Reviewing Silly the Dragon's Ten Thousand Times Journey: How a Dragon Became the Spiritual Totem of Solana?

Authors: Jaleel, Luccy, BlockBeats

This meme dragon has now almost become the recognized spiritual totem of the Solana community.

Yesterday, the meme token SILLY on the Solana chain surged past $0.15, setting a new historical high. Currently, the top ten addresses holding SILLY (excluding CEX addresses) own 18.5% of the total SILLY supply. Among these addresses, the highest unrealized profit is 27,000 times, while the lowest is 0.7 times. The average unrealized profit is 30 times, with most having bought in at an extremely early stage and holding until now.

In the early days, what was the "origin" of the meme dragon? Who spread the silly dragon? What did the silly dragon do right on its path to becoming Solana's official meme? BlockBeats will elaborate on these points in the following text.

The "Origin" of the Meme Dragon

Silly Dragon can be traced back to September 6.

On that day, Anatoly, the co-founder of Solana, posted a mysterious message on social media, consisting of just three dragon emojis accompanied by the words: "Silly dragons." Thus, "Silly dragons" quietly emerged in the Solana community, becoming their self-deprecating symbol.

However, despite its fun nature, the silly dragon did not immediately create a sensation. It was like the "hidden dragon" in the old proverb, quietly forgotten by many.

Until Solana's annual event—the Solana Breakpoint conference—this story was revived. The founder of Solana transformed into this legendary silly dragon, injecting new vitality and meaning into the character, making it a highly shareable meme that energized the entire community.

Hidden Easter Eggs at the Solana Annual Summit

Solana Breakpoint is the annual conference organized by the Solana Foundation, celebrating the achievements of the Solana community and exploring inspirations for future industry developments.

From October 30 to November 3, the third Solana Breakpoint was held in Amsterdam, gathering 3,000 Solana developers, validators, founders, core engineers, ecosystem teams, and more to discuss the latest developments and future roadmaps, focusing on substantial technological advancements and defining the resilience of the next-generation blockchain network.

Projects mentioned at the summit, such as SIMD (Solana Improvement Document), Helium, and Helius, all performed impressively, especially Helium, which, through the DePIN narrative, saw its issued token MOBILE achieve a 110% increase in a single day on December 14, leading the DePIN-related tokens. Besides the project presentations, the appearance of Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko sparked discussions.

On the opening day of the summit, coinciding with Halloween, Anatoly appeared dressed in a green dinosaur costume, becoming the most unique and eye-catching presence at the summit.

Anatoly stood before the audience and introduced himself: "I'm Anatoly, and I'm a silly dragon." After saying this, Anatoly smiled shyly, and the entire audience burst into laughter.

The motto of the Solana community is "do the hard things first," and Anatoly's costume and words were not only a form of self-deprecation but also a philosophy. He explained, "I stand here, dressed as a dragon, and this is crucial for our discussion about what we are building and why we are building it. We need to know what our goals are and what we want to achieve."

After the summit, the image of the silly dragon also appeared in the Solana community. On November 8, Anatoly posted on social media saying "year of the silly dragon," injecting fresh and playful energy into Solana's narrative. With the approach of 2024, this phrase coincidentally corresponds to the upcoming Year of the Dragon, making this narrative more likely to be welcomed in domestic communities, as people are full of expectations for the narratives and innovations that may unfold around this silly dragon.

Subsequently, Anatoly followed the official SILLY Twitter account and loudly called for "urgent need for silly dragon memes," a move that not only drove the value of SILLY up but also became a piece of lore. Looking back, Anatoly's appearance in the silly dragon costume at the summit was not just a humorous self-expression but also a cleverly arranged Easter egg.

Who is Spreading the Silly Dragon?

On November 9, Solana builder Matty Taylor followed in Anatoly's footsteps and made a thought-provoking statement on social media: "Don't take yourself too seriously; we all have a silly dragon inside us." This researcher, who wrote a thesis on Bitcoin economics during his undergraduate years and is deeply fascinated by cryptocurrency research, is now focused on the growth and expansion of Solana, and his words resonated within the community.

At the same time, as an expert in Solana NFTs and managing partner at Frictionless Capital, Legend (@SolanaLegend) has a love for Solana that can be described as "love at first sight." Legend initially favored the Ethereum ecosystem until he realized the issues with Ethereum's exorbitant gas fees. Coincidentally, a venture capital firm where his friend worked participated in Solana's seed investment, and after seeing Solana's performance data, Legend was immediately attracted.

