Devcoins
In the world of crypto, we’ve seen coins created for just about everything — from memes to celebrities.
Developers, the one group that probably makes more sense to have a coin, did not use it.
So, let's talk devcoins.
A devcoin is a personal token for a developer.
It’s a way to back the value a developer can create over time.
Instead of betting on hype, you’re supporting the people building real things.
Devcoins make sense. Developers are always shipping projects, tools, services, and infrastructure.
But it’s not always easy for them to get paid — especially when they build open-source software or tools that aren’t easy to monetize.
A devcoin gives people a simple way to support a developer directly.
Holding a devcoin can mean:
- Backing the developer and believing in what they will build next and indicating that you want to keep working on and maintaining their projects.
- Unlocking utility — like using the devcoin to pay for services, or access to features.
- Getting early access to new projects, beta features, or private tools.
It’s a simple relationship: If you believe in a developer’s work, you hold their devcoin. If you want to support them even more, you can buy more —or even send the coins back to them as a tip.
An indie developer building many small projects could tie all of them to the same devcoin, creating a mini-ecosystem around their work.
The tools are already here, we don’t need to invent anything new to make devcoins happen.
Platforms like clanker.world already let anyone launch a token, set up a liquidity pool and make it trivial for users to buy and sell it in seconds.
Everything that works for memecoins can be used for devcoins too — just with more purpose.
It would be even better if we could link devcoins to developer identities more formally — for example, showing them on GitHub profiles or Farcaster accounts.
Imagine being able to discover new developers, check out their projects, and back them immediately through their devcoin.
The tools exist, the need is clear, the idea is simple.
As a side note:
I launched $lemon3 about a month ago, as a way to support the development of lemon3. But as I was building pingem.xzy I realized that $lemon3 could become my personal devcoin, so if you want to use pingem, you need to hold (not pay, just hold) 10M $lemon3 (that’s about $5 worth of tokens). I’ll keep playing with the concept to see how it works.