The next explosive blockchain may not be driven by technology, but rather by community and the magic of memes.

Written by: 13300RPM, @FourPillarsFP researcher

Translated by: zhouzhou, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: The competition in the crypto industry is shifting from technological rivalry to cultural resonance, with Culture Chains becoming a new trend. Technology is "good enough," and the key to the future lies in community atmosphere and resonance. Investors should focus on believers, insider jokes, and community culture, rather than just code performance. Culture Chains provide a dedicated ecosystem for fans and creators, but also face challenges such as excessive speculation and fragmented liquidity. Successful Culture Chains require strong communities, open construction, and composability to truly become the core track of the next cycle.

Here is the original content (reorganized for readability):

Imagine a blockchain whose killer feature is not a disruptive consensus algorithm or astonishing TPS, but rather the atmosphere. On this chain, people gather not for lower gas fees, but for inside jokes, shared identity, and meme culture. Sounds absurd? Yet the crypto world has repeatedly proven that culture often triumphs over technology.

Consider $DOGE (and a dozen other similar coins), a complete joke born from memes, which inexplicably skyrocketed to a market cap of billions of dollars without any technological innovation. The early development of Bitcoin relied more on cyberpunk beliefs than on the code itself. The most loyal users of Ethereum often say, "I came for the technology, but stayed for the community." Events like ETHGlobal hackathons and global Devcon have long transcended the code itself, becoming cultural bonds among developers.

The crypto world has evolved into a stage where participation itself is the product—an immersive social game that blends finance, ideology, and culture.

Welcome to the era of Culture Chains: the core of blockchain is not what it can do, but for whom it was created.

1. Culture is the Product

Culture Chains are a new type of vertical SaaS in the fan economy.

In simple terms, Culture Chains are blockchains imbued with cultural spirit—they are tailored for specific communities, subcultures, or movements. Unlike general-purpose L1s (which attempt to meet all needs) or application chains (Appchains) that only run a single dapp, Culture Chains occupy a unique middle ground. They are playgrounds designed for people who share the same atmosphere or goals, accommodating multiple applications and serving specific communities.

From this definition, it could be said that every blockchain has its own culture. Ethereum merges cryptopunk and institutional thinking, emphasizing decentralization, programmability, and neutrality. In contrast, Solana is filled with speed, chaos, and financial speculation, shaped by its high throughput and low-cost architecture.

However, the difference is that these cultural identities are more byproducts of technical design rather than deliberately shaped outcomes. General-purpose blockchains often spontaneously form a unique culture, while the core of Culture Chains is that they are born from the protocol level for the cultural economy. The real distinction lies in the intentionality.

Imagine a blockchain where every dapp serves anime art collectors, hardcore degen players, RPG game enthusiasts, or fans of a specific NFT ecosystem. Users speak the same jargon, chase the same trends, and laugh at the same memes. This resembles a digital city-state running on blockchain.

If general-purpose public chains are more like a diverse but chaotic international metropolis, then Culture Chains are more like a theme park or a Renaissance fair—highly customized, precisely matching the needs of specific groups. By focusing on a niche circle, they can comprehensively optimize technology, governance, token economics, and more to better serve the values and needs of that community.

They are blockchains designed for cultural monetization, expansion, and protection.

This design can take various forms:

• Infrastructure optimized for specific creators or media streams
• Built-in revenue sharing or tokenized copyright distribution mechanisms
• Governance models adapted to creative communities
• Incentive mechanisms that allow fans to participate, fund, and discover new content

Essentially, Culture Chains are an evolved version of the "vertical blockchain" concept: they do not attempt to be all-encompassing but focus on a specific niche. Their goal is to become the "preferred blockchain in the X domain," where X represents a culturally cohesive community or application scenario. The assumption behind this idea is that focusing on a cultural circle can more effectively gather like-minded users and developers than general public chains, forming stronger network effects. Their power comes from focus.

2. Code Can Be Copied, But Atmosphere Cannot Be Copied

In the crypto world, community is more important than technology. When choosing a chain, pay attention to the number of believers on each block, not just TPS.

Is culture really more important than code? Many tech geeks scoff at this. After all, blockchain infrastructure involves mathematics, cryptography, engineering, and game theory—it's "hardcore technology." But despite the fact that code is law, in the crypto world, culture is king. Ultimately, it is the social layer that determines which "laws" (code) will be truly adopted.

A perfect protocol is a dead end if no one believes in it; while a rough meme coin, if it has a group of fervent believers, can move the market.

