At the recent Paris Blockchain Week 2025, many of the world’s foremost experts on blockchain technologies, including cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and AI, gathered to discuss the state of the industry and the future of these emerging technological tools. However, during the conference, Messari CEO Eric Turner also delved in-depth into his opinions on less-than-savory recent developments within the sector, such as recent memecoins and blatant rug pulls.
As Turner details, he initially found memecoins to be fun and harmless. “I really like the concept. Early on, building a community and everything made a lot of sense to me.”
However, as he watched the same sequence of events unfold again and again under the guise of “memes,” he quickly grew disillusioned and frustrated. “When you think about it in terms of gambling, I feel we got to the point where yes, it was gambling, but the dice were rigged. And you look at a lot of memecoin launches, and they were just rigged against people buying them in the first place.”
Learning Valuable Lessons
Fortunately, Turner believes the market has seen “that wash out,” and now thinks it’s very healthy for “where we are as an industry.” Referring to a particular memecoin launch and the subsequent rug pull, he said that he hoped the bitter taste it left in people’s mouths would serve to motivate users and teach an important lesson. “I hope it will get us back to the point where we are building meaningful things.”
“And I think everything we do in this industry is a lesson learned,” he added. “You see how people are going to interact with the technology, see the demand just to launch new assets, the platforms that you can do it on. And I think, if anything, that experience was great. There are still going to be quality assets in that sector, but again, I think the washout that we’ve seen over the past, let’s call it three months or so, has been good.”
In tandem with Turner’s comments, Thomas Eichenberger, CSO and deputy Group CEO of Sygnum Bank, said, “I personally believe there are more meaningful things we can do with this technology than issue meme coins. But if the market wants it, then there is probably a right for it to exist.”
“Then hopefully there is more to it than pure speculation and gambling,” he continued, “because there are users involved that may not be aware of the potential risks they enter into in case they buy and trade meme coins. But yes, they are a phenomenon of our industry at this point in time, so it’s going to be exciting to see where it takes us.”
Implementing AI Into the Workflow
“Classic crypto, we got really ahead of ourselves in the hype cycle there,” said the Messari CEO, referring to the hype around AI. “For us at Messari, AI has really changed the way that we work on a day-to-day basis.”
Talking about the increasing impact of AI, especially at Messari, Turner said, “It is so deeply ingrained in everything that we do and in our products as well. We have an AI co-pilot, we’ve done some really interesting things with AI.”
“I think when I look at where AI and crypto overlap today, I’ve been somewhat underwhelmed,” said Turner. “There are really interesting things where AI infrastructure can be done better. I’m still waiting to see something that really blows my mind live in action.”
Furthermore, Messari’s CEO said, “We work in a space where Messari provides research, data, and information. And when we think about what’s going to move things forward on the regulatory side, it’s transparency and it’s consumer education.”
