Fashion is identity — we dress like our friends and colleagues, we dress to communicate what we want others to know about us, and we make instant, mostly subconscious, and often hard-to-change judgments about a person based on what they wear
Fashions change quickly — fads don’t last, but surviving fads become trends — the change is the point
Tokens (stablecoins, memecoins, BTC/ETH) will only grow and proliferate for savings and payments: 10 years ago you could only spend BTC to buy a VPN subscription. Today Shopify has integrated Solana
The tokens you buy, hold, and spend will increasingly resemble fashions — part identity, part trend, but again, the change is the point (aligns perfectly with generational change, ADHD-ification of culture, AI, general societal acceleration)
Tokens as identity: Holding BTC v SOL v ETH is increasingly a statement of who you are and what crowd(s) you identify with, just like wearing Lululemon or driving Tesla or voting Republican
Tokens as trends: ETH was the subversive cool kid in prior cycles; this cycle is SOL’s turn; next cycle will be something new. This is more or less inevitable
Memecoins are mostly fads — some fads may evolve into lasting trends, but the vast majority won’t. Doge did. Shiba kinda did. Maybe WIF will
If tokens are fashions, then the tokens you buy, hold, and use may become increasingly subjective (like your favorite sneaker brand) and less rational (like what stocks to invest)
To succeed, a token project should think more like a consumer or fashion brand than a rational profit-driven investment — more emotion, less ROI. More Chanel, less Munger. More Stanley cup, less 7-in-1 men’s shower product.
Gresham’s law says bad money drives out the good; perhaps in a tokenized economy, interesting money also drives out the boring