The 80% plummet of gas: Is focusing on work actually a reason for the crash?

1월 20, 2026 00:22:14

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Original Title: Is Focusing on Work Actually a Reason for the Market Crash? The Irony Behind Gas's Cold Reception

Original Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

In recent days, it's hard to scroll through Twitter without being bombarded by BAGS.

The hype around BAGS comes not only from the crazy influx of on-chain players but also from an explosive article—a long piece titled "Bags and the Creator Economy" published by programmer Steve Yegge on January 15, detailing his journey from "suspecting a scam" to "this is great."

When Tech Geeks Encounter "Sudden Wealth"

The author of the article, Steve Yegge, is quite a figure. With 40 years of coding experience and having worked for giants like Amazon, Google, and Grab, this tech veteran is known for his sharp criticism of platform architecture and extreme engineering thinking.

The script here is fascinating:

1. Suspected Scam: Steve Yegge received a message on LinkedIn saying someone was sending him money (initially $49,000) and mentioned that developer Geoffrey Huntley had just received $56,000 the week before. His wife said it was a scam, and his intuition told him it was a trap, but he still gave it a try.

2. Real Money: To his surprise, the money actually arrived! This made him realize that BAGS might not just be a simple meme project but a paradigm shift in the creator economy.

Steve Yegge pointed out, "BAGS is a marketplace that fuels creativity, where people try to predict and support future winners. These creators can be individuals or small teams creating amazing things. As we move into 2026, tools like Gas Town will enable individual creators to produce products that rival large companies."

When such a "tech geek" starts to seriously analyze a Web3 product, the market briefly realizes that BagsApp might not just be a meme frenzy but a fundamental reconstruction of the creator economy. Many believe he represents the most hardcore and pragmatic engineering mindset in Silicon Valley.

So How Does BAGS Work?

BAGS is a token launch and trading platform on Solana that utilizes Meteora. Its distinction from most launch platforms is that creators can specify who receives the transaction royalties when launching tokens. The default transaction royalty for tokens on BAGS is currently 1%.

This presents a new opportunity for the Web2 developer community. Because even if they do not issue tokens or hold tokens, as long as there is trading volume, they can earn continuous passive income.

Whether it's individuals creating tokens with self-set royalties or communities issuing tokens for promising developers and designating their wallets or Twitter accounts to receive profits, the barriers for creators to monetize have been lowered.

Additionally, BAGS has a dividend feature where token creators can enable a fee-sharing mechanism to reward holders ranked by their holdings with a portion of the transaction income. The system checks every 24 hours, and if the unclaimed earnings exceed 10 SOL, they will be automatically distributed to the top 100 holders based on their holdings.

Moreover, holding tokens grants access to the chat privileges of that token's community, achieving a native binding of finance and social interaction.

From another perspective, BAGS creates a deceptively "gentle" environment: even if you don't issue tokens, as long as you have fame, the community can forcibly send money your way.

But this also brings about a paradox: when a developer can gain benefits through "passive royalties," do they still have the motivation to complete those tedious, lengthy, and potentially failing technical deliveries?

Top Memes in the BAGS Ecosystem

The top two memes in the BAGS ecosystem by market capitalization are:

RALPH (Current Market Cap: $29 million)

A tribute to the "Ralph Wiggum Technique" in the AI programming circle (i.e., using AI to iterate through trial and error until the code works). This token was created by the community and is a meme about a certain development culture. Geoffrey Huntley did not deploy 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 the coding agent coordinator Gas Town, a tool that can manage multiple AI coding agents simultaneously. Gas Town plans to expand this year in three areas: 1. Model cognitive abilities; 2. Enhance agent compatibility with Gas Town; 3. Incorporate Gas Town and Beads datasets into the training corpus of cutting-edge models. The Gas token is community-issued.

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

When "Focusing on Development" Becomes a Negative Factor

But the reality is, when Steve Yegge stated on January 17 that he would "return to development and fully commit to Gas Town, and cannot spend too much time on CT," the community's enthusiasm instantly cooled. Gas peaked at a market cap of $60 million on January 16, and by the time of writing, it had fallen over 83% from its peak.

This contradiction precisely confirms a harsh reality: the market has never regarded Gas as a true AI product but rather as the next AI meme hype target.

When "focusing on development" becomes a negative factor for the token price, we must acknowledge that the current Web3 AI track is still a PVP battlefield dominated by the attention economy.

The awkward situation of Gas reveals the deepest structural contradiction in Web3: the speed of capital flow is in seconds (trading), while the speed of building quality products is turtle-paced (months or even years).

In Steve Yegge's case, the market giving him money essentially purchased his future "expectations." But the crypto market is too impatient; it demands that money invested this second must have a "positive" echo the next second. When developers choose to retreat to fulfill their commitments, they cut off the "emotional liquidity" that speculators need most. However, real coding requires long periods of silence and deep diving.

People want the Builder's story to support valuations but are unwilling to wait for the long process of the Builder solidifying technology. When the freshness of the story fades, and the founder no longer cooperates with traffic operations, the token will revert to its speculative essence.

Conclusion

So is BAGS the future of the creator economy? Perhaps. But for now, it seems more like a ticket for Web2 developers to passively participate in "attention harvesting."

Web2 developers are used to being responsible for codebases, while Web3 forces them to be responsible for market capitalization. When Steve Yegge wants to return to his engineering roots, the market punishes his "inaction." This may be the biggest warning BAGS leaves for the industry: if we only learn how to "financialize" people but do not learn how to protect their "creativity," what we will get are empty shells drained of traffic, rather than a true technological revolution.

When the market begins to appreciate the Builder's long dive into the depths of code, rather than just fixating on the momentary spikes on the K-line chart, the "long-termism" spring for tech geeks will have truly arrived.

DYOR, in this game of technology and memes, is particularly important.