On November 16, Legend posted a succinct tweet on social media saying: "It's the season of the silly dragon." Below this tweet, community members expressed a desire for a "Silly dragon token."

On November 18, LacedUp (@HODLonBRO), an ambassador for the Solana wallet Solflare, also shared his thoughts: "Happy to work for Solana." The comment "What a silly dragon" became a commonly used meme phrase in the Solana community, used to praise and self-deprecate developers who are dedicated to building Solana.

Members of the Solana community shared the first dragon meme, an illustration named Drako, stating, "While I was still fantasizing about the possibility of dragons, a silly dragon came along and captivated me, let's rewrite the epic of Solana memes together."

On December 8, Yaoyao (@ynonestop), responsible for Solana's growth, combined the words "silly" and "Solana" into "Soylano," and posted that "2024 is the Year of the Dragon in China, and this will be the crypto year of the silly dragon (Soylano)."

It is worth mentioning that the narrative of dragon culture is not an innovation unique to Solana. In fact, as early as March of this year, the Bitcoin ecosystem had already seen the emergence of LONG inscriptions representing small-scale Western dragons, as well as DRAG and DADA inscriptions representing Eastern dragons launched in April. The community even jokingly referred to this as "the duel of Eastern and Western dragons," showcasing a modern interpretation of ancient legends within cryptocurrency culture.

In the Solana community, the popularity and spread of the Silly Dragon meme came at just the right time. With the Year of the Dragon approaching, this image not only sparked celebrations for the Year of the Dragon but also brought unprecedented attention and liquidity to Solana. In the digital currency market, a meme with the founder's characteristics often ignites a frenzy, even triggering a short-term FOMO effect.

For example, a meme coin themed around Ethereum founder Vitalik's cat Hemule once topped the trading popularity list on Dexscreen. Avalanche co-founder Kevin Sekniqi's dog Bear also became another popular meme. Even the Metis ecosystem launched a meme coin named VMUM after "Vitalik's mother," with her cat Barsik also becoming part of the meme.

The Solana community clearly drew inspiration from these phenomena. Following Anatoly's Halloween image and the "silly dragon" avatar, this community cleverly combined ancient dragon culture with the modern digital world, creating a unique and captivating story. This is not only a modern interpretation of ancient legends but also an interesting exploration of how the digital world can integrate with traditional culture.

The Solana community needed a meme that could represent its spirit and culture, and the birth of the silly dragon was just right. With the dissemination by the Solana community and builders, everything fell into place.

What Did SILLY Do Right to Become Solana's "Official Meme"?

Twenty days after the summit, a social media account named Drako (@DrakoSolana) came into the public eye, with its avatar and caption derived from a classic silly dragon meme. In terms of founding time and the attention garnered by early tweets, @DrakoSolana's performance far exceeded that of the well-known Silly Dragon.

However, a regrettable fact is that despite Drako's growing influence, it has yet to launch its own token. This left space for the current $SILLY. The emergence of SILLY seems to fill this gap, becoming a new choice for community members seeking a digital currency associated with the silly dragon.

The Birth of the Ace Meme Coin

With the creation of this green silly dragon anime avatar social media account, the first tweet was published: "Year of the Silly Dragon," marking the birth of the ace meme coin $SILLY.

This green dragon image corresponds to the tweet Anatoly posted in early November, with colors and imagery matching Anatoly's Halloween costume. However, in the early stages, the published tweets did not include any tags for easy indexing, and the number of retweets and comments was very low, receiving little attention.

On December 4, the token contract for Silly Dragon, SILLY, was successfully deployed, adding a new chapter to the silly dragon story. Following this, Silly Dragon began actively announcing its community deployment status on social media, including its official website, Telegram group, vision description, and news of its token launch on Solana Raydium and Jupiter exchanges. The vision of the silly dragon was described as a symbol intertwining art, passion, and the power of Solana, showcasing a new narrative that transcends digital boundaries.

Under the narrative of SILLY, it is not just a token but is building a legacy of unity and artistic expression, driven by the revolutionary power of blockchain technology. Every holder, every enthusiast is an important part of this journey, contributing to the narrative that transcends digital boundaries. In the realm of the silly dragon, art and deep emotion merge innovatively, heralding an era where a community writes history together.

