2024-05-17
Since April 1, approximately half of the one million newly created tokens are memecoins generated on the Solana network.
In the early days of April, more than one million tokens were brought into existence. Out of this number, Ethereum saw the emergence of over 370,000 tokens, while Solana witnessed the launch of around 640,000 tokens, with the majority being memecoins.
During this period, the Ethereum network experienced the introduction of 372,642 new tokens, with a significant 88% of them being launched on Coinbase's layer-2 blockchain Base. The popularity of this layer-2 network has soared as users seek a cost-effective platform for creating new memecoins.
Coinbase director Conor Grogan highlighted a similar statistic in a post on May 14, stating that the number of tokens created on Base is twice the amount generated on Ethereum between 2015 and 2023.
The total value locked (TVL) on Base has seen a remarkable surge of approximately 630% since the beginning of 2024, primarily driven by the frenzy surrounding memecoins, according to L2beat.
During the same timeframe, Solana witnessed the creation of 643,227 new tokens, as reported by analytics platform Step Finance.
Out of the total 643,000 new tokens launched on Solana, 466,914 of them were memecoins, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard that tracks the number of new tokens launched on the Solana-based memecoin platform pump.fun.
CoinMarketCap provides a list of the 500 most recent tokens added to its platform within the past 30 days, with a majority of them falling under the memecoin category.
CoinGecko, a crypto analytics platform, has now introduced a category specifically for memecoins, encompassing over 600 coins with a combined market capitalization of $52.7 billion. This accounts for nearly half of Tether's market cap.
Grogan's post received negative feedback from the crypto community, with many expressing the belief that memecoins have had a detrimental impact on the values of cryptocurrencies.
Some commenters criticized the proliferation of scams and rug pulls associated with memecoins, considering it a "net negative." They expressed their disappointment that real money could have been invested in more legitimate projects rather than falling into the hands of scammers.
The surge in the number of new memecoins has also been reffered to as "spam to farm sniper bots," which are designed to automatically acquire new memecoins in the hope of a breakout.
In April, an investigation revealed that one in six new Base memecoins was a scam, with over 90% of them having vulnerabilities.
Despite the criticism, memecoins have proven to be the most profitable crypto.
