40% Price Surge Sparks Meme Coin Debate

• Solana has welcomed the first-ever memecoin on the network, seeing the token rally by more than 50 percent in the last 24 hours.
• Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has sparked a discussion on the future of memecoins, calling on greater inclusivity.

The crypto industry has welcomed yet a new memecoin into the space, with early investors profiting more than 50 percent in the last 24 hours. The new coin dubbed “BONK” is the first dog-themed meme coin created on the Solana blockchain. Launched nearly a year ago, the coin has in its short lifetime made investors profitable.

At the time of press, BONK is trading for $0.000004703 and showing a more than 100 percent increase in trading volume. Its dramatic rise in value and volume could be owed to Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) as investors rush in to get a part of the action. Launched as a free airdrop to the Solana community on Christmas Day 2022, the recent introduction of single-sided staking on liquidity pools and its appeal as a community-driven token has been attributed to the upsurge.

In addition, the BitMEX exchange has announced it will list BONK and will be available for trading starting today.

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has sparked a conversation around memecoins which have been emerging since the launch of Dogecoin (DOGE) and its endorsement by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.

Yakovenko poised the question of whether memecoins will ever have any inherent value or they will forever be just for fun.

Do you think meme coins are always going to be just memes (totally fine outcome)? Or do you think it’s possible to build a global movement based on emissions rewarding people for some “missionary” work?

— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) November 20, 2023

Some of the responses were fairly positive with Chris Burniske noting that they had a fundamental value but needed to be more inclusive and not just for insiders to profit. This is something that BONK has already demonstrated since its launch.

BONK is poised to compete with Dogecoin and Shiba Inu (SHIB) two of the most prominent memecoins in the market. While both share a common launch, they are headed in different directions. Dogecoin is fully content with its memecoin status. Shiba Inu on the other hand strives to be more than just a memecoin. Throughout the year as CNF has reported, the project has launched groundbreaking network updates as well as a layer-2 solution dubbed Shibarium to advance its goal of performing all decentralized applications (dApps) built on it. By becoming a destination for builders, the project can help solve real-world cases. It hopes to be a top-tier blockchain like Cardano, Ethereum, and Solana.

Memecoins undoubtedly have a huge role in the crypto space. As demonstrated with DOGE, they can be an easy way for investors to get started with cryptocurrencies without having to understand the intricate technology behind them. In addition, as noted by Mark Cuban who is also a big advocate for DOGE, the coins can be used as a payment option or to HODL.