The Dev

My first encounter with crypto was in 2014, where we used Bitcoin at work to pay “bug bounties” to ethical hackers who found security vulnerabilities. At the time, I dismissed crypto as simply interesting and (tragically) didn’t invest until 2018. Once I did, I did not respect memecoins and did not consider owning any until 2024.

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Over time, I realized that memes were a form of human expression in response to the inhumanity of traditional finance. So I decided to hunt for a small-cap memecoin in a favorite ecosystem to call home for the long haul. I eventually stumbled upon a freshly launched, two-day-old project that I naively believed was safe and community focused. I moved in fast, became one of its biggest investors, and shouted its name from the rooftops. I became the simple shill I once looked down on.

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A month later, I got rugged like a starry-eyed newb.​ The signs were there. I was the fool. 

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I didn’t want to accept defeat, but choosing not to meant I would have to create the safe meme I wanted myself. Fleme was conceived in my mind the night I found out about the rug, while I was lying in a hotel bed. Fleme is a little bit of me in that moment: dumb but determined to do what is good. I knew exactly what he looked like.

My wife was surprisingly on board. It took over a year, but Fleme eventually came to life.

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