Solana, one of the largest proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, has been going bonkers, jumping over 40% in the past seven days on the back of BONK, a dog-themed token that recently debuted on the Solana ecosystem.
Launched on Dec. 25, BONK is a meme coin modelled after Shiba Inu and features a dog avatar. BONK is described as “the first Solana dog coin for the people, by the people.” Accordingly, 50% of the token’s supply is said to have been airdropped to the Solana community as a way of compensating them following FTX and Alameda’s collapse, according to a statement on the token’s website.
“The Bonk community were tired of toxic “Alameda” tokenomics and wanted to make a fun meme coin where everyone gets a fair shot,” read the statement.
In the past 24 hours, BONK has surged 42.90%, according to data from CoinMarketCap. This growth has also convinced some Solana traders that the token’s trading volume is potentially driving Solana’s price up, therefore piling into BONK.
Solana’s rebound comes after the cryptocurrency dropped as low as $8.30 on Dec. 29 after being caught up in the loss wave following the implosion of FTX and Alameda Research.
As ZyCrypto reported, Sam Bankman-Fried’s public support for Solana and revelations of Alameda holding a significant chunk of SOL on its balance sheet painted the cryptocurrency in bad light leading to a massive retail dump. Between Nov 7 and Dec 29 2022, SOL lost over 77% of its value, bringing the asset’s total losses to just over 96%.
Solana also witnessed a massive exodus of projects building on the ecosystem, with Non-fungible token (NFT) firm Dust Labs announcing plans to bridge off two of its top-performing Solana NFT projects, DeGods and y00ts, onto Ethereum and Polygon.
With the dust settling on the FTX saga following the arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried, the Solana community seems to be pulling themselves together with the hope of reviving Solana’s lost glory. In the past three weeks, calls on the community to focus on the ecosystem’s developments and growth as opposed to sideshows have been rising.
Last week, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed support for Solana, noting that “the chain has a bright future” after the recent sell-off washed out “the awful opportunistic money people.” He went on to note that he hoped that Solana’s community would get its fair chance to thrive.
SOL was trading at $13.19 after a 1.22% drop in the past 24 hours.
