Solana Meme Slerf Notches $1.7B in Volume After Developer Loses All Presale Funds

• Slerf, a sloth-themed meme coin on the Solana network, raised $10 million in a so-called presale and quickly gained popularity even though the developer mistakenly burned the liquidity provider and tokens.
• The launch of SLERF comes as developers are raising millions of dollars in presales, contributing to a surge in the price Solana's SOL token, which crossed the $200 mark for the first time since November 2021.

One of the newest tokens emerging from the Solana meme coin presale narrative has chalked up multiple exchange listings, a $1.7 billion trading volume and thousands of unique holders in a few hours after going live – despite a major fumble.

Slerf, a sloth-themed meme coin on the Solana network, raised $10 million in a presale on Monday. The token is among several that have emerged as presales – or fundraising sales before the official introduction – in the past few days following the success of BOME$0.0₃6796 earlier this month.

However, the developer behind the project ended up losing all received funds after accidentally sending the tokens to a burn address, or one that is not controlled by anyone.

"I burned the LP and the tokens that were set aside for the airdrop,” @slerfsol wrote on X. “Mint authority is already revoked so I can not mint them. There is nothing I can do to fix this. I am so f—ing sorry."

“This is not a joke I really f****d up and im really sorry. Was a simple mindless misclick when I was in the process of burning the the lp,” they later added. An LP is a liquidity provider.

Some called the move a marketing trick, as news of the burn went viral on X.

That did nothing to stop a frenzied market from purchasing and trading the tokens. SLERF was eventually floated on Solana-based exchanges including Jupiter and Orca and the price surged to as high as $1.4 within a few hours from an initial value near 3 cents.

So far, SLERF has chalked up $1.8 billion in trading volumes and 500,000 individual trades from 106,000 traders, Birdeye data shows.

Traders made millions of dollars by betting on the newly launched tokens, on-chain analysis tool Lookonchain posted. One trader made just over $3 million in a little over 12 minutes from an initial amount of $1.9 million, the firm noted.

SLERF’s launch came on the back of an ongoing narrative that has seen developers raising millions of dollars, usually in SOL tokens, on the promise of a meme coin airdrop. Some on-chain watchers estimate that over $100 million worth of tokens were sent to such presales over the weekend. The frenzy contributed toward the SOL price crossing $200 for the first time since November 2021.