Thus, the account was recognized by the community as the official Twitter account of the silly dragon project. On that day, the Silly Dragon official tweeted "Leave your wallet," and upon this news, the number of retweets, comments, and likes on the tweet saw a significant increase, officially bringing the silly dragon image into the public eye.

Catching the Solana Meme Season

The silly dragon certainly did not miss this wave of massive traffic and immediately held a silly dragon art contest, inviting users to create and post their silly dragon images in the comments. The top five entries with the most likes and retweets would win 1,000 SILLY tokens. The contest attracted a large number of cryptocurrency enthusiasts, including Bitget ambassador @Cryptozone04, @heyjerey_, and @CRYPTOKRALI3.

On December 8, the Chinese community for the silly dragon was established, featuring an image of a silly dragon dressed in a red Tang suit, holding the Chinese flag. Additionally, on December 12, the official held a silly dragon video contest, awarding 1 million SILLY tokens to the top three TikTok video creators who could best tell the story of the Silly Dragon (including all the latest updates).

It was also on this day that Anatoly followed the account, but this still did not attract widespread attention. According to birdeye data, on that day, the price and trading volume of SILLY only saw a slight increase.

By December 16, Anatoly posted on social media saying "urgent need for silly dragon memes," successfully igniting community enthusiasm, and the price of SILLY surged significantly. Thus, the silly dragon became the official meme in the hearts of the Solana community.

At that time, there was another major event in the Solana community.

Solana launched the Saga Web3 phone, each of which would come with 30 million BONK tokens. Due to the significant rise of BONK at that time, the value of the gifted BONK exceeded the price of the phone itself. According to BlockBeats, the Saga is currently trading at a 500% premium in the secondary market, with prices reaching as high as $3,000.

This unique marketing strategy not only boosted Saga phone sales but also ignited the meme season in the Solana community. ZERO, COQ, !knoB, WIF, and others became hot topics within the community.

Some traders made a massive profit of $1.47 million by trading the meme token WIF in just five days. The trading volume on Solana DEX also surpassed $5 billion, setting a new historical record, even exceeding Ethereum's trading volume within 24 hours.

Related article: 《The Solana Dog Season Continues to Heat Up, Did You Make Money in This Wave?》

Riding the wave of the Solana dog season, the Silly Dragon official Twitter hinted at an airdrop plan, further increasing FOMO within the Solana community. The accompanying video featured a chibi version of Anatoly dressed in a silly dragon cosplay, and this tweet was also retweeted by Anatoly.

Since then, SILLY has seen impressive surges in market capitalization and trading volume within two days, with trading volume on decentralized exchanges like Jupiter reaching $30 million, and its market cap rising from zero to nearly $10 million, experiencing an astonishing 900% appreciation.

Related article: 《It Doubled Again in One Day, Is Silly Dragon Silly Going to Become Solana's "New Meme King"?》

Additionally, SILLY has actively collaborated with CEXs. On December 21, Bitget announced that it would list Silly Dragon (Silly) in its innovation zone and MemE zone, while LBank also announced on the 25th that it would launch SILLY U contracts.

Currently, the price of SILLY has shown an overall upward trend since its launch. Although the incident on the 22nd, where Anatoly changed his avatar, caused SILLY to drop over 45% in a single day, the narrative of SILLY did not falter. On December 27, according to Bitget market data, SILLY surged past $0.15, setting a new historical high and ranking among the top three on the real-time gainers list. Additionally, on-chain data analyst Yu Jin monitored that among the addresses holding SILLY, the highest unrealized profit was 27,000 times, while the lowest was 0.7 times. The average unrealized profit was 30 times, with most having bought in at an extremely early stage and holding until now.

In internet culture, nothing is more central than memes, as the market is essentially driven by the most compelling narratives of the day, week, or year. The success of the silly dragon meme relies not only on Solana's admiration and promotion of the silly dragon narrative but also on the community's trust in Solana, which also propelled Solana to achieve a historical milestone of surpassing Ethereum in seven-day DEX trading volume for the first time.

As described by Solana Foundation member BEN SPARANG: "This is a small step for humanity, a giant leap for the silly dragon." This not only affirms the technological achievements of the Solana community but also symbolizes that Solana now possesses a legitimate meme culture and spiritual totem, which will play a significant role in promoting community unity.