Author: Azuma
Original Title: The Man Who Struck a Chord with American Social Sentiment Has Issued a Token
Who is the most viral person in the U.S. right now? The answer might not be the familiar names like Trump or Musk, but a man named Nick Shirley.
Who is Nick Shirley? He is an independent investigative journalist currently stirring up social sentiments across the United States. On December 27, Nick Shirley posted several investigative videos on social media platforms like X, Instagram, and YouTube, alleging rampant fraud and corruption in Minnesota.
In the videos, Nick Shirley visited a daycare center in the state. Although it was supposed to be operating hours, the center was closed, and the 99 registered students listed in public records were nowhere to be found. Nick Shirley asked a local resident who had lived in the area for eight years about this, and the respondent said: "I've lived here since 2017, but I've never seen any children."
Nick Shirley stated in the video: "This is one of hundreds of 'daycare centers' that have received millions of dollars in government funding. This daycare, which can't even spell 'learning' correctly, received $1.9 million in tax-free support... and this is just one case among thousands of businesses in Minnesota suspected of fraudulent operations... Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is aware of these frauds but has never reported them."
Nick Shirley's videos sparked massive attention and discussion across the United States. Within just two days, the total views of the videos reached hundreds of millions, with the full 42-minute investigative video on X alone garnering over 100 million views.
Prominent figures from politics and business also joined the conversation with Nick Shirley. U.S. Vice President Vance repeatedly reposted and replied,直言 Nick Shirley's investigation is more valuable than all the 2024 Pulitzer Prize works; Musk also followed Nick Shirley's account, highly praising his media value and calling "learing" the "word of the year."
Here's some additional U.S. political context: Minnesota is traditionally considered a Democratic stronghold in American politics, but in recent years, its political landscape has shown significant changes, exhibiting characteristics of a swing state. More crucially, the current governor, Tim Walz, was Harris's running mate during the 2024 election and could have been in Vance's current position as vice president... so it's no surprise that Vance personally joined the fray.
Given such a high-profile topic, coupled with the social and political attributes that Meme culture thrives on, the on-chain world was quick to respond.
First, the community spontaneously炒作 around the most abstract misspelling from the investigation, "learing." The market cap of this Meme token on Solana is temporarily reported at $3.34 million.
紧接着, the community discovered that Nick Shirley疑似 registered on Zora's creator platform and issued a personal creator token, $thenickshirley, on Base. Subsequent interactions in the comments between Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong and Nick Shirley confirmed that the token was indeed issued by him.
As of writing, the market cap of $thenickshirley is temporarily reported at $5.65 million (having once reached a high of $9.02 million), and Nick Shirley himself has already earned $41,646 in creator revenue through royalties.
Brian Armstrong commented on this, stating that it proves content monetization on Base is more effective than on other platforms. Nick Shirley didn't forget to thank Brian Armstrong after making money, praising Base and Zora as "legendary."
Additionally, the prediction market Polymarket quickly followed up with speculation on the后续"处理" of this topic. The current odds are as shown in the figure below:
1 hour ago, Nick Shirley posted his Venmo and crypto addresses on X, openly accepting "donations."
From the emerging Meme hotspot $thenickshirley, to Nick Shirley's token issuance itself, to opening up "all-channel crowdfunding" and the ongoing external market发酵, we are witnessing a performance of the dance between network media and open finance.
This is not merely a Meme speculation but更像 a real-world experiment on "creator economy + on-chain content monetization" — an individual with immense传播力 and public issue influence in the real world, without sponsors, platform revenue shares, or advertisers, directly completed the monetization loop of attention using on-chain tools.
What it validates is not "how high this token can rise," but a more fundamental question: whether content can truly be monetized on decentralized platforms in a lower-friction, more transparent manner. Within this, perhaps lies the future evolutionary direction of the media industry.
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