Robinhood's Memecoin Boom Shows Crypto's Retail Market Is No Joke

Memecoins have made some of their backers tremendously wealthy, and they have also handed out big losses to many of their buyers. Both scenarios are economically real, and that’s the contradiction at the center of the memecoin economy. It can look unserious by design while behaving like a high-speed, lightly governed capital market. The latest punchline is that DOGE, the government acronym, has come and gone while DOGE, the coin, remains. And a flurry of retail trading action this week across the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain, a Layer 2 blockchain that Robinhood Markets launched July 1, adds a useful test case for why memecoins are still around. Crypto’s comic relief has remained a growing mainstay at the heart of the digital a...