Some were frustrated that it took six months for the Milady Cult Coin (CULT) to launch onto Ethereum. But founder of Remilia Corporation, Charlotte Fang, claims that it was all part of the plan. They also teased future CULT airdrops and compared the project to a religion.
“We waited for the right timing. You only get one chance to set the tone for a launch,” Fang told Decrypt. “We were giving away a lot of size, so it had to be right. Waiting some months doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things when you’re building a thousand year empire.”
Remilia Corporation is responsible for a number of crypto projects, but is most well-known for its Milady Maker NFT collection and derivative projects. Its community is notoriously edgy with a uniquely punk attitude, with layers of inside jokes that are hard for outsiders to decipher.
In June, Remilia raised $20 million in a CULT token pre-sale. Since then, a lot has happened in crypto. Donald Trump won the U.S. Presidential election, Bitcoin hit $100,000 and the bull market vibes started to roll in.
During the wait, tension started to build as pre-sale participants and wannabe token buyers started to grow concerned. A popular theory, although unconfirmed by Fang, was that the token launch was delayed due to Ethereum’s price tanking 37% shortly after the pre-sale. ETH has since recovered.
“We’re not operating anywhere in the same place as your generic meme coin,” Fang told Decrypt. “We knew we could afford slowing off the pedal even if it meant taking some knocks for a few months.”
CULT peaked at a market cap just shy of $500 million at launch, but over the coming 48 hours has retraced 50% to roughly $250 million. This makes it the 45th largest meme coin by market cap, according to CoinGecko.
By comparison, NFT project DeGods launched Solana meme coin DEGOD in September. It reached a peak of $326 million before its market cap dropped 79% to $35 million over the coming 48 hours. It’s been trading sideways ever since.
“Also, 6 months is exactly how long it takes to cure cheese,” Fang added.
Despite the token launch, the memes didn’t stop. Some community members pretended the token had never dropped, while others spread fake news that the claim period had already ended.
To claim the airdrop, users had to fill in an IQ test. It came with a warning that failing the test would result in your allocation being burned. As such, a new in-joke was born with Cult members claiming to have failed the IQ test—which was impossible, an unnamed source familiar with the test told Decrypt.
anyone else not able to claim $CULT because the iq test is too hard? i’ve been sitting here for a half hour i’m starting to cry now
— ashbie 🐛 (@sentientGirlx) December 9, 2024
Some Cult members believe the delay did more than just prepare for a smooth launch. Pseudonymous pre-sale participant Hieronymus believes the wait helped “weed out” people who aren’t aligned with the Milady state of mind.
Those who were doubting the token launch were flooded with “don’t worry about it” responses and deep fried AI-generated memes. Can’t get with the thick layers of irony? You’re probably not fit for the cult.
“We are a group of extremely aligned individuals,” Hieronymus told Decrypt. “From the outside it probably does look like a cult, and maybe we are.”
Unlike many other crypto communities, Milady members do not believe that you must hold a specific NFT or token to join the group. Instead, according to Hieronymus, it’s about being philosophically aligned with the community.
Fang is well known for their essays meditating on modern society. Maybe most notably, they have coined the term “Network Spirituality” which broadly refers to the cultural connections embedded through internet memes and references—encouraging the embrace 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 set aside for future airdrops over the next two years through its “manipulation fund.” Fang explained the drops will be used to coordinate community activities.
In the build up to the CULT launch, those who simply drew beetles started to rack up “beetle points” which contributed to their token allocation. Stunts like this help contribute to the confusion that outsiders experience when trying to engage with the Milady community.
Anyone looking to join the Cult must elbow their way through layers of deep fried AI-generated memes within the fictional “Cheeseworld” that appear to make no sense at all, avoid the intentional misinformation, and attempt to decipher the shared philosophy.
“Pure chaos but in the chaos we form and forge ourselves,” pseudonymous Milady Djnnt told Decrypt, in reference to how CULT is changing crypto. “What comes out is something unstoppable.”
The expectation is that anyone who successfully immerses themselves into the culture will find they have not just adapted, but fully indoctrinated themselves into what looks like and is often referred to as a cult. But Fang distances the project from the traditional definition of that term.
“What we are really is a memetic tribe, a collective set of shared self-organized ideas,” Fang explained. “Cult is borrowed as a cheeky euphemism, I don’t think we really are one, though we often are accused of it.”
Milady is much less structured in terms of social organization and restrictions when compared to traditional cults, Fang explained. Instead, they see Milady as fulfilling needs once served by organized religion, as it expands its moral and spiritual frameworks.
Either way, Fang believes other crypto projects are striving to be like the Milady’s, stealing the cult tag.
“Now it’s become a trend for crypto coins to claim they’re also ‘cultcoins’ to try and have our aura rub off on them,” Fang said, “but it’s obviously just shallow marketing with none of the actual definitional qualities.”
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
