Each day, Coinrule will run through the state of the digital assets market for Blockbeat, your home for news, analysis, opinion and commentary on blockchain and digital assets.
Last week was an intense one even by crypto standards. We saw Bitcoin break all time highs and then decline by 15%. Solana also breached $200 and saw record breaking levels of usage. However, potentially the most ludicrous was the launch of The Book of Meme (BOME) and the beginning of a new trend. The token went from launch to a $1.5 billion market cap in just over 48 hours. It all started with the creators posting a wallet address on X and receiving 10,131 Solana, worth $1.5 million. Who can say crypto traders aren’t trustworthy?
This “presale” trend involves market participants sending their Solana to a wallet address, often posted on X, and receiving tokens in return when the project launches. A similar trend, known as the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) boom occurred in 2017 on Ethereum. This iteration now involves memes and has taken over the crypto zeitgeist and split opinions. Advocates suggest this is part of having a pure free market, where anyone should be able to invest in whatever they like with the potential to make significant gains regardless of risk. Naysayers suggest this opens up the door to scammers taking deposits and running, with the ICO boom having seen several examples. Increased fraud also gives the SEC and other regulators another reason to “look into crypto.”
One thing is for sure – there is demand for presales. Over the weekend over $100 million was sent to these presale addresses. One investor turned $72,000 into $32 million on BOME in just over 48 hours. Solana holders, and the network itself, have been the biggest beneficiaries of the trend. Solana shrugged off any market-wide influence of the correction and marched on to the $200 level. Solana’s Google search trends hit an all time high, along with daily active wallets of over 2 million according to Step Finance. DefiLlama’s data shows Solana DEX volumes broke its all-time 24 hour high of nearly $3.8 billion. DEX volumes also exceeded Ethereum’s across Saturday and Sunday.
Ethereum found product market fit through DeFi and token launches. It seems Solana is now following a similar path, albeit with a more retail focused tone with memes and lower fees. With the Federal reserve’s meeting on Wednesday deciding what direction interest rates go, will the presale trend meet a rude awakening or is it here to stay? As Warren Buffet says, “be fearful when others are greedy.”