It wasn’t long ago that the cries for Solana’s impending death could be heard ringing out from the echo chambers of Crypto Twitter, the FTX implosion saw investors rushing for the exit and price consequently collapsed. 

Looking back, this now appears to have played out in Solana’s favor. Builders kept building, the VCs are gone and Solana is now becoming an ecosystem for the people. 

But is this a sustainable long-term narrative? Will the upcoming cycle’s best shitcoins run on Solana? Or will we see liquidity flow back into the undisputed, reigning champion of the shitcoin arena, Ethereum? 

It’s no secret that Solana has been gaining a lot of momentum over the past couple of months. After bottoming out just a few days before the turn of the new year, we have seen a come-back of over 800% to the recent highs. What is potentially more impressive is the recent explosion of meme coins that have been launching left, right, and center with every man and his dog (literally) getting involved in the fun. 

So is it actually worth your attention?

There are some obvious benefits of a Solana-based shitcoin narrative this cycle. Possibly the most influential is the fact that it is just so darn cheap to sling bets on the Solana blockchain when compared to Ethereum. 

We have already witnessed ETH gas prices getting pretty high in the past few weeks and we’re just getting started. One can only imagine how much worse this will get when the masses arrive after refinancing their homes to go all in on the latest frog/dog tokens. 

This low fee factor is however a double-edged sword. High transaction costs seen on Ethereum make jumping in and out of positions far less appealing. Panic-selling jeeters will have an easier time dumping their holdings and moving on as soon as they catch a whiff of potential profits elsewhere. For this reason, one could expect to see capital move very fast from one meme to the next and should be highly aware of this if they wish to maximize their chances of survival. 

Liquidity is quickly bridging its way to the Solana ecosystem, which will likely cause a chain reaction and self-fulfilling prophecy. As money comes in, coins will pump and pumping coins will attract more punters and more liquidity. Once in motion, this cycle is a hard one to stop. Looking at the past three months' deBridge Finance transfer data below we can see this cycle is well underway.

Notable shitcoins on Solana

The world of shitcoins is a treacherous one. Make the right play and they could potentially change your life, make the wrong play and watch your net-worth speedrun to zero. This being said, there are some standout projects in the Solana shitcoin scene.

$BONK 

In classic meme coin fashion, it’s the dog tokens that reign supreme. BONK is the leader in the Solana shitcoin space and with a market cap of $877 million at its recent peak it has been dubbed the Dogecoin of Solana. The BONK mission is to become the #1 community coin in crypto and they aim to achieve this through integration with other major protocols. 

Currently integrated with 113 different projects across major sectors they claim to be bringing the power back to the people and reshaping the previously VC-dominated Solana ecosystem. Up an impressive 75x since October, BONK is still 20x away from achieving the same market cap as DOGE. 

$MYRO

If BONK is the DOGE of Solana then MYRO could be Solana’s SHIB. Named after Solana co-founder Raj Gokal’s dog, MYRO ran its way up to a $48 million market cap. The MYRO project states that it is much more than just a cryptocurrency and is a movement of its own that will bring more liquidity to the Solana ecosystem, and quite frankly, who’s to argue with that? 

For MYRO to match the market cap of SHIB it would need a cool 158x to get there. With plans for staking and other utilities in the pipeline, MYRO is one to keep an eye on. 

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$GUAC

Guacamole probably deserves better than to be listed as a Solana shitcoin considering what the team has built, but it’s an interesting project nonetheless and warrants a mention. These guys provide the full Solana DeFi package including NFTs (Avotars), swaps, casino games, staking vaults, and tools that facilitate airdrops and burning of unwanted tokens and NFTs. 

This avocado-themed project climbed its way to just over $62 million in market cap and if they keep building the way they have been then the upside potential is not to be ignored. 

$WIF

From avocados back to dogs, but this time with an extra twist. This is no normal dog coin, this dog is… wait for it… wearing a hat. Dogwifcoin is all about the memes, in particular, a dog with a hat on, because who said a project needs any more fundamentals than that? 

This point is made stronger by the price action of $WIF, up 40x in the last week alone, skyrocketing to over $7 million in market cap. The lesson here is, as always, do not fade the power of the meme.

