Bankless · Wednesday, August 5, 2026
Mike Dudas recounts the launch of Bonk, a meme coin on Solana, during the depths of the 2022 bear market. The airdrop to Solana users and developers aimed to reinvigorate the ecosystem, and Dudas notes it successfully generated excitement and activity, with the token quickly reaching a significant market cap.
“And frankly, the number of creators, so developers. I mean, there was a meme at the time, a joke that there were something like 75 developers left in Solana. And, you know, a group of folks who cared a lot about a Solana who had participated, who had built things, you know, not just, you know, finance people or VCs or, you know, enthusiasts or collectors, but developers and other people who were pretty deep in the Solana ecosystem said, hey, what's a really good way at a time of like low morale and activity to build?”
“So, you know, a group of 20 folks launched a meme coin called Bonk, you know, a dog coin. Again, this is before the meme industrial complex erupted. And the idea was if we airdrop, you know, half of the supply to folks who have built on the chain, used the chain, collected NFTs and other things on the chain, one, we're going to have a bit of a stimulus activity, hopefully get some excitement, attention, and, you know. get people interested in building again.”
“And lo and behold, it works. So basically airdropped 50% of supply within I think like a month or six weeks. The token was trading over 400 million dollars And so a couple hundred million in value had been airdropped at a time when that just wasn't a thing for meme coins out to the Solana community.”