Bubbles can be good for new industries and the memecoin bubble from 2023 - 2025 was just that. Memecoins onboarded an enormous amount of new users, stress tested chains like Solana and Base, and funded a ton valuable trading infrastructure in the ecosystem. But now we’re in 2026 and memecoin bubble popped long ago. Insider trading, bundling, and bots ruined what was once a fair game. What’s left is a shrinking pool of fish chasing past highs they will never reach while sharps extract the remaining money. The same thing happened on Ethereum twice, first from 2017 - 2018 with ICOs, then 2020 - 2022 with yield farming. At a certain point the game gets figured out and edge gets competed away. The thesis becomes stale and people stop playing. Memecoins may ultimately have a place in the cryptoeconomy long-term. If someone can find a way to make them fair again, they could survive as an onchain native casino game, or better yet, evolve into something new like creator coins. In any case, speculation will continue on, and speculators will continue searching for an outlet. But the point is that any chain looking for a spark will need to look beyond. Growth is found on the frontier, not in the echoes of the last cycle.