The Volatile World of Internet Capital Markets is Just Getting Started

In a world where anyone can spin up a token in minutes, the lines between speculation, community, and real utility are blurring fast. Just ask a software developer who went to bed a builder and woke up with a million-dollar market cap.

The Unlikely Story of VERNUS 

Zoltán Cserei is a software developer and founder of Vernus, a platform for people to pay for individual pieces of content instead of expensive subscriptions. 

Tech-savvy but new to the crypto space, Cserei was recently exploring the Solana ecosystem. On June 24, He decided to launch a token on the Solana launchpad app, Believe. 

After deploying the VERNUS token, Cserei was brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed when his phone started blowing up. A community had quickly formed around the token, and Cserei started to engage with them. 

“The community was keeping me awake,” he said. “I never talked to anyone at Believe,” Cserei added. 

The Vernus token hit a $2.5 million market capitalization within hours, an unexpected development for Cserei. 

Launchpads Make Issuing a Token Easy

Such is the new world of “Internet capital markets,” the concept of making it easy to launch a token. This can be a project or an idea to fund and conduct marketing activities—and not always just meme coins. 

These “launchpads,” like Believe, are fighting for a piece of the action in this relatively new-ish sector of the crypto economy. 

The precursor to all of this, of course, is the Solana-based meme coin launching platform Pump.fun, which in June announced plans to raise $1 billion at a $4 billion valuation in its own token sale. 

Pump.fun’s success, which has earned the platform well over $300 million so far in 2025, has led apps like Believe to copy the business model – allow anyone to Introduce new cryptocurrencies to the market, and charge fees for launching these tokens. 

“It’s a really tiny market frankly,” said Spencer Huang, ex-managing director of CoinList and the founder of the Ethereum-based launchpad Rova. “There are only a handful of legit projects that are launching each month,” he added. 

Some even call this concept “meme coins for business” to garner attention to a project, as Cserei did for Vernus. 

The Pump That Started It All

The majority of Solana-based token launches over the year and a half have been purely speculative meme coins, not legitimate projects building businesses. 

According to Dune Analytics, over 11.7 million tokens have been launched on Pump.fun since that platform’s launch in January 2024.

A very tiny smattering of these meme-based speculative cryptocurrencies, like Fartcoin, with its flatulence-inducing $1 billion market cap, succeed long-term. 

Outside of meme coins, a handful of AI-focused token projects have also been listed on Pump.fun to some success. This includes Alchemist AI, which has a $100 million market cap. 

Unfortunately, the vast majority of cryptocurrencies launched this way simply do not make it, quickly zeroing out and ending up in the dustbin of speculators’ wallets. 

Since Launching in October 2024, Fartcoin’s Price Has Gone as High as $2. Source: BeInCrypto

The Believe launchpad rebranded itself earlier this year from a personal token launchpad for influencers called Clout. 

The company, which also has its own LAUNCHCOIN token on the Believe app, says it specializes in serious projects trying to raise capital or build a community in the token markets. 

Believe Chief of Staff Taylor Fox says the app is “For legitimate founders /businesses/companies/creators outside of purely meme coins.”

Communities Crave Real Projects

This is likely why Zoltán Cserei’s Vernus token did so well on Believe, at least initially. The fact that Vernus is working on something real and is not just another meme coin is why Cserei thinks there was interest in the token right when it launched on Believe. 

“I feel like they appreciate that I have an app with real utility,” Cserei said about his community. 

Yet sustaining that success can be elusive for projects launching this way. Since the VERNUS token was deployed on June 24, the market cap has cratered from millions to just tens of thousands of dollars daily. 

However, the Vernus founder is hopeful about the future of his project. Cserei has decided to lock 30 million of the VERNUS tokens until November 2025. The decision to lock down future tokens came at the Vernus community’s request. 

“What I did was just being curious about the technology,” Cserei said about his experience launching on Believe. “A community will grow over time, hopefully. A real one, of the users of the product, not of speculators.”