Born out of the wreckage left behind by the collapse of FTX in November 2022, BONK is a meme coin geared toward bringing collectively the Solana group.
In December 2023, a BONK increase noticed the cryptocurrency’s market cap surge to over $1 billion, inflicting Solana Saga smartphones to promote out after savvy merchants realized that the BONK airdrop bundled with the telephones was price greater than the units themselves.
However what precisely is that this canine coin all about? What makes it particular? How does it work? And what even is the BONK meme?
What’s BONK?
Billed because the “social layer and group meme coin” of Solana, BONK is a Solana-based cryptocurrency with an ecosystem encompassing DEXs, dapps, NFTs, and—in fact—a canine mascot.
As of Could 2024, Bonk is the sixth largest meme coin, and is the 63rd largest cryptocurrency of any kind by market capitalization, in keeping with information from CoinGecko.
Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried had been a vocal supporter of Solana, so when his fraud started to unravel in 2022, the Solana group was on the lookout for a option to distance itself from the collapse of FTX.
With sentiment round Solana’s worth “at an all-time low,” 22 Solana builders joined forces to create a “group coin” with a helpful (and dog-themed) ecosystem surrounding it.
Whereas the BONK core group stays nameless, they declare to have prior expertise constructing DeFi, NFT, and different merchandise on Solana. In addition they defined that there isn’t a frontrunner inside the group, as an alternative working collectively as equals.
Shortly after the token launched in December 2022, Solana builders and group members had been airdropped round $300 price of BONK for Christmas. This was carried out in an try and unite and reward the group for pushing by means of the laborious yr. In keeping with CoinGecko, as of Could 2024 this airdrop is price over $550,000.
In January 2023, BONK’s builders burned 5 trillion BONK that was allotted to them, in a bid to cease the cryptocurrency’s worth from dropping. This burn shrunk BONK’s circulating provide by 5% to 94.2 trillion, however its worth continued to fall within the fast aftermath of the burn.
What’s the BONK ecosystem?
In keeping with its official web site, BONK has 129 integrations, however lists seven key tasks in its ecosystem.
They embody BONKbot, a Telegram buying and selling bot that permits Solana customers to commerce utilizing the messaging service, and BONKSwap, an automated market maker (AMM).
Different tasks within the BONK ecosystem embody a gamified health platform (Moonwalk), a cross-chain bridge to purchase BONK (imaginatively known as BuyBONK), and a decentralized trade (OpenBONK).
There are various different BONK-inspired Solana integrations spanning DeFi, gaming, and social, however we don’t have sufficient ink to undergo all of them one-by-one.
It’s, nonetheless, vital to spotlight BONK’s steady engagement with Solana NFT tasks. For starters, the undertaking distributed 21% of its token provide to 40 energetic Solana NFT tasks. On high of this, a BONK-inspired NFT assortment known as BONKz was launched in 2023.
What’s in a reputation?
BONK’s title references a collection of comedian memes, by which canines—principally the meme-friendly Shiba Inu breed—had been hit on the pinnacle with hammers with a ‘bonk’ sound impact (clearly, no canines had been harmed within the making of the meme).
In keeping with KnowYourMeme, the ‘bonk’ meme originates from a 2019 Instagram put up which incorporates a “humorously malformed” Shiba Inu being struck by a hand holding a hammer, with a ‘bonk’ clip artwork and sound.
This quickly unfold throughout Twitter and Reddit with different canines getting bonked too. This meme later advanced into the ‘go to sexy jail’ response meme, despatched to customers that had been—because the cool children say—being sexy on principal.
In contrast to many meme cash, the BONK token makes use of its personal proprietary brand as an alternative of the unique meme. That is helped it to keep away from the authorized battles over copyright which have affected some tasks, like BONK’s Solana meme coin stablemate Shark Cat.
What are the longer term plans for BONK?
Since its preliminary Christmas Day airdrop in 2022, BONK has been all about bolstering the Solana group. Its distribution technique going ahead is not any completely different.
The BONKDAO decentralized autonomous group has been assigned 15.8% of the full provide of BONK, in a bid to empower the group to decide on the place the BONK ecosystem goes subsequent. The DAO has voted on proposals together with the creation of a voting tutorial video, funding a advertising and marketing marketing campaign, and burning treasury tokens.
On high of this, any contributor who’s given BONK tokens to fund their undertaking is given a 3 yr lengthy vesting schedule. This implies, in principle, that integrations are much less prone to rug the funding as they’re incentivized to stay round for at the very least three years.
One of the best place to maintain up with BONK group bulletins is the BONK Inu Twitter account or the official Discord group.
