From Memes to Markets: Inside Crypto’s Push To Turn Attention Into an Asset Class
- As NFTs cool and markets reset, a new thesis is taking shape: that meme coins, creator tokens and prediction markets are converging into a measurable asset class built on attention flows.
- By blending blockchain tooling with prediction markets and institutional infrastructure, experts think raw cultural interest could soon become a tradable market.
Crypto’s having one of its periodic wobbles. Prices are shaky, liquidity’s thinning, and sentiment is drifting toward fear. Historically, it’s the kind of moment when smart investors start looking for the next structural shift. One of the more intriguing ideas is attention assets: financial primitives that derive their value from cultural heat, not cash flows.
If the concept sounds familiar, it is. Web3 thinkers have spent years talking about the attention economy – though usually in the context of creator monetization and social tokens. Attention assets are something altogether new, investable instruments whose price directly reflects the intensity, direction, or volatility of public attention.
What Are Attention Assets?
The closest analogues already exist: NFTs, memecoins, and SocialFi assets. Their prices move with hype cycles and cultural momentum, but they suffer from a structural problem: they capture attention-adjacency, not attention itself. They’re proxies.
A formal attention-asset class would aim to model, index, and trade attention as a measurable quantity, not just vibes. Think exposure to “Taylor Swift attention,” “Trump attention,” “AI attention,” or “Bitcoin Price attention.” If attention drives value in culture, markets, and technology, then investors should be able to trade it directly – or so the thinking goes.
Li Jin, Co-founder of crypto VC firm Variant Fund, says attention assets could capture and measure that transitory value in real time.
“In Web3, everyone in the value chain can benefit from being owners of attention assets, whether they originated the object of attention or merely paid attention early.”
From Intangible to Tradable
The argument for formalizing a new attention asset class rests on three pillars.
First, clarity. Definitions and standards would help investors distinguish attention-driven assets from more fundamental ones. Today, memecoins sit awkwardly beside L1 tokens and DeFi governance assets. Once you classify an asset, its …
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