Regulatory crackdown spawns anti-SEC 'CultureCoin'

Creators of NotWifGary aim to "stand [their] ground against Gary Gensler and the SEC" in support of Ethereum and open-source developers.

A small group of community members have come together to create a decentralized memecoin known as NotWifGary (NWG) — a project taking an anti-Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), pro-Ethereum stance. This development follows regulators’ recent intensified focus on the crypto industry

Although some members of NWG have a background in the zkEVM ecosystem Linea, NWG Founder Marco Monaco explicitly stated that the project has no ties to Linea or Consensys on May 15.

Cointelegraph has asked Marco Monaco for comment but had not heard back by publication time.

My involvement in this project is 100% at personal level and I’m not doing this in my official @LineaBuild role. This project is not tied at all to Linea or @Consensys, even if $NWG will stand with similar companies and support them during their journey against the SEC.

Together with 11 “brave friends,” Monaco attributed the creation of the project to “regulatory uncertainty” that is impacting Ethereum. 

The official NWG project posted on X on May 15, stating that it aims to “stand […] against Gary Gensler and the SEC, who are unlawfully threatening digital property by attacking Ethereum and open-source developers.”  

NotWifGary [$NWG] will be a memecoin, more specifically a CultureCoin. It will go live in the most decentralized way with a truly fair launch. The 12 project supporters proposing $NWG are all doxxed http://notwifgary.xyz/, and 100% of the allocation will be deployed in a pool.

On its website, the project states that its memecoin will launch on Linea as an ERC20 token, “deployed from a multisig wallet involving Original Project Supporters.”

The NWG project is not yet live and is set to have it’s liquidity pool (LP) bootstrapped through community donations to ensure the token is “sufficiently decentralized” and has a “fair launch.” 

Donations will not provide any allocation of $NWG tokens. Donors will receive the “$NWG Launch Team” SBT.

The SEC has recently taken regulatory action against high-profile company Robinhood, issuing a Wells Notice on May 4, and caused Exodus’ NYSE listing to become delayed on May 10.

Related: Crypto Biz: SEC targets Robinhood, Grayscale’s Ethereum ETFs, and more

Democratic Party Rep. Wiley Nickel explained on May 15 that the SEC were turning crypto into “a political football,” unnecessarily forcing President Biden to “choose sides” on the matter. 

Nickel’s comment follows on the heels of the proposed Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) 121 rule mandating that SEC-reporting entities record custodied crypto as liabilities on balance sheets.