Essentially, crypto networks are social networks with banking functions, and human nature is the core driver of adoption: FOMO, tribalism, identity, belief. These things cannot be directly forked from GitHub.

Think of Bitcoin Cash, which forked from Bitcoin—technically not much changed, but the cultural divide (big blocks vs. small blocks) ultimately determined the outcome. The Ethereum community also once forked Ethereum Classic due to ideological differences—same code, but different cultures, resulting in vastly different outcomes.

Memes and narratives have atomic-level power in this industry.

Remember DeFi Summer? When yield farming exploded, it was not just smart contracts driving this wave, but a group of degens shouting "farm and dump" and "all in ape," igniting this movement together. Now look at the NFT craze: why did the value of JPEGs on Ethereum skyrocket? It wasn't because the ERC-721 technology was so magical (it's actually quite simple), but because a group of digital art collectors, show-offs, and community players built a unique cultural circle around projects like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes. Technology provided verifiable ownership, but what truly drove the craze was social prestige and community belonging.

The long-term success of a public chain often depends on its community moat. This is the paradox of the crypto world: the strongest moat is not hash power or TPS, but belief. Value exists not only in the code but also in the culture that forms around it.

This unquantifiable "magic" can lead people to tattoo project logos on their arms or hold on without selling even during a 90% drawdown. It can turn early users into evangelists, making a product "inevitable." Culture Chains are based on this insight, betting on the power of niche fanatic communities rather than general solutions aimed at the mass market.

3. Stop Chasing TAM, Start with the Tribe

General public chains pray for users to come, while Culture Chains come with users by nature.

But the key question is: is this model really feasible? A new blockchain paradigm must be technically viable and economically scalable to truly survive.

Unlike past "blockchain narratives" that attempted to disrupt the entire industry, Culture Chains take a more pragmatic approach. They do not require building entirely new infrastructure from scratch but optimize and refine based on existing blockchain frameworks for the cultural economy.

Today, technological advancements (interestingly, technology in turn empowers culture) have made creating a new chain easier than ever. Frameworks like OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, and Cosmos SDK, along with modular blockchains, data availability layers (DA Layers), and Rollup as a Service (RAAS), mean you don't need a PhD in distributed systems to launch a new blockchain.

This means that Culture Chains already possess technical feasibility today, rather than being a distant fantasy.

Critics often question the market size (TAM, Total Addressable Market) of Culture Chains, arguing that focusing on niche groups limits their growth. But when viewed from a broader perspective, this logic falls apart: BTS's global fan base is estimated to be 90 million, nearly three times more than Solana's all-time high monthly active users (MAU of 31 million).

More importantly, fan groups are not just "existing"; they consume, organize, and take action. They are not passive users but an untapped cultural infrastructure.

Stop just focusing on TAM (market size), and start measuring TAC (Total Addressable Culture).

4. Not Just Narratives: Real Projects, Real Value

Culture Chains are not just empty concepts; they already have grounded projects and attract users who genuinely care about them.

Currently, there are some early projects practicing this concept:

Story: An Open Story Universe on the Blockchain

What if the next phenomenal fantasy universe or comic IP did not come from a single studio, but was co-created by an entire on-chain community? @StoryProtocol is betting on this idea.

Story is a brand new L1 project aimed at becoming the decentralized IP infrastructure of the internet—an open platform that allows creators to collaboratively build and remix stories on-chain, tracking contributions and ownership through blockchain.

Its technical core is a provenance mechanism for creative works, but the real highlight is at the cultural level. Story aims to cultivate a storytelling tribe, allowing creators to build a worldview together and transform fan communities into DAOs.

If Story succeeds, the next "Harry Potter"-level cultural phenomenon could be a product of decentralized co-creation—memes, fan creations, and community lore will intertwine, guaranteed by blockchain authenticity and ownership.

Story embodies a paradigm shift: it views blockchain as a canvas for carrying memes, myths, and collaborative creativity, rather than just cold technology.

Animecoin: The On-Chain Link for Global Anime Culture

The anime culture circle is vast and borderless, with hundreds of millions of people worldwide closely connected by their love for Japanese animation. Now, imagine what would happen if the entire anime community had a common token to unite their power? This is exactly what @animecoin ($ANIME) aims to achieve.

As a newly launched "culture coin," Animecoin aims to gather anime enthusiasts on the blockchain. Its concept is straightforward: transform existing active subcultures into a crypto ecosystem. For a more detailed analysis, you can refer to the reports "Anime Needs Web3" and "The Future of $ANIME is Yours."

