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DEGENS: DOWN & OUT IN THE CRYPTO CASINO
Feb. 12, 2025. 13 mins. read.
26 Interactions
How memecoins monetised nihilism.
Degen – short for degenerate – is a term used to describe crypto investors who like to think of themselves as impulsive enthusiastic risk-takers and market outsiders. For the film-in-progress Degens: Down & Out In the Crypto Casino, directors Brian McGleenon and Joe Haughey focus on the prankster-esque desperation of many in this world. As they say on their website, “The film explores the inner world of one of the most fascinating and overlooked counter-cultural movements of our time. A world inhabited by Degens, short for degenerates, who invest their meager income into memecoins.” These are the people who have minted coins with names like Shitcoin, Cumrocket, Amber Turd and HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu.
To some degree, they have also forced mainstream media to repeat these “vulgarities” that, of course, only reflect and reify the vulgarity particularly here in the USA where leading politicians or by comedian talk show host Bill Maher on CNN say ‘fuck’ regularly. It’s all indicative of a collapsing or fragmenting narrative in the context of the decline or recline of western civilization.
To elucidate this shadow world of high (on acid) finance, McGleenon and Haughey have incorporated a number of smart commentators. These range from Gordon Grant (he will be my follow-up interview), a cryptocurrency derivatives trader and the Head of Trading at Genesis, to leading US Marxist academic Richard D. Wolff and to (not least of all) PizzaT.
Full disclosure: I work with PizzaT on music under the banner of R.U. Sirius and Phriendz, which spins off of his own Phriendz music and other projects. We’ve even composed a theme song together for the Degens project titled ‘Degens & Phriendz’ that will be available soon. Aside from being a Sirius fellow and an astonishingly talented musician, composer and guitarist, Pizza, as described by the filmmakers… “is the center of all this madness. The memecoin groups orbit him like satellites spinning out of control. ”So set your stun guns to out-of-control, and dive into this interview about Degens: Down and Out in the Crypto Casino.
RU Sirius: What inspired you guys to make the Degens movie?
DEGENS: The story of Degens documentary all began about four years ago – which is centuries in the world of crypto – when I worked at a grubby Fleet Street news outlet in London. Someone on the editorial team asked if I knew anything about “this crypto thing,” and I started writing a blog for the newspaper.
Then Joe (co-director and co-producer of Degens) and I – we’ve known each other since we were in short trousers – started chatting about different stories that could be covered for this live crypto blog. Through this, we began dragging the shittiest of the shitcoin groups out of the filthy margins of the internet and giving them headlines on a national publication, which also has quite a decent international readership.
We wrote about things like Amber Turd, Shiba Inu and CumRocket. Then, through Joe, I got word that Dogebonk was sending a satellite to the moon. Well, they didn’t make it to the moon – they only reached low Earth orbit – but that was enough to write a few stories. We published the video of the launch, which showed a small satellite with a placard meme about Dogebonk beating Elon Musk’s plan to launch a Dogecoin into space. Dogebonk got there first.
That got us thinking more about these fringe memecoin groups – communities that usually start (and often end) on Telegram or 4chan. We saw that this was fertile ground for weird stories of desperation among the hopeless. So we decided to collect those stories and tell them in a long-form piece.
That led to me writing a feature-length article for The Independent called Inside the Dog-Eat-Doge World of Memecoin Communities. The piece was very successful, got lots of eyeballs, and covered everything from Dogebonk to the deluded community surrounding Richard Heart.
Then HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu came onto our radar. It seemed like the most refined, purest version of the nihilism many memecoins exhibit (most unconsciously, but some, like Dogebonk and HPOS10i, knew exactly what they were doing). They monetised nihilism and blossomed into self-aware subcultures that got all the ironies about promoting a shitcoin purely because it’s shit.
Joe and I thought, why not make a documentary about these memecoin subcultures? From the unironic Shib Army to the more complex, humor-driven communities like HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu and Dogebonk – there was a rich story to tell.
In our research, we came across one of the most unique characters in the memecoin world – and maybe on the planet: PizzaT. He was a driving force behind the artwork and culture that emerged from the HPOS10i community and was also involved in Dogebonk.
