Solana, Avalanche Meme Coin Fever Continues as Bitcoin Nears $43K

Traders have increasingly favored these networks over Ethereum for their lower transaction fees and faster speeds.

AccessTimeIconDec 19, 2023 at 9:46 a.m. UTC
Updated Mar 8, 2024 at 6:51 p.m. UTC
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Tokens of Solana, Avalanche and Injective surged as much as 20% in the past 24 hours as the meme coin trading frenzy extended into a third week on these networks.

Solana’s SOL jumped 8% while Avalanche’s AVAX added almost 12% before giving back some gains. Dog-themed tokens dogwifhat (WIF) and bonk (BONK) trended on Solana, while a hen-themed Coq Inu (COQ) led the meme narrative on Avalanche, surging more than 40% in the past 24 hours.

Avalanche-based COQ is leading the memecoin narrative on the blockhain. (DEXTools)
Avalanche-based COQ is leading the memecoin narrative on the blockhain. (DEXTools)

Traders have increasingly preferred these networks over Ethereum for their much lower transaction fees and faster speeds: It costs less than a cent and takes seconds for a Solana transaction, while Ethereum can cost at least $15 dollars and take up to a minute.

That’s led to more transactional activity on both networks, which has more than doubled in the past month, alongside an increase in active wallets and new users, data shows.

Bitcoin (BTC), meantime, neared $43,000 in Asian afternoon hours as hopes around an expected spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) listing in the U.S. were boosted late Monday as traditional finance firm BlackRock revised its proposal, likely after regulatory feedback.

Some trading firms said recent market movements showed no indication of a market correction in the short term. A correction is generally considered a drop of between and 10% and 20%.

“Bitcoin has formed a double bottom on the intraday charts, and this dynamic indicates that the mood for a deeper correction has not materialized,” shared FxPro senior market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich.

“On the other hand, Tuesday's peak is close to last Thursday's, leaving Bitcoin inside the range. Average fees on the Bitcoin network topped $37, hitting a yearly high. The growth was fuelled by another wave of activity in the Ordinals segment, which increased demand for space in the blockchain, and thus increased BTC demand,” Kuptsikevich said.

Edited by Sheldon Reback.

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Shaurya Malwa

Shaurya is the Deputy Managing Editor for the Data & Tokens team, focusing on decentralized finance, markets, on-chain data, and governance across all major and minor blockchains.


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