Why Monkey’s Token Could be Elon Musk’s Next Favorite Meme

As Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine wrote in “The Crypto Story,” the line between what’s serious in crypto and what’s not can be very blurry, and projects can often straddle the line between both.

For example: Dogecoin, the infamous “meme coin” endorsed by Elon Musk. Often considered the world's first meme coin, it was originally formed by two developers from IBM and Adobe with the explicit goal of making fun of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies' plans to “take over the world.” Within two weeks of launching, Dogecoin became an instant hit on Reddit and its market value reached $8 million.

Then Elon Musk started tweeting about it. Within days, the value of Dogecoin exploded, rising and falling on the basis of Musk’s tweets. Dogecoin’s value rose more than 20% after Musk said that Tesla would accept the currency as a form of payment. Another spike occurred when Musk temporarily changed the logo of the Twitter app to a Doge logo. Today, Dogecoin is considered the seventh largest cryptocurrency in the world and has a market capitalization of nearly $10 billion.

The point is that, in crypto, the success of a project can often be separated from its supposed “seriousness” by the standards of traditional markets. Crypto projects framed on the basis of fun and basic virality can and have become extremely valuable – even in spite of the intentions of the founders themselves.

The Monkey’s token might just be the next in line for meme token status.

Founded by an anonymous crypto trader by the name “Monkey Man,” the Monkey’s token is positioned to leverage another personal interest of crypto’s leading meme-lord: his fascination with monkeys.

On X.com, previously known as Twitter, Elon Musk has developed a feature called “Lists,” which is designed to simplify the process of finding content by experts in their field. Musk himself has created a list specifically dedicated to one thing: monkeys. Will he share a meme about the Monkey’s token? And, if he does, will it lead to a large influx of Monkey’s investors?

The Monkey token community – made up of over 11,000 token holders and 4,300 Telegram subscribers – thinks it will. And as they wait to find out, the tribe is working together to build the Monkey’s token into a creative hub for primate-related activities.

For example, the Monkey token community, known as “the tribe,” has joined forces with Michael Robison, founder of the primate-focused animal sanctuary SPARTN, and the popular TikTok content creator SpiderMonkeyWinston. Together, they plan to film a docu-series highlighting Robison’s work and produce an instrumental kit using an array of monkey sounds. The team also recently acquired the assets of another monkey-related TikTok account, @mojothemonkey, which will grow their reach by over 11 million followers.

SPARTN Initiatives, founded by Robison, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the rescue, care and support of primates in the United States, specifically, spider monkeys, howler monkeys and macaques. As an organization, SPARTN focuses on the challenges faced by monkeys due to a lack of education, the availability of resources for the care of monkeys and restrictive laws that make it difficult for primates to live healthy lives. The long-term focus of SPARTN is to build a world-class animal sanctuary in Tennessee with a fully developed zoological husbandry program.

And that’s really the point: The Monkey’s token was partially founded as an experiment in philanthropy. The real-world impact of a rising Monkey’s token is the protection of primates using the power of cryptocurrency. Like other crypto projects that have raised significant funds for social or ecological projects, the Monkey’s team is betting that they can align investors' desire to do good with their desire for profit. And by combining these incentives with a token positioned for virality, $MONKEYS might just be the new $DOGE.