The Milady CULT coin is finally launched: why did it take so long and what’s next?

Some were frustrated that Milady Cult Coin (CULT) took six months to launch on Ethereum. But Remilia Corporation founder Charlotte Fang claims it was all part of the plan. They also mocked future CULT airdrops and compared the project to a religion.

“We wait for the right moment. You only get one chance to set the tone for a pitch,” Fang said. Decipher. “We were giving away a lot of size, so it had to be right. “Waiting a few months doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things when you’re building a thousand-year empire.”

Remilia Corporation is responsible for several crypto projects, but is best known for its collection of NFTs and Milady Maker spin-off projects. Their community is notoriously edgy with a uniquely punk attitude, with layers of inside jokes that are difficult for outsiders to decipher.

In June, Remilia raised $20 million in a pre-sale of CULT tokens. Since then, a lot has happened in the cryptocurrency space. Donald Trump won the US presidential election, Bitcoin hit $100,000, and bull market vibes started to hit.

During the wait, tension began to rise as pre-sale participants and aspiring token buyers began to worry. A popular theory, although not confirmed by Fang, was that the token launch was delayed due to the price of Ethereum dropping 37% shortly after the pre-sale. Since then, ETH has recovered.

“We are not operating in the same place as your generic meme currency,” Fang said. Decipher. “We knew we could afford to slow down even if it meant taking a few hits for a few months.”

CULT peaked with a market capitalization just shy of $500 million at launch, but in the next 48 hours it has retreated 50% to approximately $250 million. This makes it the 45th largest meme coin by market cap, according to CoinGecko.

In comparison, NFT project DeGods launched the Solana DEGOD meme coin in September. It reached a high of $326 million before its market capitalization fell 79% to $35 million in the next 48 hours. Since then it has been operating laterally.

“Also, 6 months is exactly how long it takes to cure cheese,” Fang added.

Despite the launch of the token, the memes did not stop. Some community members pretended that the token had never dropped, while others spread fake news that the claim period had already ended.

To claim the airdrop, users had to complete an IQ test. It came with a warning that if you failed the test, your assignment would be burned. As such, a new inside joke was born in which cult members claimed to have failed the IQ test, which was impossible, said an anonymous source familiar with the test. Decipher.

Some Cult members believe the delay did more than just set up a smooth launch. Hieronymus, a pseudonymous pre-sale participant, believes the wait helped “weed out” people who are not aligned with Milady’s state of mind.

Those who doubted the token’s launch were inundated with “don’t worry” responses and fried AI-generated memes. Can’t stand the thick layers of irony? You are probably not fit for worship.

“We are an extremely aligned group of individuals,” Hieronymus said. Decipher. “From the outside it probably looks like a cult, and maybe we are.”

Unlike many other crypto communities, Milady members do not believe that you need to have a specific NFT or token to join the group. Rather, according to Hieronymus, it is about being philosophically aligned with the community.

Fang is well known for his essays that meditate on modern society. Perhaps most notably, they have coined the term “networked spirituality,” which broadly refers to cultural connections embedded through internet memes and references, encouraging the adoption of the digital self.

Is Milady a cult?

The token launch is just the beginning. Half of the token supply, according to its whitepaper, has been reserved for future airdrops over the next two years through its “manipulation pool.” Fang explained that the drops will be used to coordinate community activities.

In the lead-up to CULT’s release, those who simply drew beetles began accumulating “beetle points” that contributed to their token allocation. Tricks like this help contribute to the confusion outsiders experience when trying to interact with Milady’s community.

Anyone who wants to join the Cult must fight their way through layers of fried AI-generated memes within the fictional “Cheeseworld” that seem to make no sense, avoid intentional misinformation, and attempt to decipher the shared philosophy.

“Pure chaos, but in chaos we are formed and forged,” said the pseudonym Milady Djnnt. Decipherin reference to how CULT is changing cryptocurrencies. “What comes out is something unstoppable.”

The expectation is that anyone who successfully immerses themselves in the culture will find that they have not only adapted, but have become completely indoctrinated into what appears to be a cult, and is often referred to as such. But Fang distances the project from the traditional definition of that term.

“What we really are is a memetic tribe, a collective set of shared self-organized ideas,” Fang explained. “Cult is borrowed as a blatant euphemism, I don’t think we really are, although we are often accused of it.”

Milady is much less structured in terms of social organization and restrictions compared to traditional cults, Fang explained. Instead, they see Milady as fulfilling needs that were once served by organized religion, as she expands their moral and spiritual frameworks.

Either way, Fang believes other crypto projects are striving to be like Milady’s, stealing the cult label.

“It’s now become a trend for cryptocurrencies to claim that they are also ‘cult currencies’ to try to rub our aura onto them,” Fang said, “but it’s obviously just superficial marketing without any real defining qualities.”

Edited by Stacy Elliott.