Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)
Who is the most viral person in America 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 the independent investigative journalist currently stirring America's social sentiment. On December 27th, Nick Shirley posted multiple videos of his field investigations on social media platforms like X, Instagram, and YouTube, alleging rampant fraud and corruption in the state of Minnesota.
In the videos, Nick Shirley visited a daycare center in the state. The center was supposed to be open during operating hours, but its doors were closed, and the 99 registered students listed in public records were nowhere to be seen. Nick Shirley asked a local resident who had lived in the area for 8 years about this. 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 'daycares' receiving millions of dollars in government funds. This one, which can't even spell 'learning' correctly (it was spelled 'learing'), received $1.9 million in tax-free funding... 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 triggered 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 a hundred million views.
Prominent figures from politics and business also jumped in to interact with Nick Shirley. U.S. Vice President Vance repeatedly reposted and replied, bluntly stating that Nick Shirley's investigation was more valuable than all the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners; Musk also followed Nick Shirley's account, highly praising him for fulfilling the value of media and dubbing 'learing' the 'Word of the Year'.
Here's some additional U.S. political context: Minnesota is generally considered a traditional Democratic stronghold in American politics, but its political landscape has significantly changed in recent years, showing characteristics of a swing state. More crucially, the current governor, Tim Walz, was Harris's running mate during the 2024 election and had a chance to be in Vance's current position as Vice President... So it's no surprise why Vance personally entered the fray.
Faced with such a high-profile topic, especially one with the social and political attributes that Memes love, the on-chain world was naturally not late to the party.
First, the community spontaneously speculated 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.
Subsequently, the community discovered that Nick Shirley疑似 registered on Zora's creator platform and launched a personal creator token, $thenickshirley, on Base. Subsequent comment interactions 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). Nick Shirley himself has already earned $41,646 in creator royalties.
Brian Armstrong commented that this 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 predictions regarding the potential "handling" of this issue. The current odds are as shown in the image below:
One hour ago, Nick Shirley posted his Venmo and crypto addresses on X, openly accepting "donations".
From the new Meme hotspot $thenickshirley, to Nick Shirley's token issuance itself, to opening "all-channel crowdfunding" and the ongoing catalytic fermentation in the market periphery, we are witnessing a performance combining network media and open finance.
This is not merely Meme speculation; it更像 a real-world experiment in "creator economy + on-chain content monetization" — an individual with immense传播力 and public issue influence in the real world, without sponsors, without platform revenue shares, without advertisers, directly monetized attention through on-chain tools, completing the闭环.
What it validates is not "how high this token can go", but a more fundamental question: can content 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.
