decrypt.co
Maybe the real gains are the memes, and stickers, you collect along the way.
The Meme Machine, a memeified, beat up Honda Civic, became a symbol of European crypto culture in 2024. On Friday, the car finished its European crypto tour at its last stop, Zebu Live in London, where we caught a glimpse of the ride in person.
Covered in thousands of stickers that obstruct the rear view and back windows, the banger soaked in crypto culture throughout the summer and into the fall. Visiting a total of eight conferences, Meme Machine owner Fraser Dakin (aka DZN Skribz) couch surfed across Europe from London to Warsaw to Naples. Throughout his journey, the Honda owner found himself as crypto’s cheapest taxi, going undercover as a surveillance car, and even getting towed away in Italy.
And as the Meme Machine racked up the miles, it collected a new sticker along the way—each with its own story. Looking at the car, it feels like almost all of crypto has touched it in some way: Dogecoin, Sam Bankman-Fried, Hawk Tuah, Gary Gensler, Pepe, BAYC, Michael Saylor—glancing across the old Honda is like scrolling down the most degenerate side of Crypto Twitter.
“The story and where it's been, you can’t replicate it,” Dakin told Decrypt, pointing to a sticker placed by a random person in traffic.
Dakin’s journey began when he bought into a Solana meme coin derivative of Dogwifhat. The project’s core team had bought the Honda Civic and bounced around plans for what to do with it. Dakin loved it and flew out to Memecon Lisbon to meet the team and pitched them on the European tour.
“I guess they weren’t necessarily as passionate about it as I was,” he said, with a little disappointment in his face.
Eventually the meme coin fell apart and the car owner looked to sell the car, so Dakin bought it. While he estimates the market value for this particular Honda Civic is around £1,500, Dakin paid £5,000 because of its custom number plate (W777 BTC) and the countless stickers that it’d already collected.
Since then he’s been on a tour of Europe driving from conference to conference, allowing crypto community members to hitch a ride. His longest journey by distance was between Warsaw to Naples, taking three days as he slept on the couches of people he met.
The Meme Machine has survived off the good faith of the crypto community. Dakin says he drove people across Europe from conference to conference, refusing to take payment—although he welcomed a sofa to sleep for the night. Sometimes parking was an issue, once getting towed in Italy for leaving The Meme Machine where a farmers market soon popped up, he told Decrypt.
Another time, Dakin recounts, he was offered a parking spot as long as he gave someone a lift. Turns out that person was part of the High Court and needed a lift to serve papers to a criminal. As a result, The Meme Machine, covered in wacky stickers, had to go undercover as a “surveillance car” while it waited for the multi-million dollar criminal to come out of his house, he says.
It’s been a wild ride, enough to make one wonder, why do it at all? Like many crypto enthusiasts, Dakin says his main exposure to the industry has been online—through group chats, apps, and protocols. While crypto is innately internet culture, Dakin wanted to bring his passion into the real world.
“Last bull run I was all on Discord, Telegram, in my attic, on my own, and just on my computer,” he said, looking at his Honda Civic. Lisbon, the event he attended to meet the original owner of The Meme Machine, was his first crypto conference, and it opened his eyes to a new world.
“I like doing stuff in the real world, bringing people together. I mean, road trips are kind of how I grew up—a lot of family holidays were road trips,” he said.
“I love traveling, meeting new people, and ending up in weird situations. So The Meme Machine is perfect for me.”