From decrypt by André Beganski

With Solana’s price within striking distance of an all-time high, Bonk (BONK) became the network’s largest meme coin by market cap Tuesday, surging past its primary canine competitor.

Rising by nearly 7% over the past day to $0.00005269, Bonk’s total value clocks in above $3.9 billion as of this writing. Meanwhile, Solana’s Dogwifhat (WIF) had fallen 5% to $3.29, ceding its celebratory status to Bonk, as the meme coin’s market decreased to under $3.3 billion.

Earlier Tuesday afternoon, Bonk hit a new all-time high price of $0.000057 after previously breaking its own record multiple times since late last week.

Billed as the “social layer” of Solana, the development could be viewed as a return to normal for Bonk, which was embraced by Solana’s community following its launch in December 2022. In March, WIF flipped BONK for the first time, dethroning the go-to meme coin for months.

Whether its BONKbot or BONKSwap, Bonk’s ecosystem can be broken down into several community-led projects that have cropped up around the meme coin over time. Recently, Bonk’s governing DAO embraced an initiative called BURNmas, culminating on Christmas Day.

Effectively, community members can participate in activities that will earmark BONK to be burned alongside the winter holiday, which would remove the tokens from circulation. With the meme coin’s increasing scarcity, some may hope the dynamic leads to a higher Bonk price.

Representing 1.3% of Bonk’s circulating supply, the project plans to burn up to 1 trillion in Bonk tokens. But that figure will be determined based on fans’ ability to complete various tasks, such as following a Bonk Instagram page or recording steps in the fitness app Moonwalk.

As tokens that trade on little more than vibes, traders primarily engaged with Dogwifhat thorough decentralized exchanges in the U.S. up until recently. That changed, however, when the crypto exchange Coinbase listed the meme coin on its platform last week.

  Coinbase’s move preceded WIF’s rally to $4.29, representing the meme coin’s highest price in over seven months. Still, the asset has yet to break its all-time price of $4.58 in March, around the time of a community-led fundraiser intending to put WIF on the Las Vegas Sphere.  

Tuesday’s dogfight came as Solana continued its post-Election Day rise. Bolstered by expectations of a crypto-friendly regime under President-elect Donald Trump, Solana’s price has increased 50% since Americans went to the ballot box, jumping to $240 from $160.

In 2021, Solana set an all-time high price of $259, cementing its status as a so-called Ethereum killer. On Tuesday, as meme coin mania tightened its grip on Solana, the asset traded hands at 7.6% below that record, while Ethereum remained 36% from its own 2021 peak of $4,878.