Meme Scheme: How Avalanche Is Picking Which Meme Coins to Buy

The Avalanche Foundation has revealed its eligibility criteria for deciding which meme coins to include in its portfolio after announcing its $100 million Culture Catalyst Program late last month.

The criteria are meant to parse out tokens that “show stability, growth potential, and a commitment to fair practices,” the Foundation said. Among them are requirements for a “fair launch” that doesn’t reserve any tokens for the founders, and a low supply concentration among crypto whales.

“The purpose of disclosing the eligibility criteria here is to enunciate the Foundation’s values and provide direction to the community,” the Avalanche Foundation wrote in a Tuesday blog post.

The Avalanche Foundation is a nonprofit organization overseeing the development of the Avalanche network.

A meme coin is a common type of cryptocurrency launched around an internet meme or recent event, such as Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum’s Shiba Inu (SHIB), or Solana’s BONK. Such coins usually lack any explicit utility, and experts will usually tell you that they’re highly speculative.

Many criticized Avalanche’s investment plans last month as a dangerous waste of resources. However, the Foundation believes meme coins are a strong source of “community value,“ “culture,” and “engagement,” classifying them under a broader investment umbrella known as “community coins.”

To be considered for Avalanche’s investment, community coins must have at least 2,000 unique holders with a fully diluted market cap of at least $1 million. The top 100 owners cannot collectively hold more than 60% of the total supply.

They also must average $100,000 of daily trading volume across two Avalanche decentralized exchanges for at least two weeks. Meanwhile, the project should possess at least $200,000 in total liquidity, with a minimum of 50 liquidity providers.

The blog post noted that the Foundation has already deployed some capital into certain community coins as part of the program. A Foundation spokesperson declined to specify which specific tokens they bought.

"But the Foundation has in excess of $90M worth of undeployed assets available for the culture catalyst,” they added.

After announcing the program in December, certain Avalanche-based meme coins like Husky Avax (HUSKY) rose by over 60% on the day. The coin has mostly lost its gains since that time.

Edited by Andrew Hayward