The man must have swallowed a fusion reactor along with a lot of psychedelics, to have the energy and insight to produce so much bizarre, creative content for these subcultures.
We got in touch with PizzaT – or maybe he got in touch with us – and he was completely honest, candid, and unafraid to open up about why he does what he does. When we first contacted him, he was living in a van in a McDonald’s car park, having just been sacked.
It quickly became clear to us that PizzaT is the center of all this madness. The memecoin groups orbit him like satellites spinning out of control.
The executive decision – by us and our backers – was that audiences should experience the world of memecoin subcultures through PizzaT’s eyes. And they should keep their eyes peeled and their ears clean because his artwork looks like it came from somewhere over a rainbow made of pure LSD, and his music has lyrics that are both light and frivolous as a morning latté but also deeply heartfelt.
All of this combined with PizzaT’s hero’s journey – very Joseph Campbell – to make it into a collapsing, late-stage capitalist America (and maybe he even gets the girl). It’s coming together as a cult-classic feature film.
The film is becoming both a time capsule of the madness we’re living through, and a surreal West Coast fever dream where PizzaT’s final throw of the dice never settles, but keeps rolling on, into infinity.
RU: Cryptocurrency is both the plaything of the wealthy (particularly with Musk and Trump taking over the USA) and, as per Degens, a plaything of the desperate. How do you think the culture of crypto is evolving since you started working on the film?
DEGENS: It’s strange how fast crypto has been embraced by the mainstream. Traditional finance incumbents have taken it seriously since early 2024, with the launch of multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs.
It’s insane to think that major fund managers would even consider a 2% portfolio allocation into Bitcoin. And while we haven’t seen it yet, it’s entirely plausible that we’ll get ETFs for things like Dogecoin and Solana – the token of what’s essentially a shitcoin casino.
At one end of the spectrum, you have the big players, capable of manipulating the market by moving a small percentage of their funds. And at the other end, you still have all the desperados clinging to the crypto-beast as it slouches forward – at the time of Trump’s inauguration on January 20th and beyond. Everyone hoping to strike gold, while the crypto exchanges play the role of modern-day Levi’s and pickaxe sellers – profiting no matter who hits the jackpot or loses it all.
RU: The degree of desperation and the streak of nihilism makes me think of the populist outburst of enthusiasm here in the USA for Luigi Mangione and his shocking assassination of a ruling class CEO. Do you see a connection? And secondly, is this mainly a US thing? Do other advanced economies have less mania and desperation than us? Or is this widespread?
DEGENS: I think the denizen of the crypto casino might chime with the feeling that the populist enthusiasm for Luigi Mangione and the CEO assassination is related. It comes from the same desperation, the feeling of zero security, atomized community, and a lack of long-term employment prospects in a rapidly accelerating hyper-capitalist road to AI-ensured-21st century-serfdom. The USA is definitely at the forefront of all things crypto related, having a new president who is the king of the shitcoin casino, launches his own shitcoins the weekend before he gets inaugurated. A leading kingpin of memecoin culture is the president, and there is also Trump’s Grima Wormtongue, in the form of the dogecoin-promoting Elon Musk. The U.S.A. is definitely at the center of this new phenomenon. Places like Dubai have crypto people living there, but only for the tax dodge reasons, they don’t originate any cultural waves. Maybe the far east has some, but mostly copies of what originated in the U.S.A.
RU: The subtitle ‘Down and Out in the Crypto Casino’ speaks to the fact that the crypto world is a reflection of what some have called ‘casino capitalism’. Just as financial markets have long been divorced from the question of whether money is creating actual material wealth, now poor and middle-class people want their money to also make money without having to engage in labor or material production or service industry stuff. What do you think might be the long range consequences of all this? And do you think it’ll work for the rabble? Will the service industry slaves be able to jump ship?
DEGENS: I don’t think it ever did work for the rabble. Look at Trump’s memecoin launch before he got inaugurated. The desperadoes that bought in got rug pulled by those that were in the know and bought early: most of those people are informed and rich anyway.
