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A sovereign nation launched a memecoin. I’m not one to speculate on top signals, but, well…

Today, we’ve got the Central African Republic’s memecoin, $ENRON, and Marinade’s DAO blacklisting sandwich attackers.

Central African Republic debuts memecoin managed by state-owned mineral firm 

In today's edition of sentences I never expected to write: The Central African Republic launched a Solana memecoin over the weekend, announced by President Faustin-Archange Touadéra on X.

President Touadéra has long been a crypto fan, following El Salvador’s lead in adopting bitcoin as legal tender in 2022. This latest foray into the blockchain could prove far more lucrative for the state: The CAR token peaked at over $800 million in market capitalization, according to DEX Screener. That’s nearly a third of the nation’s 2023 GDP of $2.76 billion. 

As is always the case with memecoins, however, CAR quickly crashed and currently holds $50 million in market cap. 

The obvious comparison here is to Donald Trump’s inauguration eve memecoin, but unlike TRUMP, CAR claims to have a purpose. 45% of CAR’s supply is earmarked for “country development” and “charity,” the project’s official website claims. CAR tokens have been locked up on the Solana token distribution platform Streamflow.

The CAR memecoin’s website and services are managed by COMIGEM, according to its terms and conditions. COMIGEM is a state-owned mineral buying office in the Central African Republic. 25% of the CAR supply is set aside for “Creators & Company,” which would presumably refer to COMIGEM. An email associated with CAR did not return requests for comment. 

Jupiter, the Solana DEX aggregator, was able to verify that it is in contact with the team behind the token, and it asked the team to make its blockchain contract uncancelable. 

This afternoon, Touadéra posted a video of a high school in the country that is “deteriorating rapidly” and said $50,000 worth of CAR tokens will be allocated within the next 30 days to repair the school.

In a video posted to X earlier today, Touadéra celebrated the memecoin launch “success” and cast the Central African Republic as being at the “forefront” of a “revolution” being wrought by blockchain.

The token’s market capitalization jumped some $200 million shortly after the president’s post, before quickly dipping lower than where it had been trading before.

— Jack Kubinec

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Not even the funniest of memecoins are safe:

Enron — a memecoin launched after the bankrupt energy company mired in scandal 20 years ago — made a comeback with the support of the creators of the “Birds Aren’t Real” meme.

The bit was well-pulled off, with some good gags like selling at-home nuclear “eggs.” No matter. The token’s market cap, once over $600 million, is now hovering at around $100 million.

— Jack Kubinec

Marinade is cracking down. A recent DAO proposal would block 73 validators from its Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM) due to repeated sandwich attacks — where validators manipulate transaction ordering to extract value at retail users' expense. The move follows community concerns and data spanning multiple epochs, highlighting bad actors gaining outsized rewards and degrading decentralization.

If passed, the blocklist would cut these validators off from Marinade’s delegated stake, reinforcing SAM’s commitment to a staker-first, market-driven redistribution system. To be clear, these validators can — and probably will — appeal their inclusion on any approved blocklist. There's profitability in second chances, after all. However, repeat offenders risk permanent exclusion from the ecosystem.

Takeaway: Blockchain is uniquely suited for programmatic accountability. So why have so many projects convinced themselves that catering to degens and bad actors is essential for success? We should be working to rip bad behavior out of Web3, root and stem. That means enforcing blocklists, implementing stronger slashing mechanisms and investing in robust governance tools like optimistic oracles and deep reputation systems. Blockchain was built for this — if only platforms weren't so afraid to alienate their scummiest (though often most prolific) contributors. Marinade’s proposal is a step in the right direction, but true accountability is going to require similar prioritization across Web3.

— Jeffrey Albus

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