coinspress.com
In a mishap during its launch today, the developer of Slerf memecoin unintentionally destroyed both the liquidity pool and the 500 million tokens allocated for pre-sale participants.
Despite successfully raising over $10 million during its pre-sale phase, the project encountered significant setbacks.
Over the weekend, Slerf was among the many Solana-based memecoins that attracted substantial investments from crypto enthusiasts through pre-sale initiatives. Notably, an unknown NFT artist known as Dekadente raised over $30 million worth of SOL in the pre-sale of a memecoin called Smole. Similarly, another NFT artist named Kero amassed over $10 million for their memecoin, NAP.
Crypto researcher 0xGumshoe disclosed that the Solana memecoin community collectively invested approximately $100 million in pre-sales. This frenzy propelled Solana decentralized exchange volumes to record highs, with the blockchain’s popularity on Google surpassing that of Ethereum.
Pre-sale, a process where investors send crypto to a designated wallet address in exchange for tokens once the token launches, has gained popularity. However, it does not guarantee token allocation.
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The surge in pre-sale popularity followed the unexpected success of The Book of Meme (BOME) coin, which saw a remarkable value increase of over 1,000%, leading to significant listings on exchanges like Binance. BOME currently boasts a fully diluted market capitalization of around $1 billion.
Despite its apparent success, Ethereum expert Anthony Sassano criticized the pre-sale model, labeling it a “bidding ponzi.” He cautioned against investing in “memecoin pre-sales” with a high likelihood of rug pulls.
Unfortunately, the uncertainty surrounding pre-sales has made them a target for fraudsters. On-chain crypto sleuth ZachXBT highlighted instances of “grifters” exploiting the community. One flagged account raised around 4,935.55 SOL, worth approximately $1 million, for an unreleased memecoin.