Digital assets traded in the green today as Bitcoin hovered above $100,000, changing hands at $105,498. While that signaled stability for the overall market, political-based meme assets endured a bloodbath.

Buterin warned against the creation of politician-backed cryptocurrencies. He argued that investors could increase a politician’s wealth by simply holding their coin, without direct transactions. His criticism goes deeper, highlighting the risks such coins pose to democracy. They combine elements of gambling and donation with plausible deniability.

The Ethereum creator argued that ‘politician coins’ could open the door to bribery from ‘foreign nation-states.’

Ethereum (ETH) founder Vitalik Buterin is concerned about the rise of "political coins," memecoins such as MELANIA and TRUMP.

Buterin called for implementing incentives for layer 2 networks to allocate a portion of their fees to ETH using mechanisms like burning fees and staking.

The shake-up comes as Ethereum's reputation among builders has soured in recent months. Members of the broader crypto community are flocking to fast and cheap competitors like Solana, which has been quicker to accommodate the recent memecoin fervor.