Mooners and Shakers: Solana sees some action after dog-meme token BONK pumps

4 January 2023

in XDC

Reading Time: 7 mins read

Solana’s SOL token is up double digits again today, and it might well be because of a Shiba Inu-themed meme token called BONK.

Allow us to explain…

Solana has largely been in the price-tanking doldrums ever since the FTX and Alameda blow-up, which is due to those two entities being the high-speed blockchain Ethereum rival’s biggest individual financial backers.

To make things worse, top Solana-based NFT projects DeGods and y00ts have, according to TechCrunch, expressed intent to essentially leave the Solana chain behind to “explore new opportunities” on Ethereum and Polygon respectively.

However, while it’s still down massively – about 64% from where it was meandering in early November – the SOL token has seen something of a resurgence (+16.4%) over the past couple of days.

And some are now putting this frisson down to the surging of a Solana-blockchain-built meme token called BONK, which is essentially a Dogecoin (DOGE) or Shiba Inu (SHIB), copyca… er, dog.

BONK is a new entry in the ever-expanding kennel of crypto dog-themed meme tokens and part of the excitement around it can be put down to its free distribution of 50% of its trillion-token supply through an airdrop last week.

The drop saw various Solana community members receive the BONK token, with 20% going to Solana NFT collections – comprising some 297,000 individual NFTs. A large tranche of the remaining supply is also apparently locked into vesting contracts for BONK contributors.

Bonkers, eh? Anyway, it’s injected some much-needed life into Solana. Whether that lasts amid this still highly uncertain macro climate, however, remains to be seen. And buying into something frothy after a pump… not always a great idea. Not financial advice.

nothing makes me happier than seeing solana users having fun. and boy are they having fun right now.

keep it positive, inclusive, welcoming, aggressive, and fun! and the rest will work out in 2023.

— raj (@rajgokal) January 2, 2023

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$840 billion, pretty flat since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Not much of major significance happening in the majors overnight, although crypto exchange token OKB looks in danger of a short-lived top 10 appearance. Popular layer 2 blockchain Polygon (MATIC) is patiently waiting to ascend again, a rung below at no.11. One more piece of Polygon adoption news and it’ll likely be straight back up there.

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$7 billion to about US$283 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

DAILY PUMPERS

• Solana (SOL), (market cap: US$4.9 billion) +18%

• Flow (FLOW), (mc: US$751 million) +8%

• Mina Protocol (MINA), (mc: US$638 million) +6%

• Frax Share (FXS), (mc: US$353 million) +5%

• Cosmos Hub (ATOM), (mc: US$2.98 billion) +4%

DAILY SLUMPERS

• Tokenize Xchange (TKX), (market cap: US$480 million) -5%

• BTSE Token (BTSE), (market cap: US$352 million) -4%

• OKC (OKT), (mc: US$477 million) -4%

• XDC Network (XDC), (mc: US$329 million) -3%

• Trust Wallet (TWT), (mc: US$600 million) -3%

Around the blocks: SBF pleads NOT guilty

Some randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse…

Here’s something. Embattled former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has pled not guilty to all eight criminal charges he’s facing related to the collapse of his crypto exchange and sister company Alameda Research.

These charges include wire fraud, securities fraud and violations of campaign finance laws.

After his extradition from the Bahamas to the US, SBF, or someone or some people on his behalf, stumped up a collateralised US$250m bond bail. He’s currently residing in his parent’s US$4 million house in Palo Alto, California, eating Cheetos, playing League of Legends and gently sobbing himself to sleep in an Egyptian cotton-covered bed. Probably.

Core Scientific, one of the world’s largest public miners has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Here is a detailed thread on what Core Scientific is and why its bankruptcy is good news for the crypto market!

Let’s dive in 👇

— Ben Simpson (@bensimpsonau) January 3, 2023