When it comes to the business of basketball, few have a reputation more valuable than Michael Jordan. From shoes to trading cards, his name has long been the gold standard, turning everything it touches into fortune. Now, as the unpredictable world of cryptocurrency collides with the power of viral internet culture, the latest Jordan meme is proving that his influence stretches into a market worth nearly four trillion dollars!

But MJ is not alone in this space. In an unexpected twist, his former teammate, Scottie Pippen, has already carved out his own corner in the digital asset world. While one is a testament to the enduring power of a viral moment, the other is actively building an empire on the legacy they once shared.

Hype, the meme coin trading app, announced it has a new coin this week. “The Michael Jordan No-No-No meme is very popular right now. Hence the creation of $NO, which is at a $26,000 market cap right now,” said the Hype ‘intern’, Cameron Coleman. The ‘no-no-no’ meme is the latest in the Michael Jordan meme library that also joins the crying and ‘get some help’ memes. This one is worth $26,000 in a $3.9 trillion crypto business.

The no-no-no meme got popular in August after a TikToker edited and compiled multiple clips of Michael Jordan’s reactions on the sidelines of games. There’s more than one instance of him going ‘no-no-no’, and it’s gone viral, getting over 200,000 likes in half a month. But what we have to understand is that this isn’t Jordan-endorsed. It’s a fan-created token. The closest MJ has come to the crypto business was in 2021 when he and his eldest son, Jeffrey, launched HEIR, a platform to connect athletes and fans on the blockchain!

It was in the funding phase back then, and it’s unclear what the status of HEIR is now. He also did an NFT series on his six rings back when that was a huge celebrity market trend. In 2021, Jordan’s fallout with his old teammate, Scottie Pippen, was at its peak, too. Now Pippen’s building a new empire with the help of the legacy he shared with MJ.

Michael Jordan waded into Scottie Pippen’s territory

While Michael Jordan is cautious about treading the crypto waters, Scottie Pippen dove headfirst. Pip claimed Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, came to him in a dream, and it spurred his obsession. Apart from promoting crypto investments on social media, Pippen turned his own 6x NBA championship-winning legacy into a coin.

The Game 5 buzzer of the 1991 Finals signalled the start of the Bulls’ dynasty. Pip had the game ball from this pivotal moment for over three decades. In August 2024, Pippen turned abstract crypto tokens tied to this game ball, $BALL, on the Ethereum blockchain.

Within three months of its launch, $BALL was up 86% since Aug. 1 with a market cap of $1.4 million. Jordan’s $NO meme-coin is still new, at a $26,000 market cap, but the ceiling for a Bulls legend looks good.

What separates MJ’s and Pip’s meme coins is the level of involvement of the players themselves. Jordan has nothing to do with the Hype creation, but Pippen is actively building a crypto empire. Apart from tokenizing the game ball, Pip claimed his team was working on creating an NFT around it. He wanted to create a documentary on the ’91 Bulls and the history of his game ball.

He has every intention to turn his legacy into an RWA (real-world asset) project. But for now, it’s just a meme-coin. If he does, he’d have to part with the game ball for the first time in 34 years. Which of these Bulls cracks the meme coin biz remains to be seen.