In the last three days, memecoin projects on Solana have raised more than $100 million through a controversial fundraising model known as "presale."
The crypto community has begun to warn of “peak degeneration,” as memecoin founders have raked in millions of SOLs through token presales over the past 72 hours.
According to aggregate data viewed by Cointelegraph and cited by crypto researcher 0xGumshoe, crypto traders have sent approximately $100 million into SOL in the past 72 hours in an attempt to purchase new Solana memecoins
These tokens have raised funds through a controversial presale model, notably Book of Meme (BOME), Nap (NAP), Nostalgia (NOS), and many others.
“This is the height of degeneracy. I bet $180k and $90k on memecoins,” pseudonymous crypto investor Nick wrote in a post on
The memecoin presale craze kicked off when a token called Book of Meme launched using a controversial crowdfunding model.
Launched on March 14 by pseudonymous artist Darkfarms1 with an initial value of around $4 million, BOME soared more than 36,000% to a market capitalization of $1.45 billion in less than 56 hours.
According to a March 17 post by blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain, an early investor, Sundayfunday.sol — a personal friend of BOME's creator — turned an initial investment of 420.69 SOL — worth $72,000 at the time — into 32 million dollars in less than three days.
The "presale" involves crypto investors sending a cryptocurrency to a wallet address and then receiving in exchange a proportional share of the token when it becomes available.
There is no guarantee that the investor will receive the tokens in exchange for the cryptocurrency sent to the presale wallet address, making this presale model extremely popular for frauds and scammers who want to steal money from unwitting investors.
Anthony Sassano, an Ethereum educator, railed against the presale model, saying that anyone who sent their money to a random wallet address with the expectation of receiving a token is "stupid as hell."
“Two years later, everyone is back to making ponzi bets. People can do whatever they want with their money, but sending money to a “memecoin outlet” that has a 99.9% chance of rusting is really worth it. idiots".
Meanwhile, memecoin mania has gone far beyond the cryptocurrency niche.
Entrepreneur David Sacks, known for his role as co-host of the All In podcast, has seen controversy grow around his memecoin, which allowed one lucky user to make around $39,000 out of the situation.
According to pseudonymous X user DeFiRabbitHole, when Sacks started posting about his memecoin, they expected another All In memecoin to appreciate as well.
So when Elon Musk tweeted “Okay, fine, I'll buy your coin” to fellow All In podcast host Jason Calacanis, the linked JASON coin skyrocketed, transforming the initial investment from 1 SOL to 200 SOL.
