GM!

The crypto space is volatile and fast-moving. We’ve recently seen Solana and its memecoins go out of control! Almost as quickly, we’re seeing a rotation into the Base ecosystem. Today, let’s dive into recent activity on Solana and explore how you can get involved.

We will be covering.

• Solana on the rise - The various bullish metrics around SOL

• Solana memecoin ecosystem

• Solana's upcoming airdrops (Nyan Heroes, Parcl, Kamino, Drift)

• Why it’s not all good news

Solana on the Rise

The recent surge in Solana's popularity has caught everyone’s attention. In fact, as per Google Trends data, global interest in Solana has hit a five-year peak. 

This clearly shows that there is extreme intrigue and engagement from both retail and institutional investors. Central to Solana's recent explosion in popularity is the frenzy surrounding Solana-based memecoins. 

In fact, because of the memecoin-led hype, Solana even managed to flip Ethereum for the 24-hour trading volume. Solana did almost $1 billion more trading volume than Ethereum in the past 24 hours!

However, if you zoom out, it’s even more impressive.

Just look at the absolute monster volume coming in the last few weeks!

What’s the impact on the overall price? For a brief period, SOL managed to flip BNB as the fourth biggest coin in the market, as its price crossed $200, before facing bearish correction.

Solana Metrics

Following this bullish surge, let’s check out some Solana metrics.

#1 Number of new addresses

The total number of new addresses entering the Solana ecosystem has spiked in March, skyrocketing from ~391,000 to 1.16 million! That’s a near 400% jump.

#2 Total fees on Solana

The spike in activity also equates to a spike in transaction fees. Overall fees have jumped from $378,200 to more than $5 million in March so far.

#3 Total active addresses on Solana (monthly)

The total number of active addresses in Solana in March has already crossed 20 million. With 10 days left to go, how far will this metric go?

#4 TVL

Solana’s DeFi sector has also benefited from this injection of liquidity. Total value locked (TVL) in Solana has jumped by ~480% from $671.2 million to $3.88 billion since the beginning of the year.

The scary part is that there is still tremendous upside. Back in November 2021, Solana’s TVL peaked at ~$10 billion. Can Solana rally to gather that much liquidity and reach new highs?

Now that we're up to speed on the state of Solana, let's delve into what everyone's curious about... What in the name of Doge is happening with memecoins on Solana?!

Solana, The New Home Of Memecoins

Solana has emerged as the go-to blockchain for meme enthusiasts. In recent weeks, there has been a surge in the number of memecoins launched on Solana, with some reaching market caps in the hundreds of millions within a single day.  Let's explore some of the top performers and learn how you can get involved in this aspect of the crypto market if you're new to it.

Firstly, let's examine some recent significant Solana airdrops, which overall seem to be performing well. This suggests ongoing interest and consequent liquidity influx into the ecosystem. Although not solely memecoins, the enthusiasm surrounding these airdrops ignited excitement within the ecosystem, thus fueling the frenzy surrounding memecoins. Take note that Pyth has been one of the next performing tokens after its community airdrop. 

Moving onto the major Solana memecoins, Wif and Bonk are at the forefront, followed by the recent industry-backed launch of Bome taking third place. Wif currently ranks 52nd in terms of crypto market capitalization, valued at approximately $2.3B.

When comparing the performance of popular memecoins on Solana, Myro has been one of the best recent performers, followed by Popcat. Interestingly, Analos, initially hyped and among the first to gain traction, has witnessed a decline in popularity, highlighting the danger of how quickly sentiments can change in the memecoin market. 

Shattering all expectations was the organic growth of Wif, which recently resulted in a photo of the original Dogwifhat meme being sold as an Ethereum NFT for a record-breaking $4.3M. The proceeds from the sale will go to the South Korean owners of the dog, Achi, who captured the endearing image in 2018. Adding to the top signals, the Wif community raised over $670K through a fundraiser to advertise on the Las Vegas Sphere. 

Then came the incredible speed of new memecoins, racing to astonishing market caps such as Slerf and other coins focused on political memes like Joe Boden, Donald Tremp, and Elizabeth Whoren. 

Despite a significant developer error resulting in the destruction of a substantial portion of its supply and a $10M loss for investors, memecoin Slerf has defied expectations by surging in trading volume to over $7B, an insane development when one considers Slerf is barely a week old. 

Memecoin ICOs: Presales

Intensifying the excitement was the initiation of presales, which are fundraising events where investors contribute funds to a project's wallet address in return for a proportionate share of future tokens depending on the amount invested. This phenomenon evokes memories of the ICO boom from 2017.

