Description
Meme finance presents novel challenges for financial governance. The rise and fall of meme stocks, the proliferation of meme coins, and social media memes offering (and satirising) financial advice and events, all point to how memes and finance have become increasingly interconnected, if not partially co-constitutive, in recent years. Trends such as the emergence of meme stocks in retail investing and scandals associated with meme coins have presented novel tests for policymakers and regulators responsible for financial stability and consumer protection. This paper considers meme finance as a problem of financial governance. It asks: how is the role of economic knowledge and expertise in shaping policy and regulation challenged (or reaffirmed) by meme finance? How is the economic orthodoxy underpinning financial governance impacted by meme finance? The paper examines the emergent governance of meme finance in the UK, the US, and India. It explores how the limits of financial governance are being questioned and reconfigured centred on three key issues: the speculation/investment distinction, the gamification of financial investment, and the incorporation of digital financial infrastructures further into everyday life.