Crypto money and working on the internet pushing around digits on a screen, and never meeting people face-to-face… Marx would see this as the ultimate in alienation. Who wants to build a chair physically out of real wood when you can AI-generate online chairs and make them into NFTs and get your crypto friends to buy them in the speculation that they’ll appreciate, then sell to the greater mug that comes along.
Everyone is trying to play the crypto casino as a means to an end, but the means always becomes the end, and the means is a life of losing hours upon hours watching a lonely screen and moving supposed value from one token to the next in the hope that one day you’ll get into one early enough to escape this maze of torment. But it rarely happens. And people that do make it big… well, they want more and they plough it all back into the casino again, the means becomes the end…
RU: In your exploration, I’ll bet you bumped into some odd expressions of idealism and utopianism connected to all this. Can you tell me if anything like that stands out in your mind?
DEGENS: Yes, people that were involved in the early days of Decentralised Autonomous Organisations… they thought this would lead to some new version of the corporation that would be much more transparent, accountable and democratic. But in reality these things have turned out much worse. Think of a bag of rats eating each other until there’s only one rat left… because these DAOs are inhabited by internet people. No one wants to doxx themselves and no one wants to meet physically. There is no human connection. The anonymity causes people to behave in ways they wouldn’t face to face. I don’t know if Network States will have any true fraternity. I’d say John Zerzan would have something to say about those, or Jean Baudrillard, as a true expression of the Simulacrum.
RU: I’ll ask the inevitable Mindplex question: do you see the current excitement about AI and LLMs, which has really exploded alongside your film process, as having an impact? Are the crypto-rabble using LLMs?
DEGENS: Yes. When you look back, the whole AI wave is incredibly recent. Our research, interviews, and in-depth investigation into the memecoin phenomenon for the Degens documentary actually predate the November 2022 launch of ChatGPT.
Before the mass adoption of large language models, creating memecoins was an arduous task requiring a solid grasp of coding as well as a decent understanding of currencies and economics. You needed enough knowledge to write a Tokenomics Whitepaper for your shitcoin so that potential investors could maintain the illusion that it actually mattered.
But now, in the early light of this strange AI dawn, memecoin developers can simply use large language models to generate the code and launch their tokens – with no coding skills, no graphic design ability, and no creativity whatsoever required. You can even ask an LLM to suggest the best memecoin names, and it will do so instantly. Human agency is no longer needed allowing memecoiners to let their brains atrophy as they drift gently into this long AI-powered goodnight.
Adding to this, we now have AI-generated memecoin platforms like Pump.fun, capable of producing tens of thousands of tokens per day. There are also AI agents tirelessly promoting memecoins on online forums and social media, and recently, we even saw the emergence of ai16z, now rebranded to Eliza OS, a decentralized venture capital DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) run entirely by autonomous AI agents. These AI-driven entities may eventually be able to analyze data, execute trades, and manage investments, offering humans a system to optimize their portfolios and conduct intelligent trades.
RU: This seems like an exciting film for this historical moment. What’s up with the practical side of getting it done? And do you want to make an investment pitch here on Mindplex?
DEGENS: The film is truly a passion project and a time capsule of the early days of two groundbreaking technologies – blockchain and AI – and how they are poised to disrupt nearly every aspect of human existence. Our documentary has captured the very beginning of this revolution. We were there when Dogecoin and Dogebonk memecoiners were fringe degenerates, dreaming of life-changing wealth with a dash of idealism about decentralized monetary systems and societies.
Now, as I write this in January 2025, Elon Musk has confirmed his intention to put the U.S. Treasury on a blockchain! Meanwhile, our Dogecoin, Dogebonk, Shiba Inu, HPOS10I, Phriendz, and countless other dreamers are still at it. Down in the trenches, nothing has changed. They’re still chasing life-changing wealth and a way out of the poverty trap that’s getting tighter. Their idealism about decentralized monetary systems may have dulled slightly, but their passion remains as strong as ever to throw it all onto the latest shitcoin hyped in a Telegram group.
