Iggy Azalea unveils new online casino ‘Motherland’

Australian rapper Iggy Azalea has announced the launch of a new online crypto casino called Motherland, which will be powered by her memecoin MOTHER. 

Unveiled at Azalea’s “Motherland Rodeo” event at Solana Breakpoint in Singapore, the Motherland casino is tipped to go live in November. 

Motherland will offer the typical suite of online gambling activities, including slots, blackjack, roulette, and poker. Additionally, players will be able to partake in live dealer games, tournaments, sports betting, and other community-based gambling activities. 

Joe McCann, the founder of crypto hedge fund Asymmetric and adviser to Motherland, told Cointelegraph that the new casino is an example of Azalea’s long-term vision for her Mother Iggy (MOTHER) memecoin. 

“Seemingly unlike every other celeb coin ahead of Iggy — she has a very cohesive and comprehensive strategy as to how she’s building community around the MOTHER token, the MOTHER community, and most importantly, the utility of the MOTHER token and where it’s going,” he said.  

Unable to share specific details, McCann said there would be “bigger and broader” utility coming in the future for holders of Azalea’s memecoin MOTHER. He noted the existing benefits for MOTHER holders including a 20% discount for holders who used the MOTHER token to pay for passes to the US music festival Breakaway. 

The launch of Motherland comes three months after Azalea re-launched a telecommunications company called Unreal Mobile. Unreal Mobile sells mobile devices and telco plans and offers tiered discount plans for MOTHER holders. 

Solana isn’t a memecoin casino

When asked if Motherland was playing into the popular trope of the Solana network being a “memecoin casino,” — McCann slammed the analogy as “complete nonsense,” noting the existence of DeFi and decentralized physical infrastructure network projects on the blockchain. 

“If you look at all of the DePIN infrastructure that’s being built on Solana, those are actual, real-world use cases that have nothing to do with casinos,” he said. 

“You can also look at what happened earlier this year. When [the memecoin craze] was really popping off at the beginning of the year, the trading of memecoins didn’t start on Solana, but it was perfected on Solana.”

Is a utility memecoin still a memecoin? 

While many have debated the function of memecoins, and whether or not trying to imbue them with “utility” detracts from their memetic nature, McCann said this is really just a problem of semantics. 

“All cryptocurrencies are memecoins in some capacity,” he explained, adding that the world’s largest crypto asset Bitcoin (BTC) is actually the original memecoin. 

“Bitcoin is literally the world’s first memecoin. Bitcoin maxis may have a different perspective on this, but it is true that the only way that Bitcoin has actually propagated around the world is through the internet, which is through viral content, memes, and narratives,” he said. 

Despite Azalea’s entrepreneurial efforts, the MOTHER token has struggled to gain momentum, particularly when compared to the price action of other Solana memecoins in recent weeks.

Launched on May 28, Azalea’s MOTHER token reached a peak valuation of $260 million just 10 days after launch but has since fallen far from it.

At the time of publication, MOTHER has slumped just over 78% from its all-time high, with a current market capitalization of $56.6 million, per Dexscreener data. 

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