Behind the 80% plunge in gas: Focusing on work becomes the reason for dumping?

Title: “Focusing on Work Turns Out to Be a Reason for Market Dumping? The Irony Behind the Cold Treatment of Gas”

Author: KarenZ

Source:

Repost: Mars Finance

In recent days, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by BAGS on your feed.

The popularity of BAGS is not only due to the frenzy of on-chain users but also sparked by an article that went viral—programmer Steve Yegge’s long post titled “Bags and the Creator Economy” published on January 15, which recounts his journey from “suspecting scam” to “believing in it” regarding BAGS.

When Tech Geeks Encounter “Sudden Wealth”

Steve Yegge is no ordinary figure. With 40 years of coding experience and former roles at Amazon, Google, Grab, and other giants, he is renowned for sharp critiques of platform architecture and extreme engineering thinking.

The story here is quite compelling:

1. Suspected Scam: Steve Yegge received a message on LinkedIn claiming someone sent him money (initially $49,000), mentioning that developer Geoffrey Huntley had just received $56,000 a week earlier. His wife said it was a scam, his intuition told him it was a trick, but he still tried.

2. Real Money: The money actually arrived! This made him realize that BAGS might not be just a simple “local dog” project but a paradigm shift in the creator economy.

Steve Yegge pointed out, “BAGS is a marketplace fueling creativity, where people try to predict and support future winners. These creators can be individuals or small teams creating astonishing things. By 2026, with tools like Gas Town, individual creators will be able to produce products comparable to those of large companies.”

When such a “tech geek” begins to seriously analyze a Web3 product, it makes the market briefly realize that BagsApp might be more than just meme frenzy—it could be a fundamental restructuring of the creator economy. Many believe he represents the most hardcore and pragmatic engineering mindset in Silicon Valley.

So, how does BAGS operate?

BAGS is a token launch and trading platform on Solana utilizing Meteora. Unlike most launch platforms, creators can specify who receives the transaction royalties when issuing tokens. The current default token transaction royalty on BAGS is 1%.

This presents a new opportunity for Web2 developers. Even if they don’t issue tokens or hold tokens, as long as their tokens have trading volume, they can earn continuous passive income.

Whether it’s individuals setting their own royalty rates or communities issuing tokens for promising developers and designating their wallets or Twitter accounts to receive earnings, it lowers the barrier for creators to monetize.

Additionally, BAGS has a dividend feature where token creators can enable a revenue-sharing mechanism, rewarding top holders with a portion of transaction income. The system checks every 24 hours; if unclaimed earnings exceed 10 SOL, it automatically distributes them proportionally to the top 100 holders.

Moreover, holding tokens grants access to community chat permissions for that token, integrating finance and social interaction natively.

On another level, BAGS creates a kind of deceptive “gentle” approach: even if you don’t issue tokens, as long as you’re famous, the community can force money into your pocket.

But this also leads to a paradox: when a developer can earn benefits through “passive royalties,” does he still have the motivation to complete those boring, lengthy, and potentially failed technical deliveries?

Top Meme in the BAGS Ecosystem

The top two Meme tokens by market cap in the BAGS ecosystem are:

RALPH (current market cap $29 million)

A tribute to the AI programming circle’s “Ralph Wiggum Technique” (using AI to repeatedly trial and error until code runs). Created by the community, this token is a Meme representing a development culture. Geoffrey Huntley has not deployed this smart contract.

Gas (current market cap $9.24 million)

Gas originates from Steve Yegge’s AI coding agent coordinator Gas Town. On January 2, 2026, Steve Yegge released Gas Town, a tool that manages multiple AI coding agents simultaneously. Gas Town plans to expand this year in three areas: 1. model cognition capabilities; 2. enhanced compatibility of intelligent agents with Gas Town; 3. integrating Gas Town and Beads datasets into training corpora for cutting-edge models. The Gas token is community-issued.

More critically, of the $270,000 in transaction fees generated by Gas, 99% flows back to Steve Yegge himself, forming a seemingly perfect closed loop of “developers focusing on building, community continuously empowering.”

When “Focusing on Development” Becomes a Bearish Signal

In reality, when Steve Yegge stated on January 17 that “he would return to development, fully投入 Gas Town, and couldn’t spend too much time on CT,” the community’s enthusiasm cooled instantly. Gas peaked at a $60 million market cap on January 16 but has since fallen over 83% from its peak at the time of writing.

This contradiction confirms a harsh fact: the market has never treated Gas as a genuine AI product but rather as the next AI Meme hype target.

When “focusing on development” becomes a bearish factor for the token price, we must admit: the current Web3 AI track is still a PVP battlefield dominated by attention economy.

Gas’s awkward situation reveals a fundamental structural contradiction in Web3: capital flows happen in seconds (trades), while building quality products takes months or even years.

In Steve Yegge’s case, the market essentially bought his “expectations” for the future. But the crypto market is too impatient; it demands that the money invested this second yields “good news” in the next. When developers choose to go into seclusion to fulfill their commitments, they cut off the “emotional liquidity” that speculators desperately need. However, true coding requires long periods of silence and deep immersion.

People want stories of builders to support valuations but are unwilling to wait for the long process of technical accumulation. When the novelty of the story fades and founders no longer cooperate with traffic operations, tokens revert to their speculative nature.

Summary

Is BAGS the future of the creator economy? Maybe. But for now, it more resembles a ticket for Web2 developers to passively participate in “attention harvesting.”

Web2 developers are used to being responsible for their codebases, while Web3 forces them to be responsible for market value. When Steve Yegge wants to return to his engineering roots, the market punishes his “inaction.” Perhaps the biggest warning BAGS leaves for the industry is: if we only learn how to “financialize” people but not how to protect their “creativity,” we will end up with hollow shells drained of traffic, not a real technological revolution.

When the market begins to appreciate the long-term persistence of builders deep in the code rather than just the momentary surge on K-line charts, the spring of “long-termism” for tech geeks will truly arrive.

DYOR—especially important in this game of technology versus Meme.