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A frenzied demand for meme coins issued on the Solana network seems to have fizzled in the past week as newer tokens fail to gather a meaningful community and prices of recent favorites continue to plunge.
Dog-themed token bonk (BONK) – whose prices rallied more than 1,000% in a three-month period – is down over 70% from a December peak that saw the token listed on prominent exchanges.
Dogwifhat, which gained stickiness among crypto holders with a picture of a dog wearing a hat, is down nearly 80% after generating hype for giving early holders a more than 10,000% return on their capital.
Other lesser-known tokens popcat (POPCAT) and chipi (CHIPI), two cat-themed tokens are down more than 90% since lifetime peaks, although their communities still continue to hope for a revival.
The Solana ecosystem boomed in December as bonk tokens started a multiweek run of over 1,000%, grabbing listings on influential exchanges Binance and Coinbase.
That seemingly kickstarted activity on the network, with prices of Solana’s Saga phone flying to over $5,000 – despite being unable to sell out as recently as October – and SOL market capitalization quickly flipping other large tokens.
Solana also became the strongest draw among on-chain traders, metrics from last week show, with trading volumes and network fees crossing those of Ethereum – usually the highest – on a seven-day rolling basis.
Hype for the blockchain’s speedy transactions, cheap fees, and a lottery of meme coin issuances seemingly jumpstarted the network since early December, pushing SOL token prices to nearly $120 from $38 at the start of November.
Value locked on Solana applications grew in tandem, rising to $1.3 billion worth of tokens from the $400 million mark in November to reach levels previously seen in July 2022.
But profit-taking started in the latter part of December as valuations grew wild, with newer launches not gaining enough momentum and an apparent shift of capital to opportunities on other blockchains.
Edited by Parikshit Mishra.
