In 2024, Solana became the undisputed capital of memecoin speculation. While Ethereum had memecoins (SHIB, PEPE, DOGE), the combination of Solana’s near-zero transaction costs ($0.00025), sub-second finality, pump.fun’s one-click token launch interface, and the BONK airdrop’s success in late 2023 triggered a self-reinforcing cycle: cheap speculation → more traders → more attention → more memecoins. At its 2024 peak, Solana memecoins represented a significant share of total global DEX volume, with Raydium and pump.fun processing more daily transactions than most other chains combined. The phenomenon created genuine millionaire stories, destroyed more accounts than it enriched, and raised serious questions about whether Solana’s blockchain activity metrics reflected genuine utility or primarily represented speculative noise.
Why Solana Became the Memecoin Chain
The following sections cover this in detail.
Technical Advantages
Transaction costs: Solana transactions cost ~$0.00025. Buying a $50 memecoin on Solana costs $0.00025 in gas. The same trade on Ethereum would cost $5–50 depending on congestion. This 10,000× cheaper fee structure allows sub-$50 experimental trades that are uneconomical on Ethereum.
Settlement speed: Solana blocks finalize in ~400ms. Traders can open and close positions in seconds, critical for momentum-driven memecoin trading where price can move 5× in 30 minutes.
pump.fun availability: The pump.fun interface gave anyone the ability to launch a tradeable token for approximately $2 in ~30 seconds. No coding knowledge, no liquidity provision required. The platform launched bonding curve-based pricing that automatically seeded initial liquidity, then graduated the token to Raydium once $69,000 in liquidity was reached. This frictionless launch mechanism created a continuous supply of new tokens for speculators.
Existing infrastructure: Raydium (AMM/DEX), Phantom wallet (mobile), Jupiter aggregator, Birdeye (charting), and Photon/BullX (trading bots with snipe functionality) — a complete memecoin trading stack existed before the supercycle began.
BONK: The Catalyst
BONK (the Shiba Inu-themed dog Solana memecoin) airdropped in December 2022 to Solana NFT holders and community members. Against the backdrop of the FTX collapse that had just devastated the Solana ecosystem, BONK became a morale story:
- Airdropped “for free” to loyal Solana users who held through the crash
- Price went from $0.000000001 to $0.00003+ by early 2024 → 30,000× gains for early recipients
- Became Solana’s “community coin” — not VC-backed, no insider allocation, fair(er) launch
- BONK’s success established the template: Solana dog coin → community → exchange listings → mainstream attention
By 2024, BONK had achieved market caps above $2B and was listed on major centralized exchanges.
The Major Solana Memecoins of 2024
The following sections cover this in detail.
WIF — Dogwifhat
Peak market cap: ~$4.8B (March 2024)
WIF is literally a picture of a Shiba Inu dog wearing a pink knitted hat. The token was launched in November 2023 with no stated utility, no team, and no website at launch. By March 2024, it had a larger market cap than many serious DeFi protocols that had been developed for years.
Why WIF captured attention:
- The “dog wearing a hat” absurdist aesthetic resonated as pure meme energy
- Early holders were Solana insiders who promoted it to their networks
- The community fundraised $650,000 to put the WIF image on the Las Vegas Sphere (the giant LED ball) in a single week — demonstrating memecoin communities’ capacity for coordinated marketing
WIF is listed on Binance, Coinbase, OKX, and most major exchanges. It remains one of the highest-market-cap memecoins not created by Satoshi or Elon-adjacent.
POPCAT
Peak market cap: ~$1.8B
POPCAT is a meme of an open-mouthed cat with a dramatic expression. It became a Solana memecoin with little else to distinguish it. It reached top-100 market cap at peak.
PNUT — Peanut the Squirrel
One of the stranger entries. A pet squirrel (Peanut) owned by a New York man was euthanized by state animal services in October 2024 amid a public controversy. Within hours, PNUT the memecoin launched on Solana.
Peak market cap: ~$2.4B within weeks of launch
The PNUT saga illustrates the “news-driven memecoin” pattern: a viral news story → immediate Solana token launch → massive speculative inflow on the news narrative → most holders eventually bag-hold as attention fades.
MOODENG
Baby hippo viral story (Moo Deng, a tiny hippo at a Thai zoo that became a global viral sensation in September 2024). Token launched within ~2 hours of Moo Deng going viral. Peak market cap: ~$600M.
BONK
Already covered above. The OG Solana community coin. Has maintained relevance as Solana’s “official” memecoin in a way others haven’t, partially because of:
- BONK staking in Solana dApps (some defi protocols accept BONK as collateral)
- Listed on JupiterPH and Jupiter Swap as a primary trading pair
- BonkBot (Telegram trading bot)
The pump.fun Model
pump.fun’s mechanism (covered in the pump-fun entry, referenced here briefly):
- Any user pays ~$2 in SOL to deploy a token
- Token starts on pump.fun’s bonding curve — price increases as buy volume accumulates
- At $69,000 total liquidity raised, the token “graduates” to Raydium (the main Solana AMM)
- Raydium listing = Dexscreener visibility = broader trading community sees it
Scale: At peak (April–May 2024), pump.fun was launching 30,000–50,000 new tokens per day. Most reached $0 within hours. A small number reached $1M–$1B+ market caps.
Revenue: pump.fun generated over $150M in fees in 2024 alone, making it one of the most profitable crypto protocols by revenue relative to team size.
The Memecoin Supercycle Thesis
In 2024, a fringe-but-influential investment thesis emerged: the “memecoin supercycle.” Arguments:
For:
- Low-cost chains (Solana, Base) enable new participation from small investors who can’t afford ETH gas
- Attention is the primary resource in crypto; memecoins are pure attention plays
- Distribution: Fair-launch memecoins don’t have VC insider allocations → community holds majority supply
- Reflexivity: Every successful memecoin creates winners who deploy gains into new memecoins
Against:
- 99%+ of pump.fun tokens lose 99%+ of value
- The aggregate wealth destruction exceeds the aggregate wealth creation (someone has to sell to someone at the top)
- No utility = no fundamental floor (unlike DeFi tokens with fee revenue, NFTs with community value)
- Regulatory risk: SEC attention increased toward memecoin gambling operations
The nuanced reality: A very small number of people made extraordinary returns from early memecoin positions. A much larger number lost money chasing the narrative. The infrastructure providers (pump.fun, Raydium, Phantom, bots like Photon/BullX) made reliable revenue regardless of who won the speculative games.
Risks and Dynamics
Rug pulls: Many tokens on pump.fun were launched by anonymous teams who sold immediately as volume accumulated. The graduated-to-Raydium mechanism does not prevent developer wallet concentration.
Sniper bots: Sophisticated bots front-run human buyers on token launches, buying in the first blockchain slot and selling into early FOMO. This means retail buyers reliably buy at higher prices than early bot participants.
Liquidity illusion: A token with $10M “market cap” often has only $200,000 of actual buy-side liquidity. The market cap number is meaningless for illiquid memecoins; actual exit value is much lower.
Regulatory trajectory: In 2025, the SEC increased scrutiny of memecoin promoters for securities laws violations. Celebrities who promoted memecoins to followers faced legal questions about undisclosed compensation.
How to Engage (with significant risk disclosure)
If speculating: Use Phantom or Backpack on Solana. Jupiter aggregator for best swap pricing. Birdeye or Dexscreener for tracking new token launches. for purchasing SOL to fund Solana wallet activity.
Risk management: Size positions so that a 100% loss is acceptable. Memecoins are speculative instruments with no fundamental value floor. Hardware wallet recommended for larger crypto holdings.
Related Terms
Sources
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