Ripple’s president and CEO disagree over memecoins' role in crypto

Top leaders from Ripple met today at Apex 2025 to discuss multiple topics, including memes, markets, and institutional momentum. Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple CEO, and Monica Long, Ripple President, found themselves on opposite sides of what they believe about memecoins.

Garlinghouse believes memecoins are grossly overrated and unsustainable, while Long says they have helped grow the crypto space.

Monica Long, Ripple President, acknowledged that memecoins taken at face value are just outright scams, yet their speculative nature has miraculously become functional in the crypto market. She said memecoins have helped bring new users, developers, and funding.

She added that it has helped build the wallet and blockchain infrastructure while comparing it to the Ethereum 2017 ICO surge. She believes memecoins have a lasting impact in the crypto space.

Top crypto leaders find themselves in a divide about memecoins

Brad Garlinghouse was less convinced of the ability of memecoins, citing their unsustainability and get-rich-quick scheme rug pulls. He said that memecoins reflected poorly on what they were building at Ripple, which focused on creating real utility.

According to Garlinghouse, Ripple and many in the XRP community have done well by trying to develop real products for real customers.

Garlinghouse’s original objection was that an asset born as a parody could not credibly represent an industry courting institutional capital. He added that Dogecoin wouldn’t represent them well if they tried to engage institutions and build bridges between traditional and decentralized finance. He referred to it as a token created as a lark, and it is a pile of shit. 

Garlinghouse later acknowledged that he had misjudged Dogecoin by speaking not so kindly towards the memecoin willed by Elon Musk. He believes Musk willed the coin into so much liquidity that it’s never going away. He called it both chaos and brilliance that captured the attention of the crypto industry’s wild nature. He finally joked about buying into the meme frenzy himself. 

Long viewed memecoins as an unexpected but powerful way to bring people into the Web3 space, helping build the ecosystem. However, Brad was more cautious, thinking memecoins can take away the attention from real innovation and make the entire industry look bad, especially to critics like Senator Elizabeth Warren, who focuses on the negative use cases of cryptocurrencies, according to Brad Garlinghouse.

Once dismissed as a joke, Dogecoin pushed them to agree that memecoins are now part of the ecosystem with their deep liquidity and global recognition, shifting the question to what kind of impact they will leave. Other memecoins, such as PEPE, Shiba Inu, and BONK, continue to trend on crypto Twitter.

Garlinghouse says memecoins offer no real utility

Memecoins are typically created for humor and social engagement rather than to solve real-world problems. Trump-themed memecoins skyrocketed in value in early 2024, with the MAGA memecoin (TRUMP) surprising with a $50 billion market cap despite offering no real utility and mainly driven by political hype. 

Analysts indicated that in 2024, between 40,000 and 50,000 memecoin tokens were created daily, growing to over 100,000 during viral surges. Solana is the largest blockchain platform for memecoin activity, generating 17,000 to 20,000 tokens daily. 

Chainplay’s State of Memecoin showed that over 55.24% of the meme tokens created were malicious and scams. The report revealed that many coins are launched by developers without accountability and operate with centralized liquidity pools controlled by several wallets. The setup allows the creators to pull liquidity or dump large tokens without warning, commonly referred to as rug pulls, according to Chainplay’s report. 

In the past, Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER token and Hulk Hogan’s HULK token have left regular investors holding the bag. Azalea has attempted to legitimize the token, but it has been affected by insider trading scandals. Blockchain data showed that insiders bought 20% of the token supply before the official announcement and quickly dumped the holdings for a $2 million profit.

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