Solana Devs Bought a BONK Airdrop Value $300 in 2022—It's Now Value $1.3 Million – Decrypt

Pragmatic traders might scoff at unstable meme cash, however once they take off, they make fools of us all—at the least till they crash.

However currently, Solana meme coin BONK has been just about up solely, blasting off to new heights—now up 200% within the final two weeks as SOL itself approaches its personal all-time excessive mark. And anybody who was airdropped a stack of free BONK quickly after the token’s 2022 launch is perhaps sitting fairly proper about now.

BONK has repeatedly pushed to greater all-time marks during the last couple days, per information from CoinGecko, reaching a peak above $0.000053 in a single day and sitting at a market cap of practically $3.7 billion. Every token isn’t price an entire lot on the present worth, however when you’ve got tens of millions or billions of them stashed in a pockets, it could actually add up.

Some Solana builders would possibly know this effectively—in the event that they held, that’s.

On Christmas Day in 2022, shortly after BONK launched, Solana builders who stuffed out a type within the LamportDAO neighborhood obtained a vacation present of their wallets: 25 billion BONK tokens, price about $300 on the time of the drop and greater than double that by the top of the day.

Solana’s prime meme coin debuted within the depths of the ecosystem’s distress, across the similar time that SOL dipped all the way down to round $8—from a November 2021 peak of practically $260. The whole crypto market was down at the moment, however Solana’s shut affiliation with collapsed change FTX appeared to have an particularly tough impression on the house.

However the dog-themed meme coin helped carry good vibes again to the Solana neighborhood within the following weeks, with many Solana community contributors benefiting from the airdrop. From Solana DeFi merchants to NFT collectors and even artists minting on the chain, BONK was unfold far and extensive. And LamportDAO devs collectively bought about 5% of the overall token provide.

Quickly after the airdrop was deployed, builders shared their thanks. Some stated that promoting it might assist them pay important payments after struggling by means of a brutal bear market—one which had arguably hit Solana tougher than different main chains.

“Wow, thanks a lot fren! $800 is 2 months of lease for me,” wrote developer zkTuring within the LamportDAO Discord. “It’s by far the perfect Xmas present I obtained. You might be my secret Santa.”

One developer, who goes by the net title r1ck, instructed Decrypt in January 2024 that he offered his airdrop for roughly $880 price of USDT quickly after receiving it, and that allow him pay month-to-month bills. The following surge did not put him off of the business.

“I nonetheless work on a regular basis with Web3, and it has been nice,” he stated in January. “I am simply not a superb dealer.”

Nonetheless, any developer who held onto that 25 billion BONK is now sitting on greater than $1.3 million price of the Solana tokens, based mostly on the present worth as of this writing.

Mert Mumtaz, co-founder and CEO of Helius and founding father of LamportDAO, instructed Decrypt that roughly 173 builders obtained the same-sized airdrop that Christmas.

For many who offered, it is perhaps a shock to the system to see such a surge in worth—and to “paperhand generational wealth,” as crypto die-hards are wont to joke. However for at the least some Solana devs, the drop might have helped them survive to see the opposite aspect of a troublesome crypto winter and dwell to construct one other day.

Edited by Guillermo Jimenez

Editor’s notice: This story was initially printed on December 14, 2023. It was final up to date on November 17, 2024 with new particulars and present pricing data.