BONK: Solana’s Own Dog Coin Sparks Joy for Weathered Community

Solana dog coin BONK is a cheeky ploy to bring some cheer back to a ecosystem wracked by FTX’s demise, and it seems to be working

article-image

thirawatana phaisalratana/Shutterstock.com modified by Blockworks

share

Just a week into the new year, and new meme coin Bonk Inu (BONK) has already grabbed eyeballs, this time on Solana.

“We’re here to reward everyone that made #Solana what it is today,” the team behind the Solana-focused meme coin, which went live on Dec. 25, wrote on Twitter early last month.

The total supply of the cryptocurrency is set to 100 trillion tokens, half of which were airdropped for free to the Solana community. Buzz surrounding the bounteous airdrop, combined with its developers burning all their tokens, led BONK to surge over 2,000% this week.

Loading Tweet..

About 20% of the airdrop went to Solana NFT collections, 15% to early OpenBook traders, 10% to Solana artists and collectors, and 5% to Solana developers, according to the token’s webpage. Its market cap is still tiny, around $77 million, so holders should expect volatility.

The Inu tokens are a brand of meme coin common across Ethereum and BNB Chain, with Dogecoin knock-off Shiba Inu the premiere example. Token holding binds a meme coin community inspired for potential gains, whether by buzz or by burning supply to boost scarcity.

Bonk Inu is porting crypto’s long-running dog coin tradition over to Solana, albeit with a white paper with scant details on future tokenomics, which may raise red flags for some veteran crypto investors. 

BONK’s price has retraced by about half from its recent peak, and it may well get worse from here. Source: Blockworks Research 

Data shows unique BONK wallets have surged about 250% this week. Austin Federa, head of strategy and communications at Solana, has also expressed enthusiasm for the coin. 

“Why Bonk? Bonk is the first Solana dog coin for the people, by the people with 50% of the total supply airdropped to the Solana community,” the project’s site reads. 

“The Bonk contributors were tired of toxic ‘Alameda’ tokenomics and wanted to make a fun memecoin where everyone gets a fair shot.”

BONK airdrop provides great excuse to try Solana

But, those concerns aside, why shouldn’t BONK be BONK? Solana has been hit negatively in the last two months for reasons including FTX’s implosion. (Investors should however do their own research before buying BONK, or any meme coin.)

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was a vocal cheerleader and proponent of the blockchain, which has added to concerns about projects leaving the Solana ecosystem.

Read more: Q&A: A Conversation With Solana Founders Raj and Anatoly

The network’s native token SOL plunged to single digits for the first time in nearly two years last week, weighed down by its ties to Bankman-Fried. 

His trading firm Alameda Research invested in Solana Labs’ initial coin offering for SOL and held about $1.2 billion in SOL tokens at the time questions surrounding its balance sheet surfaced. 

Moreover, two super popular NFT projects, DeGods and y00ts, recently decided to abandon ship and move to rival blockchains Ethereum and Polygon. 

Source: BONK

But now BONK is appearing to gain steam with major platforms such as NFT marketplace Magic Eden hinting at adopting the token, even though it has only been around less than two weeks.

Solana naturally benefits from increased usage of its network, with Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko sharing a tutorial on how to use decentralized exchange Orca to trade BONK via Twitter.

Solana’s native token SOL has risen up to 36% this past week, according to data from TradingView, having outperformed the market since the start of the year.

Solana may not have fully recovered from its FTX-laden woes, and a dog-themed coin won’t fix everything. But, apparently, it doesn’t hurt.

David Canellis contributed reporting.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template.png

Research

The march toward an interoperable and onchain-by-default internet depends on reliable messaging and value transfer across heterogeneous domains. Crosschain protocols now process >$1.3T in combined annual transfer volume and secure tens of millions of user interactions, yet no single design dominates.

article-image

The goal, per Santiago Santos, is to make crypto a relatable piece of tech for people who may not even understand it

article-image

Stripe stablecoin unit aims to operate under a federal charter enabling regulated stablecoin issuance and custody services

by Blockworks /
article-image

Will TradFi make crypto better or create more problems than it solves?

article-image

Subtle decisions by risk curators saved Aave from significant turmoil

article-image

The new Rootstock Institutional unit aims to connect professional investors to Bitcoin-native yield and liquidity strategies anchored in BTC’s security layer

by Blockworks /
article-image

DOJ files record civil forfeiture against more than 127,000 BTC linked to scam activity

by Blockworks /