Why did the meme coin Bonk on Solana become popular?

Author: Nianqing, ChainCatcher

In the past few days, the Solana ecosystem seems to have shaken off the gloom of 2022 and is immersed in a positive and joyful atmosphere. Whether due to the positive remarks from figures like Vitalik or the meme coin Bonk themed around Shiba Inu, Solana's SOL token has finally broken the single-digit curse and risen back to double digits in the past few days.

Since the collapse of FTX and Alameda, Solana has been in a state of price stagnation. However, the new year of 2023 has brought an exciting start, even though the price of SOL has begun to decline since yesterday.

Many attribute this positive sentiment to the continuously surging popularity of Bonk. Since its launch at the end of December, the BONK token has continued to rise amidst skepticism, and as of the writing of this article, it has increased nearly 200% in the past 24 hours according to CoinmarketCap data. BONK peaked at nearly 40 times its initial value, with a highest price of 0.00000349 USDT and a lowest price of 0.000000086142 USDT.

According to Dune data, as of January 4, Bonk has accumulated 64,325 users, with 16,992 new users. Additionally, on-chain transactions and active users on Solana have significantly increased recently. Besides the growth of the SOL token, other projects in the Solana ecosystem have also become active due to participation in the Bonk airdrop and integration.

Why can a meme coin still become popular?

1. What is Bonk?

Bonk is the first dog coin in the Solana ecosystem. According to Bonk's official Twitter, the Bonk project began planning on December 9, 2022, calling for interaction with other projects in the Solana ecosystem. Subsequently, on December 25, coinciding with Christmas, Bonk officially launched a large-scale airdrop targeting the Solana ecosystem.

According to official information, Bonk has issued a total of 100 trillion BONK tokens, with 50% of the tokens airdropped to the Solana community, including developers from LamportDAO (the center for Solana builders), holders of NFT projects like Famous Fox Federation, and even airdrop recipients like DeGods, which previously announced a migration to other chains. The airdrop distribution is as follows:

• 20% to Solana NFT collections, including 297,000 individual NFTs
• 15% to early openbook traders
• 10% to Solana artists and collectors
• 5% to Solana developers

Most of the remaining supply is also locked in the ownership contracts of BONK contributors.

Most members of the Solana community received BONK tokens, making this "holiday airdrop" hard not to get excited about. After the airdrop, BONK became a hot topic of conversation and tweets among Solana developers and community members. Despite being framed as a meme coin, Bonk is gaining stable adoption within the Solana ecosystem. According to the Bonk official website, Bonk has now integrated with 27 projects, including the open-source wallet xNFT Backpack, decentralized exchange Orca, liquidity aggregator Jupiter, payment tool Helio Pay, and even the NFT trading market Magic Eden has tweeted about considering integrating Bonk as a new payment currency.

It is worth mentioning that, in addition to the airdrop, Orca liquidity providers have also benefited. According to Orca's data, in the past 24 hours, the trading volume of the BONK/SOL pair was about $29.3 million, and the trading volume of the BONK/USDC pair exceeded $13.63 million. Currently, the total 24-hour trading volume of BONK across various pairs accounts for nearly 60% of ORCA's total trading volume.

These projects have also introduced a "burn" mechanism for Bonk. Additionally, on New Year's Day, Bonk launched the ".bonk" domain platform, allowing users to mint a domain by burning 690 million BONK.

2. Analysis of "Bonk" Meme Culture

Let’s analyze from a cultural perspective why a seemingly uninnovative meme coin can become popular.

If you often browse meme images, you should be familiar with the "Bonk" meme. This popular image of the Shiba Inu Cheems being hit on the head with a blunt object can be used to self-deprecate or to express the desire to hit someone. This meme is called Bonk, which mimics the sound of a head being hit.

According to Bonk's official website, the contributors of Bonk are tired of the toxic "Alameda" token economics, such as the deceptive tokens FTT, SRM, OXY, MAPS launched by Alameda on Solana, which have low circulation and high FDV characteristics, making their prices easy to manipulate and concentrating wealth in the hands of a few. Therefore, Bonk aims to create a fun meme coin that gives everyone a fair chance.

After being overshadowed by the collapse of FTX and Alameda for over a month, the Solana community finally began to face difficulties with courage, attempting to completely shake off the bad luck brought by "VC chain" and SBF through self-deprecation and humor (which sounds quite inspiring).

Solana community member @0xbustos even created a BONK meme game where a Shiba Inu hits SBF on the head with a baseball bat, allowing players to start the game by spending BONK tokens, captioned "Felt angry, bonked Sam again, felt great."

Perhaps this emotional release resonated with the community to some extent, but I believe more people were inspired by BONK's beautiful price chart :) Regardless, Bonk has indeed injected a dose of enthusiasm into the sluggish Solana and its community. Whether it is a fleeting moment or the beginning of prosperity, it has brought a good start to Solana, which has just undergone a major washout.

Looking solely at Bonk, I personally believe that both the level of interaction within the Solana ecosystem and the timing resemble a long-planned "self-amusement" within the Solana ecosystem, and perhaps it is one of the solutions for Solana developers to revitalize the ecosystem. In a highly uncertain macro environment, how much more room for growth BONK has yet to be observed, and I urge everyone to approach this irrational prosperity in the Solana ecosystem with a rational mindset.