MOTHER Clashes with Vitalik over Celebrity Meme Theory Australian Rapper Iggy Azalea Fires Back at Gas Fee Tax
Australian rapper Iggy Azalea’s celebrity meme coin “MOTHER,” released at the end of May, saw a peak increase of over 3000% and has since seen nearly 700% increase. Although Iggy Azalea is not the first celebrity to release a meme coin, Vitalik’s criticism of celebrities joining in has led to a beef between the rapper and Vitalik.
Vitalik: Celebrities releasing meaningless meme coins make me very unhappy.
The cryptocurrency community has had mixed reactions to celebrity meme coins.
Iggy Azalea recently responded in an interview: “I’m not angry with this person’s opinion. But I question your actions regarding Gas Fee, that’s a lot of money. And your perspective, whether it’s charity or whatever. In any case, that’s a lot of money, let’s talk about Gas Fee taxes. Perhaps some people shouldn’t have so much to say.”
Iggy Azalea may be trying to blame Vitalik for the high Gas Fee on Ethereum, but Gas Fees are mostly earned by verification nodes, with Vitalik being more of an indirect beneficiary holding ETH. The whole issue is not really related to making money from Gas Fees.
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams supports this trend. He said there’s no problem with meme coins or celebrity coins. I think meme attention is valuable, and it’s cool that it can create a market. In other words, the fundamental purpose and value of the technology far exceed financial games. The best builders in the field are motivated by positive social change.
He said Iggy could have made a positive response and donated profits to social causes or other things. Instead, she arrogantly treated the best builders in the field poorly (because Iggy made a pretty crass meme).
Following some controversial statements, Iggy Azalea’s “MOTHER” website began donating to koala rescue charity activities. It is a visible act of goodwill amidst the noise of celebrities making money from memes.
