Can Base challenge Solana’s Memecoin dominance?

Solana’s return has been the story of this cycle so far, with the network growing on the back of technological improvements, profitable airdrops and, above all, memecoin.

Memecoins have gone from a short-lived, unserious asset class to a forward-thinking alternative to low-float, high-FDV tokens that don’t leave enough profit margin for retail.

Today, the majority of memecoin activity occurs on Solana, although activity continues to migrate to ETH L2s such as Arbitrum and Base. Base has been particularly lively lately. Although Coinbase-incubated L2 promises to become a meme hub, activity on Solana continues to dominate and remain within its ecosystem. Can Base compete with Solana in the memecoin arena?

In this article we will examine the current state of these platforms, their capital flows and major projects to evaluate what makes Solana the memecoin capital and how Base compares to it.

🐕 Solana’s memecoin scene

A critical element for Solana to become the L1 darling of this cycle was his memecoin activity.

Fueled by an internal capital surge resulting from airdrops such as Jito, Jupiter, Kamino, Parcl and Tensor, memecoins have fallen and reached $1 billion market cap within a weeka spectacular achievement and an excellent marketing campaign for a chain that is now pushing a TVL above $4.8 billion.

Solana owes a considerable part of its narrative momentum to memecoin fever, evident in the activity on pump.fun, a popular memecoin launcher, which on some days represented 83% of all tokens launched and even upended Solana in round-the-clock revenue. This success, however, would not have been possible if the network did not already have such a strong memecoin arena with major character tokens such as WIF, BONK, and BODEN, to name a few.

• Dogwifhat (Text title: WIFE; Market capitalization: $3.3 billion) is a cute Shiba Inu in a knitted hat who has become Solana’s mascot due to his memeability, widespread promotion by Crypto Twitter personalities, and loyalty generated by rise of your token from a $10,000 market cap to multi-billion dollar status.
• Jeo Boden (Text title: BODEN; Market capitalization: $194 million), a derpy version of US President Joe Biden that lit up the market PolitiFi destination, also calls Solana home. In her first week, she brought in many 1000x returns, a performance that has certainly married some into the SOL memecoin scene.
• Good (Text title: BONK; Market cap: $2.65 billion) is Solana’s OG memecoin. It’s a December 2022 Shiba Inu that saw incredible price action last fall and kicked off memecoins for the chain.

Overall, Solana boasts not only the most prominent memecoins of the cycle, but also a thematic range of tokens, from cats and dogs to politicians.

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🧑🏻‍🦲 The basic Memecoin scene

Base has quickly grown to find its place as one of Ethereum’s top L2s with its memecoin ecosystem helping it achieve a consumer-friendly reputation.

Projects like DEGEN and friends.tech have brought coherent activity to the network and established a culture for Base as a social hub. That said, while March saw an epic rally in the network’s TVL, it appears to have plateaued in recent weeks. While Base’s TVL is still very different from Solana’s, its daily volumes are impressive. Last week, the network reached a record $854 million in daily volumes.

TVL in blue. Volumes in green.

While the BALD carpet of 2023 may have left an initial sour taste in the mouths of memecoin gamblers, the ecosystem has developed more momentum in more recent memecoin cycles, however it’s still the Wild West.

• Brett (Text title: BRETT; Market capitalization: $440 million) is a token inspired by a character from the comic book “Boy’s Club” by Pepe creator Matt Furie. While niche can be positive, it can also reduce the audience and, therefore, the demand for a token.
• Toshi the cat (Text title: TOSHI; Market capitalization: $146 million), named after Brian Armstrong and Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto’s cat, is Base’s primary pet-inspired memecoin.

Merchants show loyalty to the chains that have helped them accumulate wealth. While SOL traders were able to purchase the token at a fraction of its current market capitalization, Base does not yet have a native token due to regulatory scrutiny, and if/when it does, it can be assumed that there will be relatively Lighter upside available for retail traders. Meanwhile there have been few ecosystem reference airdrops on the Base, unlike the Solana community.

While Base has unique memecoin communities, they don’t have the broader appeal of tokens in other ecosystems like Solana; rather, they cater to a more crypto-native audience. This uniqueness makes the chain stand out, but the narrow thematic scope could limit the chain’s success as a major meme hub.

While Base was able to leverage its cheaper and faster transactions to create a first class of memes, the strongest memecoin communities on Ethereum still exist primarily on the mainnet. Solana has momentum and a more palpable narrative this cycle, and while Base continues to be one of the most vibrant L2 ecosystems, there is a lot of ground for Base to make up in the memecoin arena.

Closing thoughts

Solana and Base exist on different levels when it comes to memecoins.

Solana has solidified its position with a diverse and thriving memecoin ecosystem supported by significant airdrops and a robust community. Conversely, despite its impressive growth and support from Coinbase, Base has yet to reach the same level of mainstream traction and capital creation that lends itself to the degenerate environment necessary for memecoins.

Solana’s continued growth, evident in rising TVL and daily volumes, highlights its place center stage in this cycle. As the memecoin landscape evolves, it will be interesting to see if Base is able to promote an exceptional memecoin that differentiates Base within the Ethereum ecosystem and outside of it.

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