Notes from Hype Economy. Vol 2.

If forced to guess, we probably use some sort of payment app — PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, Cash App — at least a dozen times a week. Add in how often we “swipe” our phones at checkout and that usage number quickly jumps to at least a dozen times a day. With the exception of buying chips from the dealer or tipping the bellhop, very seldom do we reach for physical currency from our bill folds and change purses. Even the kids on the corner with the lemonade stand put a QR code on their sign for payment these days. But 2025 might be the year all of that…changes.

In our far-ranging RSS feed of all things sneakers, collectibles, trading cards, streetwear, toys, startups, memes, and discontinued candy from the ’80s (anyone sitting on some Bonkers?), we came across THIS amazing article from Resell Calendar.

Here’s the TLDR:

2025 may be the last year that U.S. pennies are made
Collectors are clamoring to get their hands on 2025 pennies
2025 pennies are reselling for more than a dollar!

Yes. You read that last bullet correctly. Some pennies, a coin whose face value is worth 1/100th of a dollar, are selling for more than a dollar. Talk about resell value. We did a quick search on eBay and found that rolls of 2025 pennies (that’s 50 coins, aka 50 cents of face value) are selling right now for $15.00. Single 2025 pennies are going for $4.00. We’ll wait while you go rummage through your pockets, change jars, and cup holders for 2025 pennies. Back? Ok, let’s take a deeper dive into why the cent deserves to be viewed through the lens of the hype economy. But first…

A Brief History of the Penny

The official name for the coin is “cent”, according to the U.S. Mint. The colloquial term “penny” comes from the British coin of the same name, that occupies a similar place in the British monetary system. The first U.S. cent was produced in 1787¹ and has been issued primarily as a copper or copper-plated coin throughout its history. For a brief period of time in 1943, the cent was made from zinc-coated steel due to wartime shortages of copper. We’ll take another brief pause while you check your coin jar for the ultra-rare 1943 copper wheat penny that was mistakenly cast from bronze and could be worth upwards of $150,000!

The current one-cent coin that features the profile of President Abraham Lincoln has been issued in its current form, known as the Lincoln cent, since 1909, the centennial of his birth. The Lincoln cent is also the first regular U.S. coin to bear the portrait of a historical person. Previously “Lady Liberty” was the only human figure to appear on a U.S. coin.

As of October 1982², the penny has been made from copper-plated zinc. The composition is 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper. Prior to 1982, the composition was 95% copper and varying percentages of zinc and tin. The reason for the change in composition in the fall of 1982 was that the value of the raw copper in the penny started to rise above one cent. For an extreme example, when the value of copper reached a record high in 2011, the melt value of a pre-1982 penny was more than three times its face value. Not so fast Scrooge McDuck. In 2006 the Department of Treasury implemented new regulations that made it illegal to melt down coins in order to sell their raw materials, with a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

In recent years³, the cost to produce and distribute a penny has far exceeded the face value of the coin. The U.S. Treasury loses tens of millions of dollars each year, producing cents. In 2010 it cost 1.79 cents. In 2014 it came down slightly to 1.70 cents. In 2024⁴, the cost to produce and distribute a penny jumped to a staggering 3.69 cents. (Nickels cost 13.78 cents to produce in 2024, but that’s another coin for another day.) Legislation to eliminate the production of the cent coin have been put forth in congressional bills in 1990, 2001, 2006, and 2017. All failed to pass into law. But as recently as February 2025, the President has instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to stop production of the penny. This most recent proclamation from the Oval Office has set the coin world on…edge. Fun fact: The little lines on the edges of dimes, quarters, and half dollars are called “reeds”.

For further context, its worth noting that our “sworn enemies” to the north, no, not the Wildlings, the Canadians, stopped minting their penny in 2013. Australia and Sweden have both eliminated their one and two cent coins. New Zealand has discontinued their one, two and five cent coins.

Which brings us back to…

Is The Penny a Hype Economy Item?

Money-themed sneakers, collectibles and streetwear have long been a staple in the hype economy. No, we’re not talking about Nike’s Air Penny lineup that was the successor to the Foamposite One and Foamposite Pro, but we’ll always have a soft spot in our hearts for the Penny V.

We’re talking about items that feature graphics, visuals, and materials that directly reference currency, U.S. or otherwise. Old school ‘heads will recall Jeremy Scott’s fondness for all things money-related with his adidas collabs, notably the adidas x Jeremy Scott Wings 2.0 “Money”. New Balance and Concepts were also an early adopter of money-themed sneakers with their New Balance 998 x Concepts “C-Note”, originally released in 2013, and retroed in 2023 for the 10th anniversary of the shoe.

Supreme famously/infamously released their Supreme Cash Paperweight and their Supreme Cash Cannon in 2017 that were literally everywhere that year. We’re still finding fake “Supreme dollars” behind old filing cabinets. If that wasn’t enough, you could also dress head to toe in a Supreme cash motif with their 100 Dollar Bill Cap, Trucker Jacket, and Overalls.

Trouble-makers and artist collective, MSCHF, have also released money-related collectibles with their Blur Series. Each art piece looks like a stack of bills — U.S. dollars, South Korean won, Australian dollars, Chinese yen, Mexican pesos, UAE dirham, Euros, and even Monopoly money — intentionally blurred out, meant to be appreciated as their commentary on global capitalism and the inherent falsehoods of physical currency. The ultimate bit of performance art being that resellers are paying a lot of real money for a stack of fake money.

If you zoom out far enough, a very solid argument can be made that coins themselves were the first hype economy item. Historical records⁵ from Ancient Rome and Mesopotamia show that coins were collected and catalogued by scholars and treasuries during these times. While coin collecting was initially a hobby exclusive to the ruling class, scholars, and extremely wealthy, it quickly spread to the growing middle class during the 17th and 18th centuries. Numismatics — the study and collection of currency — also emerged around this time in response to the desire of the middle class to demonstrate their own wealth and sophistication.

Coins not only hold actual value, but in historical times they served as affordable and portable forms of art. Antique and foreign coins tell stories of other cultures and civilizations by virtue of the materials they were made from, their size, their shape, and what was depicted on each side. Some people collect coins as a hobby for entertainment. Some collect coins as an investment. There are coin collectors who are generalist and accumulate coins from a wide variety of historical and geographical sources. Other coin collectors stick to a specific theme — type of coin, country of origin, years, etc. There are coin hoarders, speculators, and inheritors of coin collections.

Wow, you could swap out the word, “coin” for “sneakers” or “trading cards” or “collectibles” in that last paragraph and it would still read exactly the same. Wu-Tang was, and always is right, Cash Rules Everything Around Me. Get the money. Specifically, go to your local bank and request a roll of uncirculated 2025 pennies. They might be worth dollar, dollar bills ya’ll.

A Brief History of the Penny

Is The Penny a Hype Economy Item?

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