$ROCKY

Ok, ok last dog token I promise! After the creation of MYRO, it didn’t take long for degens to discover that Raj Gokal had another dog named Rocky. The obvious move was to create a token of course! Now despite Rocky being the older of Raj’s 2 dogs, the token itself is kind of the younger brother of MYRO when comparing them on a market cap basis. Will ROCKY eventually reclaim the older brother spot in terms of valuation? That is for you degens to decide. Worth chucking this one on your Solana shitcoin watchlist either way.

$RBT

So that’s it for dogs, but what about the frogs? No ecosystem has a complete meme coin market without the inclusion of a frog coin. In Solana’s case, this is achieved with Ribbit. 

As with the other SOL shitters, $RBT price has been in a solid uptrend over the past couple of weeks and as long as the money keeps flowing into the Solana ecosystem this is likely to continue. If you’re the kind of punter that tends to prefer frogs to dogs then this one could be for you.

How to get involved in the fun

We now know the coins to watch (and not watch) but what are the tools needed to get the most out of the Solana shitcoin arena? 

First up you’re going to need a wallet. Phantom wallet is the go-to wallet of choice for the Solana ecosystem and can be used to store your coins and NFTs and swap, send, and receive tokens. Now compatible with both the Ethereum and Polygon networks, moving liquidity to the Solana ecosystem has never been easier. Phantom Wallet is available in both desktop and mobile versions so you can ape shitcoins on the go. Visit the Phantom website here to download one.

If you are holding funds on another chain and want to bridge over to Solana there are a few easy ways of getting it done. First of all, if the capital you want to bridge is either on Polygon or Ethereum then you can simply send it to your Phantom wallet using the Polygon or Ethereum addresses provided in the wallet and swap it over to Solana inside Phantom itself. 

If you’re on another chain and don’t feel like bridging to Ethereum or Polygon first then you can use the Portal bridge. Jump on their website, connect your Metamask wallet on one side, connect your Phantom wallet on the other and you're good to go. To see an in-depth example of the bridging process, check out the link to the blocmates Solana ecosystem video a few paragraphs below!

Next, you will need to know where to go to check the price to get the entries you are after. A great platform to familiarize yourself with is birdeye.so. Here you can not only check prices but also see other useful data points like top gainers, highest volumes, big trades that have been made, and swaps across a variety of chains. Another favorite that most will be well aware of is dexscreener.com. On Dexscreener you can view prices, marketcaps, and volumes, see the number of holders of a token, and watch orders in real-time. 

Once you have picked the coin you are after you will need to find a place to buy it. This can be done inside your Phantom wallet but if the token you are looking for isn’t available there then Solana has a range of DEX protocols you can jump onto and potentially find what you are after. The major DEXs to check out are Raydium, Jupiter, and Orca. Between these three you should be able to find whatever you need to satisfy your inner degenerate.

The Solana ecosystem is a big one and it’s growing at a rapid pace, far too much to cover in this article! If you are looking for a deeper dive into all things Solana, the ecosystem, notable projects, upgrades, and the tech then you MUST check out this video as we cover everything you could possibly want to know to be a complete Solana chad.

Parting Wisdom

It doesn’t matter if you're an Ethereum maxi or not, Solana is looking hot heading into what could be the biggest crypto cycle yet and will be ignored at your peril. 

However, the comparisons between Solana and Ethereum make little sense because they share very different business models and end games. Ethereum is working on becoming more of a B2B chain, used primarily for less, but very large transactions. The mainnet itself is not really meant to be the place for a shitcoin casino to go down. 

Instead, we should possibly be looking at Ethereum's layer 2 as a more relative comparison to what is happening on Solana. Currently, Solana has the mindshare over any of Ethereum’s L2s, mostly due to its impressive run in price. The true test will come when we start seeing Eth layer 2s enter up-only mode and if they will be able to do enough to steal the show. Time will tell, but either way, the idea of Solana becoming the home of shitcoins is an extremely fun idea to contemplate. 

Solana devs have been busy building and upgrading the ecosystem throughout the bear market, many of the previous issues experienced with the chain have been fixed and the future is looking very bright. The ease of use and low fees that Solana provides make it the ideal breeding ground for a shitcoin showdown, not to mention all the other exciting projects being rolled out on top. 

As liquidity bridges over from other chains and is further increased by past and upcoming airdrops, it is fair to believe that Solana will keep growing. This becomes especially important when we consider that the real retail bid hasn’t even arrived yet! 

Oh yes, we are still so very early.