Solana’s comeback has been the story of this cycle so far, with the network rising on the back of technological improvements, lucrative airdrops and, most notably, memecoins.
Meme coins have gone from a non-serious, ephemeral asset class to a forward-thinking alternative to low-float, high-FDV tokens that don’t leave enough upside for retail investors.
Today, most meme coin activity occurs on Solana, although activity continues to migrate to Ethereum Layer 2s such as Arbitrum and Base. Base has been particularly busy lately. While Coinbase-incubated Layer 2 is indeed poised to become a meme coin hub, activity on Solana continues to dominate and remain within its ecosystem. Can Base compete with Solana in the meme coin industry?
In this article, we’ll examine the current state of these platforms, their capital flows, and leading projects to assess why Solana is the meme coin’s capital and how Base compares to it.
Solana’s Meme Coin Scene
A key factor in Solana becoming a darling this cycle is its meme coin activity.
Driven by a surge in internal funding from airdrops such as Jito, Jupiter, Kamino, Parcl and Tensor, the market cap of Meme coin reached $1 billion in a week, which is an amazing achievement and a brilliant marketing campaign for the chain currently. TVL has exceeded US$4.8 billion.
Source: Golden Finance
Solana owes its narrative momentum in large part to the meme coin craze, as evidenced by the activity on popular meme coin launcher Pump.fun, which on some days accounted for 10% of all issued 83% of the token, even surpassing Solana in 24-hour revenue. However, this success would not be possible if the network did not already have such a strong meme coin arena, featuring major role tokens such as $WIF, $BONK, and $BODEN.
Dogwifhat (Token: $WIF; Market Cap: $3.3 billion), an adorable Shiba Inu wearing a knitted hat, has climbed from a market cap of $10,000 to With user loyalty generated by its multi-billion dollar status, it became Solana's mascot.
Jeo Boden (Token: $BODEN; Market cap: $194 million), which features U.S. President Joe Biden, has caused a political storm. In the first week, it brought in 1,000x returns, a performance that definitely ties in with the Solana Meme coin scene.
Bonk (Token: $BONK; Market Cap: $2.65 billion) is Solana’s OG emoticon coin. This is a Shiba Inu from December 2022 that saw incredible price action last fall.
Overall, Solana not only has the most famous meme coin of the cycle, but also has a range of themed tokens, from dogs and cats to politicians.
Base’s Meme Coin Scene
Base has quickly risen to become one of Ethereum's top layer 2s, and its meme coin ecosystem illustrates its reputation for being consumer-friendly.
Projects like $DEGEN and friend.tech have brought consistent activity to the network and established a culture for Base as a social hub. Still, while the network had an epic TVL rebound in March, it appears to have stabilized in recent weeks. While Base’s TV L is still far behind Solana’s, its daily transaction volume is impressive. Last week, the network saw a record single-day trading volume of $854 million.
Source: Golden Finance
While the 2023 $BALD Rug may have left an initial bad impression on meme coin gamblers, the ecosystem has developed more momentum in recent meme coin cycles and remains the Wild West.
Brett (Token: $BRETT; Market Cap: $440M) is a token inspired by Pepe, the character from creator Matt Furie’s comic Boys’ Club, and while the niche may be great, it’s also This will reduce the audience and therefore the demand for the token.
Toshi the Cat (Token: $TOSHI; Market cap: $146 million), named after Brian Armstrong’s cat and Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, is Base’s leading popular pet Inspired Meme Coin.
Traders show loyalty to the blockchain that helps them build wealth. While $SOL traders are able to purchase the token for a fraction of its current market cap, Base still doesn’t have a native token due to regulatory scrutiny. Unlike the Solana community, there have been few landmark ecosystem airdrops on Base.
While Base has a unique meme coin community, they don’t have the broader appeal of tokens in other ecosystems like Solana; instead, they cater to a more crypto-native audience. This uniqueness makes the chain stand out, but the narrow topic scope may limit the blockchain's success as a major meme coin hub.
While Base has been able to leverage its cheaper and faster transactions to build early memes, the strongest meme coin community on Ethereum still exists primarily on mainnet. Solana has momentum and a more visible discourse this cycle, and while Base remains one of the most buzzing Layer 2 ecosystems, Base still has a lot of room to do better in the meme coin industry.
Summarize
As far as meme coins go, Solana and Base exist on different levels.
Backed by massive airdrops and a strong community, Solana has solidified its position with a diverse and thriving meme coin ecosystem. In contrast, despite Base's impressive growth and support from Coinbase, it has yet to achieve the same level of mainstream traction and capital creation.
Solana's continued growth, evident in its increased TVL and daily trading volume, underscores its place at center stage this cycle. As the meme coin landscape evolves, it will be interesting to see if Base can cultivate a great meme coin that makes Base stand out both within and outside the Ethereum ecosystem.
[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.
This article is reprinted with permission from: "Foresight News"
Original author: David C, Bankless
Compiled by: Golden Finance
