Steve Chen, co-founder and former chief technology officer of video-sharing platform YouTube, has been supporting a memecoin project based on one of the first cat videos uploaded to the website in 2005.
Speaking to Cointelegraph from Taiwan on May 27, Chen, who has an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion, said he had been devoting 80 to 100 hours a week to backing the memecoin Pajamas (PAJAMAS). Based on Chen’s “first-ever cat video uploaded to YouTube” in 2005, the project is available on the Solana blockchain.
“This is my cat, Pajamas, playing and dancing to the tune of Nick Drake,” said the video description, uploaded to YouTube on May 22, 2005.
Chen told Cointelegraph that he wasn’t initially involved in the memecoin when the project first launched, but roughly a hundred users tagged him on X, prompting him to buy the token. According to the YouTube co-founder, the memecoin project was just one of many he was currently involved in in the tech space, including an artificial intelligence-based exchange-traded fund and investing in Taiwan-based startups.
Pajamas, the flesh-and-blood cat, is no longer with us, as the video was filmed 20 years ago. Kabosu, the basis for the Dogecoin (DOGE) logo and related meme, similarly passed away on May 24 at the age of 18. Chen said becoming more involved with the Web3 world through the project led him to discover a “complete emptiness of trust everyone has for everyone else.”
“Whenever I want to meet someone important or influential in the Web3 world, there is at least one person that warns me never to meet or talk to this person,” said Chen. “Every day on Telegram, there are at least 25+ new people trying to find a way to steal my money.”
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Many cat memes and tokens based on them have received various support from crypto users as social media and the internet grow. Currently, the creators of CatCoin (CAT) have threatened legal actions against BitForex over withdrawals on the exchange, and the Popcat (POPCAT) project — based on Solana, like Pajamas — generated $63.4 million in volume on a single day in March.
Launched in March, Pajamas had a market capitalization of more than $20 million and was trading at a price of roughly $0.02 at the time of publication.
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