Slerf? Snap? Memecoin mania drives Solana toward record high

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Solana, the cryptocurrency that almost died amid the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange.

Trading volume over Solana’s blockchain reached the highest in more than two years on March 15, with memecoins such as Slerf, Boom of Meme, Snap and Dogwifhat leading activity on decentralized exchanges, according to data compiled by CoinMarketCap and DEX Screener. Slerf alone accounted for nearly $2 billion in volume in the last 24 hours, according to DEX Screener, which said total volume on Solana over that time nearly touched $11 billion.

Solana’s low fees have made it a leading blockchain for launching fresh memecoins, and that’s brought more participants onto the network. Users usually just need to download a Solana wallet, such as Phantom, and use Solana’s SOL token for transactions. SOL’s price has almost doubled this year, topping $200 on Monday the first time since late 2021, and raising concern about the pace of the rally.

“There’s no way to know how sustainable this memecoin activity is,” said Cosmo Jiang, a portfolio manager at Pantera Capital, an investor in Solana. “But because people have to deposit money on Solana to trade those memecoins, as these users discover other use cases they are more likely