis, Bonsai has taken a different method. By integrating with the Lens Protocol, Bonsai has change into an important device for content material creators to monetize their work and have interaction with their communities.
Since its launch on March 4, Bonsai has gained important traction throughout the Lens ecosystem. It has change into the popular foreign money for monetizable content material, with a market share of round 77% of paid mints on Lens. Creators have earned over 3 million value of $BONSAI (roughly $240,000 as of April 4). This demonstrates that memecoins might be greater than only a fleeting development – they will have real-world functions that profit each creators and their audiences.
Nevertheless, that has not stopped the value from rallying as any ‘good’ memecoin can. Prior to now month, it has surged by 2,000% since Lens customers had been first airdropped tokens.
What’s Bonsai?
Bonsai is an modern token launched on the Polygon blockchain, particularly designed for the Lens Protocol ecosystem. It combines the options of an ERC-20 token (BONSAI) and an ERC-721 non-fungible token (BONSAI NFT) in a novel implementation known as DN-404.
One of many key options of DN-404 tokens is their fractionalization mechanism. Each 100,000 BONSAI tokens held in a pockets are equal to 1 BONSAI NFT. Because of this customers robotically personal NFTs primarily based on the variety of BONSAI tokens they maintain. If the token stability drops beneath 100,000, the corresponding NFT is misplaced. This distinctive interplay between the token and NFT contracts permits for seamless transfers and possession monitoring.
Bonsai has a complete provide of 100 million tokens, with 60% allotted to the community by varied airdrops and ecosystem assist initiatives. The first airdrop was carried out at launch, distributing 10% of the entire provide to energetic Lens customers. Subsequent airdrops have rewarded community engagement and development. A second airdrop occurred lately on Orb, and the Orb workforce celebrated including minting performance to its app with a further BONSAI airdrop for early adopters. The remaining token allocation consists of 15% for the workforce, 10% for traders, and 15% for liquidity.
Finally, the token serves as a community foreign money for builders, explorers, and early adopters of on-chain social platforms throughout the Lens ecosystem. It allows customers to carry out varied on-chain actions immediately from their Lens posts, comparable to gathering posts as NFTs, tipping, swapping tokens, and fascinating in DeFi actions.
Whereas different socialFi ecosystems comparable to Deso and Farcaster have utilized tokens to reward customers, the character of the Bonsai implementation feels distinctive as a result of energy of the underlying protocol, Lens. Lens permits each submit to be collected as an NFT. Additional, extra performance might be programmed into the mint on the click on of a button. Creators can share royalties with collaborators, share earnings with followers who share content material, and even assign industrial rights to those that acquire posts. All of that is attainable natively with Lens with none coding expertise.
Bonsai’s success results in a $100 million valuation.
Bonsai’s success has attracted important funding from main figures and organizations within the crypto and enterprise capital sectors. The latest $1 million angel funding spherical, which propelled the token’s market cap to almost $100 million, is a testomony to traders’ religion in Bonsai’s potential to revolutionize content material monetization on blockchain networks. This assist from business leaders additional validates Bonsai’s method and highlights the rising recognition of memecoins as a reliable avenue for driving community worth.
Bonsai stands out as a beacon of hope in an area the place many memecoins are criticized for his or her lack of substance and doubtlessly dangerous impacts. By aligning with the values of content material possession, social graph portability, and on-chain social actions, Bonsai is redefining what it means to be a memecoin. Slightly than merely fueling hypothesis and hype, Bonsai fosters a community that rewards engagement, brings worth to the ecosystem, and gives creators honest compensation for his or her work. Because the crypto panorama continues to evolve, initiatives like Bonsai function an inspiration for a way memecoins might be leveraged to drive actual, significant change and create a extra equitable and sustainable future for all.
Bonsai is supported by a variety of functions throughout the Lens ecosystem, together with Hey, Orb, Buttrfly, Kaira, Lenscan, Orna, Tape, Bloomers, Lenspeer, MadFi, wav3s, and Trustmebro. These functions leverage the $BONSAI token for varied functions, comparable to person acquisition, engagement, and monetization.
The workforce behind Bonsai, MadFi, states it’s dedicated to constructing capabilities that assist the creator economic system. They consider that tokens can align platforms, creators, and customers, offering efficient monetization choices for content material creators, particularly these within the lengthy tail who would possibly in any other case be marginalized.
Total, Bonsai represents an thrilling improvement within the Lens Protocol ecosystem, providing a novel and modern method to token economics, community engagement, and creator monetization. Its fast adoption and development display the potential for on-chain social platforms to revolutionize how creators and customers work together and derive worth from their content material and engagement.
Bonsai, up up to now, has the potential to change into a shining instance of how memecoins might be redefined to drive genuine community worth. Some will argue DEGEN was the first ‘community token’ however my view is that there’s nonetheless large hypothesis round curiosity in DEGEN.
Bonsai was not born off customers hoping to get wealthy, it was born from a need to commerce memes, music, and artwork on social media utilizing a enjoyable digital foreign money. For me, that is the definition of a real memecoin and definitely that of a community token.
Disclaimer: I obtained an airdrop of Bonsai for my contributions to Lens Protocol, and I’ve earned Bonsai from customers gathering my posts. I’ve additionally given away as much as 90% of the Bonsai I’ve earned from particular posts by the mirror referral system on Lens.
My complete Bonsai holdings are round 25,000 as of press time. I truthfully don’t care a lot concerning the worth of the tokens; as a substitute, I worth what they facilitate on Lens. I spend my BONSAI freely gathering content material from others, so in the event you make collectible content material on Lens, be happy to tag me: akiba.lens.
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