FLOKI

What is Floki (FLOKI)?

Floki is a “meme coin,” a cryptocurrency whose team bills it as the ‘People’s Cryptocurrency.’ It is also the utility token of the Floki ecosystem, marking a deviation from most meme coins that are very much lacking in utility and actual use cases.

Some individuals appear to have the power to move markets, and a tweet on the 25th of June, 2021, by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk led to the project’s birth. The billionaire tweeted: “My Shiba Inu will be named Floki,” and yet another meme coin was born.

Musk had a rabid following in 2021 and was the world’s richest man at a time when markets were giddy on the highs of years-long loose monetary policy and a pandemic that saw wealth funneling up to the 1% at record rates.

Since then, the influencer has entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest loss of personal fortune in history. According to reports, his wealth plummeted from $340 billion in 2021 to less than $150 billion just over a year later.

Many meme coins are simply cash grabs by opportunistic scammers with enough ETH in their wallets and the requisite know-how to create an ERC-20 or BEP-2 token. Floki was much the same, and the original developer even managed to code in a 20% tax on transactions with the funds diverted to their own wallet.

According to the project’s blog, the community was able to drive out the original developer, bring in a new team, and devise a plan to revive the project. This led to the relaunch of the project as Floki V2, complete with a new token contract, economic metrics, a fresh website, and a sizable marketing war chest.

When was Floki Launched?

Floki, in its current form, launched on July 8, 2021, barely a fortnight after the tweet that set the ball rolling. It remains an eye-opening reminder of just how fast the world of cryptocurrency moves, given the community formation, change of team, and project relaunch that all happened in this short time.

Elon Musk may have lost some of his influence despite having purchased the social media platform Twitter, but in 2021 his market-moving powers were at their peak. Floki, like many other meme coins, was able to attach itself to him and another popular project, Shiba Inu.

Much of Floki’s concept and design mirror those of Shiba Inu, with the addition of a Viking theme. The Floki community is referred to as the “Floki Vikings,” and the Floki character (much like Shiba Inu has a “backstory”) is a Shiba Inu dog wearing a horned helmet.

This is despite the fact that actual Vikings were never proven to have worn these impractical horned helmets. They were mistakenly attributed to the 9th-century seafarers by Scandinavian artists a thousand years later, and historians traced them back to Bronze Age tribes.

The name Floki is also a bid to derive from the popularity of the eccentric character Floki on the History channel’s hit show ‘Vikings,’ played by Swedish actor Gustaf Skarsgård. The character is loosely based on Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarsson, the first Norseman to intentionally sail to Iceland. Imagery from the History Channel serial is also used frequently by the Floki community.

How Does Floki Work?

Floki is a cryptocurrency that began with an influencer, became a community movement, and is now a decentralized ecosystem run by that same community. Rather than keep it to the memes and the intangible power of social engagement, the Floki community has realized the value of actual utility.

The community’s long-term goal is to build out the ecosystem into something autonomous and sustainable, with strategic partnerships and utility for the Floki brand via Web3 games, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Vision is a fine thing, but the Floki team has been able to go a step further by pushing out actual products. Foremost among these is Valhalla, a game that aims to disrupt GameFi with a fun-first philosophy and addictive gameplay.

Valhalla’s players need FLOKI to “enter Valhalla” and begin playing. But once inside, they can earn more FLOKI tokens by playing and then use them as in-game currency. Players can create their own NFT characters and capture others, along with elements of raiding, farming, battles, quests, clans, and even Esports mechanics being integrated on-chain.

The Floki ecosystem also currently features a decentralized finance platform called FlokiFi, which is an umbrella name for a suite of in-development products. The FlokiFi Locker is already live, though, and gives users the ability to secure digital assets, including Liquidity Pool tokens, fungible and non-fungible tokens, and even multi-tokens.

75% of the fees earned by FlokiFi go to the project treasury, and the FlokiFi Locker protocol uses the remainder to buy FLOKI tokens and burn them, tightening the supply of the currency.

What makes Floki Unique?

Floki is unique, at least among meme coins, for its focus on growing utility rather than relying on hype, marketing, and what’s often referred to as “hopium.”

One of the most interesting projects coming out of the Floki ecosystem in this regard is the University of Floki, which aims to fill in the crypto education gap for users forecasted to enter Web3 in the coming years.

UoF had a proof-of-concept that attracted over 300 applicants, and the selected 20 candidates could enjoy a week of live classes in the project’s virtual classroom environment. Following this successful beta, the first release of asynchronous materials for UoF is expected in early 2023.

The University of Floki will allow free access to most of its content, but certain functions will require the FLOKI token.

Beyond utility, one of Floki’s main pillars is charity. Among other initiatives, the Floki project has pledged to build a state-of-the-art school first on every continent, then in every underdeveloped nation. Again, tangible progress has been made, with schools already running in Guatemala, Ghana, Laos, and Nigeria.

How is the Floki Network Secured?

Floki doesn’t have its own blockchain and relies instead on the security and decentralization of the Ethereum blockchain. However, Floki does have smart contracts and decentralized applications in place, and these have been audited by various blockchain security firms.

What is the Use of FLOKI?

As mentioned, the FLOKI token is core to the dApps that are starting to form the Floki ecosystem, from Valhalla to UoF and the FlokiFi DeFi suite. These projects use FLOKI in different ways, and it’s likely that any new projects to join the Floki ecosystem will also revolve around the FLOKI token.

How Much FLOKI is In Circulation?

The FLOKI token has a total supply of 10 trillion each on Ethereum and BNB Chain. This is a high number but remains consistent with many other meme coin projects, which very intentionally leverage a high supply to create a low token price.

Token prices of minute fractions of a cent to 1 FLOKI encourage holders to engage in questionable napkin math. It’s very easy to look at 1 million FLOKI tokens and imagine what life would be like when FLOKI hits a dollar, forgetting that the project’s ‘market cap’ for this to happen would need to exceed the GDP of many of the world’s wealthiest countries.

However, the supply of FLOKI does have deflationary elements due to token burns, and around half of the total supply is estimated to be in circulation, with some 400,000 holding addresses.

How Do You Buy FLOKI?

You can buy ERC-20 FLOKI tokens on most Ethereum-based decentralized exchanges, while FLOKI on the BNB Chain can easily be acquired from PancakeSwap.

How Do You Store FLOKI?

Since FLOKI tokens are present on two blockchains, it’s important to make sure you’re transferring your FLOKI tokens to the correct wallet address using the correct chain. This is especially true because many wallets, such as Metamask, can handle tokens from both blockchains.

Is FLOKI a Good Investment?

As far as meme coins go, FLOKI is a compelling project since it not only leverages the power of tokenomics and community with some elements of charity but bakes in significant utility as well.

This differentiating aspect may one day raise FLOKI to be something more than a meme, so it could well hinge on the success of projects like Valhalla, UoF, and FlokiFi.