When a cryptocurrency exchange lists the first Altcoin, it warns executives of Bitcoin-only institutions as they stand up to an endless cycle of launching Memecoin.
“The moment the exchange adds one non-bitcoin token, they are signing up to sign up for Memocoin's eternal hamster wheel,” River Financial CEO Alex Leishman said on the X-Post on March 29th. “If you don't list tokens issued to ETH, it doesn't make sense to list ETH. The same applies to Solana,” Leishman said.
River is not interested in building a “successful crypto casino”
Leishman said there are many “successful crypto casinos” but he has no interest in building the building. River Financial is a Bitcoin-only financial institution focused on buying and selling Bitcoin (BTC). Several companies have opted for the Bitcoin-only approach, including Swan Bitcoin, Bull Bitcoin and Decentralized Exchange Bisq.
Leishman argued that multi-asset trading platforms prioritize short-term speculation over wealth accumulation.
“The casino business model is built around the biggest extraction from customers, and the Bitcoin-only model is focused on helping people build long-term wealth.”
Critics have expressed this point ahead, even during the early 2024 memo coin-up trend. In April 2024, A16Z Chief Technology Officer Eddie Lazarin said Mimecoin would hinder the long-term vision of the crypto, which maintains many of the original builders of this space.
“At best, it looks like a dangerous casino,” Lazarin said.
Memecoin's market capitalization has declined by 27.94% over the past 12 months. Source: CoinMarketCap
According to CoinmarketCap data, Memecoin's market capitalization has fallen significantly since the beginning of 2025.
However, although altcoins have historically been more volatile than Bitcoin, offering them together has been an advantage for crypto exchanges and brokers.
Related: Are you waiting for the Altcoin season? The data suggests that it is already here
On February 12th, Robinhood, which provides several cryptocurrencies to its customers, reported a 700% year-on-year rise in cryptocurrency revenue for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Some traders seem to interpret the exchange memo coin list as a verification of its reliability. Of the 15 memokines listed by Crypto Exchange Binance in 2024, 12 of them went live in exchanges, Onchain Analyst AI_9684XTPA said in November.
Bobby Ong, founder of Coingecko, recently speculated that the Memecoin market could be heading towards a “extreme case of electricity law.” There, 99.99% fail, some of them rise to the top and endure.
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