(Not) just monkeying around: Play, proliferation, and personae in meme coin speculation

How do fervent communities of belief around cryptocurrencies form and what fuels their expansion? Victor Turner’s rites of passage framework offers insights into this acculturation process, helping demonstrate how spatial metaphors, temporality, imitation, and performances of hierarchic roles all play key functions in the investment and promotion of meme coins. I argue that the expansion of meme coins communities primarily relies on the proliferation of personae that represent a corresponding digital asset’s speculative imaginary.