The launch of the Solana meme coin, JELLYJELLY in January prompted signups for an app to soar and a community to form, even after it fell 98% from its all-time high, Iqram Magdon-Ismail, a Venmo co-founder, told Decrypt.
Now nearly two months after its creation, JellyJelly, which debuted on Pump.fun, is set to be integrated into the app.
JELLYJELLY climbed to a $250 million market cap, after it was tied to the in-development AI-powered podcasting app of the same name. But, there were no concrete plans on how the token would be used and it has since crashed to just $6 million.
Magdon-Ismail maintains that the JELLYJELLY token will be implemented into the app soon and explains that, above everything, the meme coin launch was an excellent marketing tool to establish an audience.
“We got 10,000 signups in a day,” Magdon-Ismail told Decrypt. “It brought an incredible amount of awareness. I have to be honest, I never thought of using this whole meme coin world as a form of promotion [but] it’s starting to become very clear to me.”
JellyJelly is essentially TikTok but for podcasters, allowing users to record full episodes on the app which are then clipped up and posted using AI. Users are able to sign up and download the app but it is far from the finished article.
Investor in the app Sam Lessin believes meme coins work as a marketing tool because you immediately attract tons of eyes looking to flip a quick buck on the token. In doing this, some of these traders may become genuinely interested in the product behind the speculative trade. At the time of writing, JELLYJELLY has 34,275 holders. This figure was likely much higher back in January.
“Out of all of that, I think there’s a genuine group of like two to three thousand people in our Discord and Telegram communities that genuinely believe in the product,” Magdon-Ismail said. “If you open the Jelly feed today, I would say 50% of our user base are people that hold the coin.”
Other projects like Pythia, a Russian research lab, have also embraced a meme coin as a form of marketing. Equally, AI projects like Truth Terminal have used related meme coins as a way to fund the development of the project, however, Lessin says that he’s unconvinced that’s in the future of JellyJelly.
“My personal take is: eh,” he said, smiling. “That’s coming out of someone’s pocket in a zero sum way—and, I just don’t think that that feels great. Now, again, I am really open to it down the line.”
JELLYJELLY debuted mostly off vibes and fun, with no solid plans on what to do with it. This lack of clear direction combined with macro downward pressures sent it plunging. But, Magdon-Ismail says the token’s plan has progressed significantly since its spontaneous launch.
“[The plan has] developed very rapidly and swiftly,” he said. “The first thing we’re building into the app is the ability to prove and verify ownership of the coin—how much of the coin you own and how long you’ve held it. Once you do that you get a little Jelly coin badge.”
Alongside this development, a native JellyJelly wallet—akin to the Telegram wallet—is in the works which will allow you to pay and receive tips on the platform. While Magdon-Ismail is optimistic this feature is coming “soon,” he’s apprehensive to put any hard date on it.
Further down the line, the team plans to use data points relating to JELLYJELLY —number of tokens held, tipped, etc.—to determine what content the platform pushes onto users through its algorithm. This is one of many “experiments” that JellyJelly plans to deploy once the token is integrated.
“We don’t have to get it right the first time. We’re going to play with it a little bit,” Magdon-Ismail explained. “We’re going to experiment over the next couple months with ways to utilize the coin to present content in different ways.”
Edited by James Rubin
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