Slerf appeals for donors to make presale investors whole for the lost $10 million

The developer of the sloth-themed meme coin Slerf (SLERF) is calling for donations from the crypto community after he “accidentally burnt” 50% of the token’s supply, including funds already sold to investors on presale. While many have attributed the whole situation to the same scams that accompanied Ethereum's ICO boom of 2017, SLERF appears to be trying to change the narrative by taking measures for investors to get back their funds. 

Meme coin presale accumulated $122 million

Meme coins, tokens with no utility and used primarily for speculative purposes, have been rocking the crypto market since the Bitcoin bull run. These meme coins are flooding the market through a controversial presale launch that sees investors sending funds to a project's address before it goes live.

Since March 12, memecoin presales alone have raked in over $122 million, according to data from ZachXBT. This shows the popularity surrounding these tokens, which, despite the high risk involved, can make investors accumulate huge fortunes overnight.

Also read: Memecoin mania briefly sends Book of Meme past $1 billion in market cap amid insider trading

SLERF’s accidental token burn

SLERF sparked a wild debate in the wider crypto community after its developer said on Monday that $10 million worth of tokens meant for presale investors were “accidentally burned”. This action meant that 50% of the token's supply, which was meant for investors who sent in money, became permanently lost on the chain.

As a result of the reduced supply, Solana whales began accumulating the token in hopes of selling it for quick returns when it launched on exchanges. This has sent Solana's top two decentralized exchanges past Ethereum's Uniswap V3, according to data from Coingecko.

With a combined 24-hour volume of $5.4 billion, Raydium and Jupiter occupy the number 1 and 2 positions of top DEXs, with SLERF accounting for $3.3 billion of that volume, according to Birdeye data.

SLERF is up by over 1,200% on Tuesday with close to 1 million trades as of the time of writing.

Top DEXs 24-hour volume

SLERF Trading volume

Read more: Solana-based Jupiter posts hefty returns amidst meme coin rally

SLERF’s plan to make presale investors whole

Hours after the accidental token burn, SLERF is beginning to call for donors to refund investors' money. Although many have raised concerns about the event being a potential scam, its developer has been active on X (formerly Twitter), trying to raise money to recoup all lost funds.

LBank exchange has said on its X account that it would donate to the refund and serve as custodian of the donation address. This is to ensure mistakes like the token burn do not repeat themselves.

HTX Exchange (formerly Huobi), which was among the first crypto exchanges to list SLERF, has also said via its X account that it would donate all trading revenue from the token to refund presale investors. LBank stated that it had received 1,400 SOL in donations as of the time of writing.