Animecoin can be used for:

• Funding fan-driven projects, such as fan creations and independent animations;

• Purchasing and trading anime-related digital assets, such as NFT art and virtual collectibles;

• Community governance, allowing token holders to vote in support of emerging anime creators.

However, beyond specific use cases, $ANIME serves more as a cultural banner—providing a sense of economic identity for fans of the global anime community.

Currently in its early stages, even if only a small portion of the global otaku community joins, it signifies the birth of millions of new crypto users, who may be more interested in Crunchyroll (anime streaming platform) than in the crypto technology itself.

Animecoin embodies the core idea of "Culture Chains": it does not require people to care about crypto for the sake of crypto, but rather builds a crypto ecosystem around identities and cultures that people already love.

5. The Rift in Cultural Economy: When Fans Become Investors

However, the biggest risk for Culture Chains arises from a troubling question: Can fans really become investors?

Consumer culture and investment are fundamentally two distinct behaviors. Unless someone is deeply involved in both crypto and a specific cultural circle, it is difficult to assume that these two completely different groups will naturally merge. Perhaps the idea that "fan communities can evolve into investor communities" is essentially an overly optimistic simplification.

Moreover, a more realistic risk is that when speculative demand overwhelms genuine cultural participation, the economic system will collapse. This has been validated countless times in past P2E (play-to-earn) games—when economic drivers are no longer based on actual demand but are inflated by speculation, a bubble burst is just a matter of time. Culture Chains face the same threat: if financial incentives replace cultural identity, speculation can unknowingly hollow out the entire ecosystem.

Finally, there is the issue of fragmentation and liquidity islands. If every niche culture independently establishes its own blockchain, it may recreate the isolation problems we aimed to solve with interoperability. To avoid this, Culture Chains must have composable infrastructure and liquidity that bridges mainstream crypto economies; otherwise, they risk being trapped in their isolated worlds.

6. The Moat Built by MEME

If you can't wear this hoodie, then don't bet on this chain. Despite the potential risks mentioned earlier, I remain optimistic about Culture Chains for a simple reason: once they explode, their impact is exponential.

In the crypto industry, technological advantages are often fleeting—today's "black technology" will become standard tomorrow. However, social advantages (social alpha) remain one of the few truly sustainable moats. For investors and builders, leveraging culture is not a shortcut but a strategic "dimensionality reduction attack."

For VCs and investors:

When evaluating Culture Chains, you cannot just look at TPS (transactions per second) and GitHub commit records; you must also ask:

• Does this community have "soul"?

• Is there a group of true believers who will persist even in a bear market?

It may sound a bit "mystical," but this is actually an important early signal that can indicate whether a project can grow organically. A project with average technology but a strong MEME army may grow faster than a technically superior project lacking cultural resonance. In other words, investing in Culture Chains is more like investing in social networks: you should focus not on the efficiency of the code but on the community's activity, sense of identity, and network effects.

For Web3 entrepreneurs:

Culture Chains provide you with an opportunity to precisely meet user needs. You are not blindly searching for users in an unknown market; instead, you are directly entering a community that is already highly matched, eager for the products you offer.

However, this also means you cannot "hide" behind technology—community feedback is immediate and very direct. The best approach is to build openly and transparently, allowing the community to participate in the narrative. In addition to technology, consider "urban planning": community governance, social functions, event planning, story background… In Culture Chains, social experience (social UX) is just as important as UI/UX.

For speculators, creators, and casual players:

Culture Chains are a playground that can transform your passion from "niche" to "mainstream." If you are deeply involved in a particular ecosystem but feel limited by general public chains, you now finally have a stage of your own.

At the same time, the responsibility for maintaining the community atmosphere also falls on you. In Culture Chains, you are both content and value. If managed well, you could become the next creator of an early Ethereum community; but if management spirals out of control, you may be consumed by internal strife. Choose your tribe and bet wisely.

7. The Next Cycle Belongs to the "Believers"

From 2010 to early 2020, competition in the crypto world revolved around TPS (transactions per second) and technological roadmaps. But those days are over. Nowadays, many public chains are "good enough" on a purely technical level; the core of the next round of competition will be the cultural density within each block.

In the late 2020s, the public chains that truly stand out may not be those theoretically capable of handling millions of TPS, but rather those that can carry millions of "memes," facilitate millions of high-quality interactions, and gather millions of resonators.

So, if you are looking for the next wave of crypto trends, don't just ask, "What can this chain's code do?" Instead, ask, "What does this community believe?" Seek out places rich in inside jokes, rituals, and cultural atmosphere, as this is the soil in which Culture Chains are born and may nurture the next generation of public chains.

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