Over the weekend, the memecoin craze reached new heights as a familiar trend swept through the space.
Following Darkfarms’ remarkable success with their Book of Meme ($BOME) token, which soared to a $1.46 billion market cap just two days after its March 14 presale, a slew of artists and projects rushed to emulate its rapid rise by launching their own Solana memecoin presales, quickly amassing millions.
These announcements followed a similar pattern, urging followers to send SOL to a designated Solana wallet address, specifying percentages for the presale and liquidity pool, setting contribution minimums, and sometimes establishing time or funding caps.
Pseudonymous artist Kero made waves in the crypto community by raising over $10 million for his SNAP ($NAP) memecoin within 24 hours. Launched late Saturday night, $NAP now boasts a $43 million market cap and over $274 million in 24-hour volume, despite Kero having a significantly smaller following than Darkfarms.
Kero’s success energized the community, as highlighted by tweets like “Literally nobody knows him,” shared by trader Wizard of Soho, adding fuel to the memecoin presale frenzy.
Shortly after, another artist named Satoshi’s Mom launched his Nostalgia ($NOS) presale, raising $3 million and reaching a $6.7 million market cap upon Sunday’s launch.
Since then, the floodgates have burst open. Notably, artist Dekadente raised a staggering $30 million for his $SMOLE memecoin launch, scheduled for Monday night.
Trippy Labs also announced its $SHROOM token and secured $3.8 million in a capped presale, set to launch on Monday. Although Trippy’s announcement faced criticism due to inactivity on X (formerly Twitter) since November, defenders like Cozomo de’ Medici and Gmoney rallied support.
Amid the rush to market, several memecoin launches encountered severe technical issues. For instance, the developer of $SLERF mistakenly burned the token’s liquidity pool and airdrop allocation, essentially erasing all presale tokens. Despite this mishap, $SLERF briefly reached a $400 million market cap.
Similarly, pseudonymous developer Pokeee had to issue refunds for participants in their $LIKE presale after facing airdrop and botting issues, causing the coin’s price to plummet upon release.
Other notable presale launches include Redlion’s $RED presale ($1 million raised), Shakkablood’s $SMLE presale ($696K), void’s $BOG presale, among others.
Beeple captured the essence of the presale frenzy in his latest artwork titled “PRESALE SEASON,” immortalizing the trend following his trilogy on the Book of Meme saga.
This surge in presale activity echoes past instances, such as crypto trader Ben.eth raising over $20 million in total for tokens like $BEN and $PSYOP in May 2023, resulting in his Twitter suspension and a subsequent class action lawsuit.