Dopamine release can happen in as fast as 0.2 seconds.
That's why vibe coding is so hot in the crypto space right now.
For a long time, the market environment hasn't been great, and I had lost interest in new things, like some of the "little toys" made by vibe coding. Even the "Life K-Line" game, which was so popular it made it to CCTV, didn't change my disappointed view on industry innovation.
In my original perception, the things vibe coding produces now could only be at the level of games like "Emperor's Growth Plan" made by the Flatfish Studio—having little to do with "doing serious work." They create buzz, not accumulation; emotion, not value. I preferred to believe what those who would still impact the world twenty years after their death said, and I'd rather spend my time on products that might still be great two decades from now, not on this noise that looks like it could be washed away by the next wave of trends.
Until today, after Crypto Veda's explanations and my colleagues practically forcing it on me, I spent a few hours playing Rug Pull Simulator (Token Launch Simulator), the meme exit game Rug Pull Simulator (a coincidental同名 with the previous one) by GMGN boss Haze (Brother Chicken), and Tykoo Muscle Bro's FDV guessing game Vesting Victim—all products of this vibe coding wave.
So addictive.
How to describe this kind of pleasure? It's like you've been watching long videos on Bilibili and suddenly try Douyin for the first time; or like being used to a slow-burning relationship and suddenly experiencing fast-food romance; or like someone long suppressed by life getting high on drugs for the first time.
Take the Token Launch Simulator, for example. You start from the perspective of a project side, which isn't exactly moral. You have a limited amount of startup capital, the product is still at the PPT stage, and you decide what to do next, how to play with your users and community.
One operational cycle is a month, and you can only do two things, so resources are limited. You invest your limited resources and money into product development, narrative spreading, community operations, etc. The game doesn't tell you which path is right. Then, uncertain events pop up one after another: sometimes funding comes through, sometimes regulators target you, sometimes the community suddenly spirals out of control, sometimes security risks explode.
The pleasure emerges right here.
This pleasure doesn't come from eventually winning A9, A10 levels of wealth, but from the constant, continuous, never-ending immediate feedback. You just can't stop.
Another example is Brother Chicken's Rug Pull Simulator, a testing ground for trading memecoins, a speed-run version of GMGN's game. The pleasure lies in the rhythm of "exiting at the top." Buy low, spend marketing points to pump the price. If it pumps too fast, you fear a rug pull; if it's too slow, you get impatient. Successfully exit at the top, and profits are immediately credited—it feels like you've truly mastered the market's rhythm. Fail, and you can immediately try again.
Dopamine release in 0.2 seconds, faster than feedback in real trading.
Then there's Vesting Victim. While it doesn't have high-frequency clicking or the直观刺激 of price charts, it plays on your intuition about valuation. Based on a project's TVL, user count, funding situation, you judge its FDV, input the number, and the next second the system tells you the deviation. This "second-level verification" makes it impossible to stop. You unconsciously want to play another round—this time I'll guess more accurately—your nervous system directly receiving reward signals.
This is also the most addictive part of vibe coding. It doesn't need grand narratives or long-term investment. Copilot, Cursor, AI templates have drastically compressed the time from "an idea to a playable demo." It also doesn't rely on any future promises. No one expects today's vibe coding to produce great projects; being "fun today" is enough.
We just need to make choices in the present, get immediate feedback, and experience the pleasure of operations and results directly mapping onto our nerves. And this kind of pleasure is more direct, real, and easier to spread virally on social media than any complex economic model, long-term strategy, or whiteboard prediction.
The essence of vibe coding is, in a market where no one believes in long-term narratives anymore, monetizing attention with the lowest delivery cost.
It is, in a sense, the industrialization of dopamine—small doses, fast feedback, low addiction threshold, high repeat engagement; a form that is more brutal for project teams and more honest for users; and a natural product of today's market environment.
So when this era arrives, don't resist it, and stop lecturing about profound insights and morality. Let's indulge together in these fast-food toys, enjoy the pleasure of immediate feedback, enjoy the dopamine.
Even if it might never be great.
