The Solana blockchain has recently become a hotbed for memecoin activity, with numerous projects raising millions of dollars in presales and achieving billion-dollar market caps within days of launch. One such project, Slerf, a sloth-themed memecoin, has garnered significant attention due to a controversial and potentially costly mistake by its developer.
TLDR
Slerf, a sloth-themed Solana memecoin, raised $10 million in a presale but the developer accidentally burned the liquidity provider and tokens.
Despite the mishap, Slerf gained significant traction, with $1.8 billion in trading volume and a price surge to $1.4 within hours of launch.
Some skeptics suggest the burn event may have been an intentional marketing stunt, citing suspicious trades and the developer’s removal of funds before the burn.
The Solana blockchain has become a hub for new memecoins, with several reaching billion-dollar market caps within days of launching.
Slerf raised an impressive $10 million in its presale, attracting investors eager to capitalize on the growing memecoin trend.
However, the project’s launch took an unexpected turn when the developer accidentally burned the liquidity provider and tokens meant for the airdrop.
In a series of apologetic posts on X, the developer, @slerfsol, explained that the burn was the result of a “simple mindless misclick” during the process of burning the liquidity pool.
The developer expressed deep remorse, stating, “This is not a joke I really f****d up and im really sorry.”
Guys I fucked up. I burned the LP and the tokens that were set aside for the airdrop.
Mint authority is already revoked so I can not mint them.
There is nothing I can do to fix this.
I am so fucking sorry.
— Slerf (@Slerfsol) March 18, 2024
Despite the apparent blunder, Slerf’s launch was far from a failure.
The token quickly gained traction on Solana-based exchanges like Jupiter and Orca, with its price surging from around 3 cents to as high as $1.4 within hours.
Slerf amassed a staggering $1.8 billion in trading volume, with over 500,000 individual trades from 106,000 traders, according to data from Birdeye.
Some traders even reported making millions of dollars by betting on the newly launched token.
However, not everyone is convinced that the burn event was an honest mistake.
Skeptics have pointed to several suspicious trades as evidence that the mishap may have been an intentional marketing stunt.
Solana community developer Gary Henderson claimed that the Slerf burn appears to have been doctored, noting that the Slerf creator’s wallet removed 1,050 SOL from the liquidity pool just before the liquidity was burned.
SLERF founder refunded his 1,050 SOL before burning your tokens
PSYOP pic.twitter.com/gFarEmTqjl
— Gary (@GaryLHenderson) March 18, 2024
This, Henderson suggests, strongly indicates that the Slerf developer was aware of the impending burn and took steps to protect their own funds.
Others, like Wildcat creator Laurence Day, have also suggested that the burn was “nearly certainly intentional” to generate hype for the project.
In seriousness, the Slerf LP burn was nearly certainly intentional to drive hype
Someone stacked $1.9 million into it shortly thereafter (and sold for 5)
You don’t size a bet like that unless you understand that people want to dunk on presale participants
And it’s your pool
— laurence (@functi0nZer0) March 18, 2024
Day highlighted that someone had stacked $1.9 million into the liquidity pool shortly after the burn and sold it for $5 million, implying that insiders could have profited from the ensuing hysteria.
The Slerf developer has repeatedly denied these allegations, maintaining that the burn was a genuine mistake and not a calculated marketing ploy.
In a tearful X Space, the developer reiterated that the burning of the pre-sale allocation was a “stupid mistake” and “not a joke.”
The Slerf incident is just one example of the memecoin frenzy that has gripped the Solana ecosystem in recent weeks.
The phenomenon has drawn comparisons to the Ethereum ICO bubble of 2017, when numerous projects raised millions of dollars, only for many to fail to deliver on their promises.
Critics argue that the current memecoin offerings (MCOs) mirror the ICO craze, with influencers raising substantial sums in presales and the potential for scams and rug pulls being high.
As one user on X observed, the memecoin mania may be a more honest version of the 2017 ICO craze and the 2021 NFT/crypto-art bubble, as projects “no longer have to pretend to deliver on a fake white paper and investors no longer have to pretend to be in it for the art.”
While stories of traders making millions in mere days often attract others to try their luck, the reality is that many investors lose significant portions of their investments in these highly speculative and often short-lived projects.
Crypto proponents warn that the memecoin bubble will eventually liquidate millions of new users who blindly put their money into technologies with no real utility.
As the Solana memecoin frenzy continues to unfold, it remains to be seen whether projects like Slerf will maintain their momentum as more retail participants arrive or if they burn out like the 2017 ICO craze.
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