The NFT project that raised millions. Collections that once reached floors of 60+ ETH, 10+ ETH and 3 ETH. One of the biggest and most engaged audiences in Web3. And then… almost complete silence. Today, those same collections sit around 0.9 ETH, 0.02 ETH and 0.02 ETH. Guess who? @Memeland For years, Memeland’s leadership has largely disappeared from the community, occasionally resurfacing to promote a new product or initiative. Before I go any further, I want to make something clear: This isn’t a hate post. Memeland has been financially good to me. I’ve met a lot of great people through the community, and I’ve hosted several Memeland events simply because I genuinely loved the project. This post comes from frustration and from multiple attempts to speak directly with the team. I don’t think Memeland is a rug. I also don’t think the team is sitting around doing nothing. They are clearly building. So what went wrong? In my opinion, two things: Communication and the lack of a clear Web3 strategy. Here’s my understanding of what is currently happening: • MemeStrategy is doing… something. The explanation seems to be that because it’s a public company, they can’t talk much about it. Fair enough but public companies communicate what they’re building all the time. We all know what Apple does. • RWA — they appear to be building a product that lets people store, tokenise and potentially borrow against TCG assets. I actually think this is very interesting. • Grade10 continues to run events, particularly in Asia. • They appear to be opening a physical shop selling Potatoz and other products. • They’re producing some genuinely cool Potatoz animated shorts on Instagram. And for the record: I still love the Potatoz art. So there IS activity. Which makes the silence toward the original Web3 community even more confusing. Where I think things went wrong: For some reason, much of the content appearing on Instagram never makes it to X or Discord. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Either there is a serious breakdown in communication strategy, or the Web3 side of Memeland simply isn’t considered important anymore. Neither option is particularly encouraging for holders. A large proportion of the people who worked on the NFT collections also appear to have moved on. And then there was Captainz. After holders waited so long for the reveal, I simply don’t think the artwork delivered. I respect the decision to experiment. Taking creative risks is good. But one of the biggest criticisms of the original collection was repetition and lack of differentiation and somehow the reveal repeated the same problem. Then the narrative shifted from PFP to TCG. I actually don’t hate that idea. The reveal mechanic was fun and turning Captainz into a card-based ecosystem could have been interesting. But if you’re building something inspired by TCGs, you need enough visual variety, characters, factions, lore and world-building to support it. Where was that plan? Where was the lore? Where was the character development? Where was the game? It felt like the narrative came before the product strategy. Then came the experiments. Stakeland — interesting idea. It didn’t work and now appears effectively dead. MemePay — another experiment that doesn’t seem to have gained meaningful traction. Acetrader - dead. Experimentation itself isn’t the problem. Web3 companies SHOULD experiment. The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be a coherent thread connecting these experiments back to Memeland, its NFTs or the people who funded and supported the ecosystem in the first place. And then there’s the community. This might be the biggest issue of all. There barely feels like there is one anymore. And that shouldn’t be surprising.

“The flaccid afterlife of the art NFT” This is a must read old article that made me think about recent events and projects pivoting. Link on the next post. My take 👇 If NFTs are going to make it, the industry needs to start thinking beyond Web3. Liquidity is drying up, users are leaving, yet teams keep trying to do everything instead of focusing on what they can actually deliver. We need more diverse audiences, particularly women, and activations designed to attract people outside crypto. If you’re spending millions on events, make sure they’re also marketing opportunities to the wider world, not just expensive parties for existing holders. Most importantly, start hiring talent from outside Web3. People who understand brand building, storytelling, IP and long-term strategy. Ideally people that understand both worlds. NFTs don’t need more hype. They need vision, focus and execution.