Meme Coin Frenzy Strains Solana Network, Highlighting Scaling Challenges

Meme coins like Dogwifhat, Bonk, Book of Meme, and Slerf drove major activity and volume on Solana this week, putting strain on the network. Doodles co-founder Jordan Castro created a new POOP meme coin that saw initial interest.

Activity around meme coins brought attention to Solana competitors like Base, which saw "parabolic" growth in its nascent meme coin offerings.

Major project Wormhole launched its W governance token in an airdrop to over 400,000 wallets. Ethena Labs also debuted its $ENA governance token along with expanding its Bitcoin-backed stablecoin USDe.

Solana experienced extremely high transaction failure rates this week, as high as 76.8% according to some observers, due to congestion from demand and bots spamming the network.

Some believe the strain on Solana is a necessary stress test for the blockchain to adapt and scale further, though critics argue it shows more progress still needs to be made.