There is a growing sentiment that minting and trading meme coins on Ethereum is no “longer viable” since Solana is emerging as a potential alternative, looking at recent on-chain activity. This shift in dynamics is evident in the recent success of Solana-based meme coins like BONK, which has captured significant attention within the cryptocurrency community.
Solana Dominating Meme Coin Activities
Taking X on January 15, a user, Moon, highlighted this development, backing Solana as the “ultimate retail chain” for meme coins. The crypto trader added that trading meme coins in Ethereum doesn’t make “sense.”
Moon alludes to Ethereum’s high gas fees and slower processing speeds through these remarks. Considering the nature of meme coins, these factors make it impractical for their trading. Accordingly, activity appears to be migrating towards Solana, whose on-chain gas fees are significantly lower.
Technically, Solana’s scalability and affordability are well-suited for the volatile and rapidly evolving meme coin market. The platform’s ability to process transactions at a significantly higher rate than Ethereum and its lower transaction fees make it an attractive platform for meme coin enthusiasts seeking faster and more cost-effective trades.
The growing popularity of Solana as a meme coin hub is evident in the recent success of BONK. To illustrate, the meme coin was one of the top performers, gaining more than triple-digit gains when it was listed in some of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, Binance and Coinbase.
BONK has gained the attention of retail investors and meme coin enthusiasts, driven by its unique branding, community engagement, and number of integrations across DeFi protocols. In 2022, following the crash of SOL and ecosystem tokens, BONK was distributed for free to affected users.
Beyond BONK, the first Solana meme coin to find true adoption, there are other successful tokens. According to Coin Gecko data on January 15, Myro and Dogwifhat are two other meme coins commanding market caps of over $136 million and $350 million, respectively.
Ethereum Hosts Some Of The Largest Meme Coins By Market Cap
Still, Ethereum remains dominant despite the scaling challenges and relatively higher gas fees when transacting on-chain. Some of the world’s largest meme coins by market cap, including Shiba Inu, PepeCoin (PEPE), and Floki Inu, are deployed on Ethereum. When writing, PEPE and Shiba Inu had market caps of over $510 million and $5.6 billion, respectively.
In a recent interview, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, also said Ethereum, not Solana, will be the choice platform for firms looking to tokenize real-world assets. To scale, Ethereum developers plan to deploy off-chain solutions like layer-2s and on-chain means like Sharding.
Feature image from Canva, chart from TradingView