The crypto market always surprises with new hypes and trends. Also this time: A memecoin on the Solana network called SLERF has achieved a higher trading volume than the entire Ethereum market. And not many crypto enthusiasts would have predicted this after Slerf’s chaotic launch.
Slerf’s chaotic start causes prices to rise
SLERF, a memecoin built on the Solana network, recorded more transactions on its first day than all major Ethereum-based platforms. Slerf’s popularity skyrocketed after the developer announced in an X-post that it had lost all funds raised. This was an amount of around $10 million that the developer had sent to a burn address. All of this led to an increase in the price of the SLERF coin upon launch.
Slerf is a sloth-themed token that was released in the early hours of Asia on Monday. It recorded over $2.7 billion in trading volume within the first 24 hours of launch. This emerges from data from CoinGecko.
These volumes include 800,000 transactions from 130,000 individual merchants, the statistics show. The majority of transactions were on Raydium, a Solana-based crypto exchange. With a volume of over $1.7 billion, the stock market had a good day.
To put this into perspective with the Ethereum numbers, according to data from DefiLlama, the cumulative volume was just $2.3 billion. This is the total number of all transactions processed on the blockchain. These are transactions from trading, lending and borrowing applications.
The Slerf saga is one of the most understated and beautiful things I have ever seen in the crypto space
That’s why I’m here pic.twitter.com/WhBDtxhZ58
— Andrew Kang (@Rewkang) March 18, 2024
Memecoin flies dozens of times
The chaotic launch of the meme token Slerf created anything but negative sentiment on the market. Taking into account the price of SLERF, it can be seen that the price increased from $0.03 to $1.40 in a matter of hours. That’s about 46x your investment, so count your profits.
Veteran traders called Slerf a “blue chip meme.” By this they mean a funny reference to blue chip stocks that are known for their reliability. A blue chip stock is valued at the corporate level for its stability and quality, usually among established companies with a long history. Something that was a little different with Slerf.
While SLERF may not have the foundations that support proven cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), it still shows the power of social media and viral trends in the crypto world.