The final 12 months have been tough for Solana, to place it evenly. As soon as considered a cleaner and greener various to Ethereum, following 2022’s Earth-moving Merge that noticed the NFT group’s most widely-used blockchain lastly shift to the extra energy-efficient proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, Solana misplaced one among its most important benefits over its greatest competitor within the NFT house.
Couple this with an enormous August 2022 hack that noticed greater than 8,000 Solana crypto wallets emptied of tens of millions of {dollars} in SOL, together with controversy relating to the stance of its flagship NFT market Magic Eden on creator royalties. If that wasn’t sufficient, in late December 2022, Frank III introduced that DeGods and y00ts — two of the blockchain’s hottest NFT initiatives — will migrate to Ethereum and Polygon someday in Q1 2023.
Issues could look dire for Solana on the floor, however Frank’s announcement additionally coincided with the issuance of the primary ray of hope for the blockchain this yr: $BONK. However can the hype carry SOL’s development right into a meaningfully sustainable place? We’re simply weeks into Bonk’s existence, however that doesn’t imply we are able to’t present all of the necessities to comply with its profession as the most recent meme token.
What’s Bonk?
First off — what does “bonk” even imply? A meme token very similar to Shiba Inu or DOGECOIN, it launched on December 25, 2022, and despatched SOL’s value right into a surge of 34 % in 48 hours, in accordance with CoinMarketCap knowledge. Half of the token’s provide was airdropped to customers, in a transfer to keep away from Alameda-like economics — and this brought on greater than $20 million in buying and selling quantity. Though its exact etymology could also be up for debate, its intent as an echo of earlier meme cash is obvious.
Impressed by the grassroots development and improvement of its predecessor, $BONK is being positioned as a coin that’s “for the individuals, by the individuals,” in accordance with official statements on its social media profiles and web site. Aligning with this technique, the 50 % of $BONK’s practically 100 trillion cash in provide had been airdropped to artists, creators, and group members lively within the Solana group. That’s greater than 23 trillion in circulation as of writing, giving a number of creators within the house the newly coined title of Bonk billionaire.
So how do you purchase $BONK, then? When you can’t luck out into an airdrop in Solana communities you might be part of, your finest guess could be to buy some SOL by way of a crypto change resembling Binance, then head on to a decentralized change like Dexlab to commerce in your SOL.
Bonk and the way forward for Solana
By $BONK, its improvement group hopes to deal with the alleged harm that “predatory actors extracting from retail for their very own achieve” have wreaked on Solana all through 2022, in accordance with its bonkpaper. With that in thoughts, these first few weeks of Bonk’s circulation on the open market have seen builders on Solana rewarded for his or her onerous work in creating this blockchain.
The loopy factor is, it simply is perhaps working. As of writing, Bonk’s market cap sits at roughly $106 million. That’s practically 10 instances greater than Samoyedcoin’s $11 million market cap, Solana’s earlier resident canine token. Within the quick time period, it’s even rescued Solana from lows it hasn’t seen since February 2021.
In response, many Solana-powered platforms like Magic Eden have indicated strong interest in integrating the brand new coin as an accepted foreign money on their platforms. In the meantime, NFT initiatives like Jungle Cats have promised holders of their NFTs the chance to earn $BONK upon staking their NFTs. DeGods mission leaders and group leaders missed the prospect to get in on the $BONK prepare, nonetheless, following $BONK burning the 500 billion $BONK allotted to the mission.
Though the $BONK’s excessive yields have been a boon to many, excessive yields sometimes don’t final. Nonetheless, Bonk burned a complete of 1 billion of its provide on January 3, which implies the jury’s nonetheless out on whether or not it should preserve respectable worth in the long term. Within the best-case situation, it’ll discover a continued area of interest amongst merchants like $DOGE and $SHIB earlier than it. Regardless of the large rally $BONK’s seen in previous weeks, the 2 OG Shiba Inu-inspired meme cash nonetheless eclipse $BONK in current buying and selling quantity as of writing. This might converse nicely of Bonk, since, for instance, Shiba’s all-time 24-hour buying and selling quantity excessive was $84.48 million. That’s greater than 4 instances that of Bonk’s, but it surely proves {that a} surge doesn’t mechanically imply a token will go the way in which of passing traits. Which means within the worst case, it’ll proceed to tank in worth within the coming months following this present surge, similar to the vast majority of meme cash which have hit the crypto market within the final decade.
To make sure $BONK’s current success gained’t simply be a flash within the pan, its group might want to put in critical work to maintain the ship afloat. Nonetheless, no matter turns into of $BONK sooner or later, there’s one we are able to say with certainty: that is the shot within the arm Solana’s wanted for fairly a while. Because the meme token’s first month within the house carries on, we’ll be right here to supply the complete image.
