Solana protocol tops Ethereum in daily revenue thanks to $51bn memecoin craze

Memecoin generator Pump.fun surpassed Ethereum in daily revenue for the first time on Monday.

Pump.fun grossed $1.99 million in revenue, DefiLlama data shows, exceeding Ethereum’s daily proceeds of $1.91 million with Solana itself earning $806,957 for the day.

The protocol is used to create and trade memecoins on the Solana and Blast blockchains, but it’s most popular on Solana.

It has benefited from the memecoin trading frenzy that has dominated crypto in the first half of the year, especially on Solana, the network of choice for 85% of all new tokens traded on decentralised exchanges in 2024.

Pump.fun is popular because it doesn’t require coding to create memecoins and it is a secure platform that tries to prevent “early rugs.”

Early rugs are instances where token creators remove liquidity soon after launching a token, leaving investors in the lurch.

Despite suffering a $2 million hack in May, pump.fun has helped memecoins creators deploy more than 1.2 million tokens since its inception in January. The protocol has produced $51.3 million in revenue so far.

Memecoins are a big crypto sector valued at $51.5 billion, according to data from CoinGecko. Major memecoins include Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Pepe.

Meme-inspired tokens used to be animal-themed or based on popular internet memes but have now expanded to include celebrity-based tokens.

Celebrity-based tokens are often marred by controversy and could become the subject of future enforcement action by US regulators.

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has criticised the celebrity memecoin culture and said creators should focus on projects that offer “some kind of public good,” rather than enriching early adopters.

There are even tokens based on US political figures whose price movements often mirror political sentiments.

Short memecoins

Most memecoins are available only for spot trading. Exceptions include Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Pepe, and Brett, tokens whose market sizes are large enough for leveraged trading on several centralised exchanges.

But that will change soon, according to MarginFi, a Solana-based platform that will introduce a protocol called mrgnswap to allow traders to place long or short bets on memecoins with leverage.

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. To share tips or information about stories, please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.