People can get involved with the documentary. This is most welcomed. Just visit degensfilm.com – we’re actively reaching out to anyone interested in joining as an executive producer, co-producer, or production funder. Get in touch!
We’re also fortunate to have development funding from Northern Ireland Screen (Game of Thrones), and we qualify for the UK Low Budget Tax Credit, which covers up to 53% of the total budget. Plus, our local funding agency will match up to one-third of direct Northern Ireland spending.
Let us know your thoughts! Sign up for a Mindplex account now, join our Telegram, or follow us on Twitter.
4 Comments
4 thoughts on “DEGENS: DOWN & OUT IN THE CRYPTO CASINO”
The documentary "Degens: Down & Out In the Crypto Casino" explores the lives of memecoin investors, capturing their desperate yet humorous pursuit of quick gains. It features unique characters like PizzaT and highlights the chaotic, entertaining world of memecoins.
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Folks, if you are takin’ requests, I got one. I’d pay good meme token to read another interview on this same topic—this time with the "leading US Marxist academic Richard D. Wolff." What do the commies think ‘bout the crypto meme hyper-capitalist market? Now that’d be somethin’ worth readin’. Damn good piece, by the way—I sure enjoyed it.
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Oh man, you nailed it in the DAO paragraph. Only five or six years ago, we dared to dream the sweet dream of DAO as a practical governance system. The thing really had some folks believing they were onto something revolutionary—including me. Alas, it took only five years to turn it into a digital version of a rat king! The misery here isn’t just the fact that everybody fights for control, or the lack of human connection, or the absence of real accountability. It’s not even about anonymous avatars making power moves. The real tragedy is that, in every DAO, the biggest and most ruthless players are winning.
Irony after irony—the DAO model, meant to be the antidote to traditional corporate structures, has ended up as a new camouflage for the same old corporate control, but wrapped in blockchain. And somehow, it’s shaping up to be even worse. Why, why, why? True, from the start, the early applications were undeniably rooted in chaos, and this was inevitable as it was fueled by the rapid prototyping mindsets of the desparate young folks. But the assassin appeared from within—greed. Once greed took hold, DAOs, just like traditional governments amd corporates, became another playground where the powerful exploit everyone else for sheer profit and control.
For any self-respecting degen—if self-respect doesn’t contradict the nature of a degen—I say it’s time to step up and actually steer this thing toward the true sweet dream. Cool down the profit machines and focus on the ideal. If not, how is this any better than the systems we claim to be countering, a counter culture that counters it's own ideals?
Scary enough, the likes of Elon, Trump, Wall Street ETF guys, and governments are moving in to seal the deal. The arrival of these big financial players before the full or even partial realization of the ideal shouldn’t be welcomed or celebrated as a sign of mainstream acceptance. These guys see DAOs as just another casino, profit machines waiting to be grabbed. While the average crypto enthusiast is busy debating governance proposals in Discord, the heavyweights are already crafting every proposal in their image. They don’t need to break DAOs; they just outspend and outmaneuver everyone until they quietly own the whole thing—so long as greed remains the motivator. The dream was never just profit. The dream was decentralization. Focus on the ideal, let it mature, and the profit will follow—naturally and, most importantly, decentralized!
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Nravo, bravo, guys! It’s been a long time since I read a really warm interview. Thank you, RU, for this. As a part time degen, I can see the piece captures the strange mix of desperation, irony, and sheer chaos that defines the memecoin world—or, in other words, my generation!
I have a question, though: the whole idea of monetizing nihilism—knowingly throwing money at something just because it’s absurd, yet still expecting profit from this absurdity—is scary. My fingers on the keyboard feel like this reflects something bigger— yet my eyes on the real world, my ears on my neighbors feel differet, they tell me maybe this is a doomed generation stuck in a system where gambling on internet jokes seems like the only way out.
The surreal nature of it all is wild, even exciting. At first glance, it looks like a counterculture revolution heading to a better world, but I believe, not entirely though, that behind all this facade, it’s kind of tragic, a temporary superficial escape route heading nowhere!
Anyways, the interview is wonderfully crafted, and it felt personal—for me, at least.
Looking forward to seeing how the film brings all this to life.
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