Solana-based memecoins surge as SOL jumps 38% from Monday's lows

Memecoins on the Solana ecosystem surged more than 30% in the past 24 hours, leading gains in the crypto market, as the network’s underlying token SOL, recovered from losses from earlier in the week.

Cat-themed popcat (POPCAT) and dog token Dogwifhat (WIF) surged as much as 25%, before slightly retreating, while smaller tokens MUMU and catdog (CATDOG) rose 30%, data show. Major memecoins on other blockchains, such as dogecoin (DOGE) and Pepe (PEPE), lost as much as 5%, showing a preference for Solana-based tokens.

Solana network volumes more than doubled to over $3.3 billion from Monday’s $1.5 billion, banking in fees of at least $750,000 per day, DefiLlama data shows. Fees generated by Pump, a popular platform used to issue new memecoins on Solana, increased to $535,000 in the past 24 hours compared to under $300,000 on Monday – indicative of higher risk-on activity among traders.

The ecosystem activity came as SOL rose 7.5%, trading over $150 in European morning hours on Wednesday to beat the broad-based CoinDesk 20’s 2.23% rise. It fell from $145 to as low as $112 on Monday amid a broader market rout but has since led gains among major tokens.

Optimism around the ecosystem comes ahead of a widely expected SOL exchange-traded fund (ETF), which could be the third spot token offered to professional U.S.-based investors behind bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH).

“The possibility of an SOL ETF shows promising signs to investors on SOL’s mainstream adoption,” Lucy Hu, senior analyst at Metalpha, told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat. “The quick rebound of SOL indicates renewed confidence in the broader crypto space as the market becomes more stabilized,”

“SOL has shown to be robust with innovations, and meme coins have been rising in popularity,” Hu added.

In early July, the CBOE submitted 19b-4 filings with the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) asking to list VanEck's and 21Shares' potential spot Solana ETFs, which were initially filed in late June.