In the month of May, the Solana blockchain saw the launch of nearly half a million tokens. This number represents an unprecedented monthly record compared to other blockchains. The phenomenon mainly results from the success of certain memecoins and the ease with which anyone can create a token in a few seconds.
According to data from The Block Pro, 455,000 new tokens were created on Solana in May. In contrast, the Ethereum Layer 2 Base registered 177 thousand tokens and the BNB chain had 39 thousand. The Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Optimism mainnets each had less than 20,000 tokens created.
Austin Federa, head of strategy at the Solana Foundation, explained that Solana was designed as a general-purpose Layer 1 with high speed and low transaction costs.
“The mass creation of tokens on Solana results from these characteristics, reducing the cost of experimentation and creating new ideas to almost zero,” Federa said. He added that tokens on Solana should be as easy to create as content on the Internet.
Rise of memecoins
Most of the new tokens on Solana are memecoins, which have attracted the attention of the crypto community. The trend gained momentum following the success of memecoins like Dogwifhat, Bonk and Book of Meme. These tokens quickly rose through the ranks of the crypto market.
Pump.fun has played a crucial role in this increase. The platform allows anyone to create a token with just a few clicks, significantly easing the launch process. Thanks to this facility, Solana has seen the launch of 1.1 million new tokens so far this year.
Among the tokens created by Pump.fun are political memecoins such as Jeo Boden and Doland Tremp, which have gained popularity ahead of the upcoming US elections. Furthermore, interest in these tokens increased after Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records.
Steven Zheng, director of research at The Block Pro, commented on the situation:
“The memecoin craze and the success of Pump.Fun have made Solana the current leader in launching new tokens. It remains to be seen whether Solana can capture the share of token launches beyond memecoins.”
Recently, several celebrities have jumped on the Solana-based token bandwagon. Caitlyn Jenner and Iggy Azalea, for example, launched their own tokens, taking advantage of the ease with which these assets can increase in value due to their large audience.
More data from the report
To achieve leadership in the number of new tokens created in May, Solana had to surpass the Base network, which has also seen high activity in recent months. In April, Base registered 240 thousand new tokens, while Solana had 229 thousand.
Previously, the BNB network was preferred for new token launches. Between 2021 and 2022, BNB recorded an average of 95 thousand tokens created per month. However, these numbers have been gradually declining since peaking in May 2021.
Since 2017, more than 7 million tokens have been launched across the six major blockchain networks. The BNB chain leads with 3.7 million tokens, followed by Solana with 1.4 million and the Ethereum mainnet with one million tokens. While the number of newly created tokens is just one metric used to observe crypto ecosystems, it reflects the cheapest and highest yielding chains.
Source: https://www.criptofacil.com/solana-lanca-quase-meio-milhao-de-tokens-em-maio/