• There has been a surge in presales for memecoin launches on Solana, with 33 presales conducted since March 12, raising over 796K SOL. 

• These presales, driven by FOMO, have led to significant price gains, as seen with the example of the Book of Memes presale, which saw a coin surge of over 1M %in less than two days! However, presales come with risks, as the funds collected are owned by one person who has total control over their use, as evidenced by the case of Slerf, where investor funds were burned. 

Getting In On The Action

How do traders find and buy into these tokens? Traders begin by browsing and filtering tokens using Photon or other tools such as Dexscreener, focusing on volume, market cap, and liquidity. 

They then delve deeper by evaluating Twitter engagement and participating in Telegram groups to gauge community sentiment. While inherently speculative, adept traders can identify high meta plays with significant potential rewards. Dive deeper into the process with this useful thread by Ali.

Since this market is still in its early stages, users are beginning to understand how its dynamics will unfold. It's probable that Solana will gain further popularity, and the meme frenzy will persist throughout this bull market. Take advantage of opportunities on Solana such as...

Nyan Heroes

9 Lives Interactive, a game development studio based in Singapore, has successfully raised $3M in funding to facilitate the worldwide release of Nyan Heroes, an action-packed "hero shooter" game incorporating assets from the Solana blockchain. 

• Scheduled for a limited early access testing phase from March 26 to April 9, the game will be available on the Epic Games Store. 

• In conjunction with the early access period, players can engage in a play-to-airdrop initiative, earning incentives in the form of the $NYAN token.

• Already, over 200,000 players have registered for the campaign, representing more than 120,000 distinct Solana wallets.

• Get involved by following the thread linked below to earn MEOWS, which will translate to $NYAN.

• Use code M6Labs to boost your rewards!

Parcl

Parcl, a Solana-based real estate trading platform, is set to convert user-earned points into tokens in April, potentially distributing $160M if PRCL maintains its current trading price. 

• The platform allows users to trade on real estate market prices with up to 10-fold leverage, using its own data feed to track price changes per square foot in select markets. 

• By earning points through platform interactions, users become eligible for the upcoming token airdrop. 

• Since launching its V3 product in November, Parcl has facilitated over $210M in total volume, with a points program introduced in December. 

• The PRCL token will mainly serve governance purposes, with 7%-8% earmarked for the community airdrop.

• Get involved here and use code m6labs to earn a 5% points boost.

Kamino

Kamino is a Solana-based DeFi platform offering lending, borrowing, and various vaults for users to deploy multiple DeFi strategies. 

• The platform utilizes its own data feed to track real estate market prices and enables users to bet on price movements. Kamino recently introduced its governance token, $KMNO, which allows holders to participate in on-chain governance decisions. 

• To qualify for the $KMNO airdrop, users can earn points through Kamino products, which will be converted into $KMNO tokens during the airdrop. 

• The point program aims to expand the platform's user base and reward loyalty. The initial $KMNO airdrop is scheduled for late Q1 or early Q2 2024, with multiple airdrops planned over several months. 

Drift

Drift Protocol is a perp exchange on Solana currently running its airdrop program. 

• This platform offers an opportunity for traders to engage in perpetual trading, which involves going long or short on assets using stablecoins as collateral, with leverage ranging from 2x to potentially hundreds. 

• The exchange allows for both short-term trading strategies and hedging against other positions. To participate in the airdrop, traders can earn points through using Drift products, which will be converted into $DRFT tokens during the airdrop. 

• Start trading perps here on Drift to build up points.

It’s Not All Good News

This wave of enthusiasm around memecoins has led to what some are calling "peak degeneracy," with significant amounts of capital flowing into memecoin presales, often with little guarantee of return. This trend raises important questions about the sustainability and risks associated with such speculative investments. 

Additionally, the heightened activity has led to performance bottlenecks in the Solana network, impacting its overall functionality.

The Solana network experienced significant congestion, with average ping times ranging from 20-40 seconds and ping losses between 30-50%

This led to a high rate of transaction failures, with 50-80% of transactions failing. 

The congestion lasted for several days, primarily due to an influx of non-vote transactions failing. This was exacerbated by high levels of spam and Miner Extractable Value (MEV) activities associated with meme coin transactions, further contributing to the 50-80% failure rate of transactions.

Even Ledger had to tweet about Solana’s congestion issues.

Despite these hurdles, the Solana ecosystem continues to exude a sense of excitement and attract substantial user engagement and liquidity, even in the face of the recent market correction.

Stay tuned for our next edition where we’ll dive into the renewed surge into Coinbase’s Base chain!