Solana Meme Coins See 80% Price Drop After December Frenzy

A frenzied demand for meme coins issued on the Solana network seems to have fizzled in the past week as newer tokens fail to gather a meaningful community and prices of recent favorites continue to plunge.

Dog-themed token BONK$0.0₅6296 – whose prices rallied more than 1,000% in a three-month period – is down over 70% from a December peak that saw the token listed on prominent exchanges.

Dogwifhat, which gained stickiness among crypto holders with a picture of a dog wearing a hat, is down nearly 80% after generating hype for giving early holders a more than 10,000% return on their capital.

Other lesser-known tokens popcat (POPCAT) and chipi (CHIPI), two cat-themed tokens are down more than 90% since lifetime peaks, although their communities still continue to hope for a revival.

The Solana ecosystem boomed in December as bonk tokens started a multiweek run of over 1,000%, grabbing listings on influential exchanges Binance and Coinbase.

That seemingly kickstarted activity on the network, with prices of Solana's Saga phone flying to over $5,000 – despite being unable to sell out as recently as October – and SOL market capitalization quickly flipping other large tokens.

Solana also became the strongest draw among on-chain traders, metrics from last week show, with trading volumes and network fees crossing those of Ethereum – usually the highest – on a seven-day rolling basis.

Hype for the blockchain's speedy transactions, cheap fees, and a lottery of meme coin issuances seemingly jumpstarted the network since early December, pushing SOL token prices to nearly $120 from $38 at the start of November.

Value locked on Solana applications grew in tandem, rising to $1.3 billion worth of tokens from the $400 million mark in November to reach levels previously seen in July 2022.

But profit-taking started in the latter part of December as valuations grew wild, with newer launches not gaining enough momentum and an apparent shift of capital to opportunities on other blockchains.