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With gas at levels that make the average degen think twice before aping into the latest and greatest Ethereum meme token, many of the most promising tokens—some old, some brand-new—are on Solana.
The numbers show this: for the first time, decentralized exchange volume on Solana has outpaced DEX volume on Ethereum for seven days running. $SOL itself is, as of this writing on Dec. 21, breaking above $90, which could lead to another leg up for meme tokens in this excitable market.
“Trading on chain is materially better on SOL than it is on ETH,” wrote artist and investor OSF on X. “Txs are seamless + tiny fees, @JupiterExchange has incredible UX and more functionality. After spending the week trading SPLs, I just tried to buy an ERC20, and it cost me loads of gas, took ages, had to use Flashbots, which crashed, etc…just a complete mess. Of course, trading shitcoins aren’t the only functionality of a blockchain, but honestly, it’s a material difference,” he wrote.
If your fingers are itching for a memecoin gamble but you’re new to Solana, we’ve lined up several trending tokens ranked by market cap so you can take a closer look. Obviously, this is not financial advice, as investing in memecoins is an incredibly risky proposition due to a lack of fundamentals other than the lols.
Once you’ve gotten set up on Solana—installing Phantom wallet and funding it with a few hundred dollars worth of $SOL is a great start—you’ll find that the ecosystem has some powerful tooling—like Jupiter, a DEX with a super-slick interface. The Solana equivalent of Ethereum’s ERC-20 is called an SPL, and you’ll find the same meme-forward branding and raucous degen fun characteristic of meme tokens everywhere.
$BONK
This token — airdropped initially as a Christmas gift to the users of the Solana ecosystem — has gained traction lately with its Coinbase listing, which gave it a big pump, and its airdrop for owners of Solana Mobile’s Saga phone, which led to phone preorders selling out and massive listings on eBay.
With twelve months of survival under its belt and a market cap — as of this writing — of over $1.1 billion, $BONK has escaped the meme token churn, taking its place in the pantheon of coins like $PEPE, $SHIB, and $DOGE. The token boasts over 118 product integrations from DeFi to gaming, a popular trading bot on Telegram, and a raucously vocal community.
Bullish? Options protocol DualFinance is offering $BONK holders who lock up their tokens by Christmas the right to buy more at a fixed price.
$WIF
Then there’s dogwifhat. This highly memeable token was launched in November, and its central image is a Shiba Inu wearing a pink knitted hat. $WIF, for short, sports a delightful website that sends up the bombastic pronouncements that many tokens make, boasting of their advanced technology and lofty plans for encouraging universal crypto adoption. “Literally a dog with a hat,” says their site.
The coin is pumping significantly, with a price of about $.25 per token — up 43%, as of this writing, in the past 24 hours—and a market cap of over $261 million. In terms of future promises? Well, they’re promising an AI hat generator soon, but this one is pure and simple meme. Have fun!
$SILLY
With a market cap of nearly $100 million, $SILLY is packing serious numbers. In October, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko welcomed conference attendees while dressed in a costume embodying the “Silly Dragon.” The costume—and the token—aim to re-introduce a sense of playfulness into the Solana ecosystem, which is full of energy and liquidity right now—a far cry from the blockchain’s plummet in 2022 when FTX went bankrupt. $SILLY is pure meme, but as we can see, memes are incredibly powerful — so maybe that’s all this token needs to reach orbit.
$GECKO
As a meme, $GECKO is a play on Pepe the Frog; if Ethereum has Pepe, Solana has a gecko, they surmise. Along with a lengthy collection of memes of varying levels of humor and good taste, $GECKO has a market cap of $74 million as of the time of this writing. The token is the brainchild of the Galactic Geckos Space Garage NFT collection on Solana, and its airdrop has resulted in thousands of dollars in profit for many holders of the NFT.
$POPCAT
Have you ever seen that little brown and white cat with a mouth that is open wide enough to swallow the entire universe? That is Oatmeal the cat, who inspired $POPCAT — and this trending token is one day old and trading at a market cap of nearly $30 million. According to its website, 93% of these tokens were sent to the liquidity pool, and there’s no buy or sell tax—which explains its degen popularity.
$CHONKY
The fat “chonky” cat is one of the most enduring memes on the Internet, and the $CHONKY token has a fat market cap of a little over 28.5 million. Its mascot is a hefty orange cat drawn in the style of Pepe, waddling around and getting into mischief across the Internet.
$ANALOS
Another brand-new coin is ANALOS, which gets its name from spelling SOLANA backward. It keeps the backward theme going in its web presence: on its website, in backward text, it calls itself a culmination of all the memorable events on Solana.
With a price of $.0001, a market cap of over $18 million and fierce volume, ANALOS has dominated Dexscreener’s trending list for Solana for the last 12 hours—but, like most of these coins, it could be forgotten in a few days time.
$MYRO
Named after Solana founder Raj Gokal’s dog, this token is a strong performer over time, with a market cap of nearly $20 million. A bit more than a pure meme token, $MYRO is listed on a number of exchanges, has a Telegram buy bot, and is trading at nearly $.02 as of this writing. The meme game is strong with this dog coin: instead of the ubiquitous Shiba Inu, $MYRO memes and branding feature an adorable terrier with a thousand-yard stare.
$BONER
Solana Super-Boner is the full name of this token, and despite the chortle-inducing name, it’s got some power behind it. Less than a day old, this Beeple-inspired micro-cap token has rocketed in price — its price ($.001, as of this writing) has enjoyed a 40x rise in the last 24 hours. With a market cap of less than 1 million, $BONER is highly volatile, so look before you touch!
Solana Season
Solana meme token frenzy is reflected on other chains—AVAX, Bitcoin, and even Tezos have caught some of the volume from degens with liquidity seeking to avoid gas and fees.
Degens can have a short memory — a 2022 series of outages on Solana and concerns over centralization on its blockchain don’t seem to faze those looking for a quick profit. But with any meme token investment, buyers should beware. Today’s celebrated meme is tomorrow’s has-been — so never invest more than you can afford to lose entirely.
Editor’s note: At time of publication, members of the nft now staff hold $SOL, $BONK, $WIF and $SILLY.
