Solana memecoin hits a whopping $328T market cap — but for all the wrong reasons
With just over 1,000 holders, an obscure Solana-based memecoin has apparently become the highest market cap asset in the world at $328 trillion. The catch? It’s a honeypot scam and no one can sell.
The honeypot memecoin launched on April 29, with BONKKILLER tallying around $4.6 million in trading volume over the last 24 hours. More than 90% of the tokens are held by the creator, according to cryptocurrency analytics platform Birdeye.
Unfortunately, many investors who bought the memecoin quickly realized that they can’t move any of it after the developer put on “freeze authority” — which allows them to prevent tokens from being transferred.
“[BONKKILLER], a scam and honeypot token, surpasses $100 trillion Market Cap following developer action to freeze token holders‘ accounts and prevent token sales,” said Solana-focused news platform SolanaFloor in an April 29 X post.
A honeypot is a type of scam that lures investors with high-profit potential but prevents them from selling.
For perspective, $328 trillion is 3.28 times more than the entire global domestic gross product, which sits at $100 trillion, according to Worldometer.
Nonfungible token enthusiast “thirt13n” was among those who pointed out the memecoin isn’t actually backed by that much fiat and the marketcap metric is useless if tokenholders cannot sell.
“Bullshit metrics. if you are unable to sell, its worth $0.”
Despite several platforms notifying investors of the honeypot scam, traders continue to buy BONKKILLER tokens, Birdeye data shows.
The creator has also pulled $1.62 million in funds from victims across 11 transactions, per on-chain data.
Related: Phishing scam thefts on Base are up 1,900% from January — Scam Sniffer
BONKKILLER is just the latest example of a memecoin rug pull or honeypot scam tricking gullible users.
An investigation by Cointelegraph Magazine found one in six memecoins on the Ethereum layer two scaling solution Base are scams, or have characteristics as such, and that 91% of the memecoins analysis possessed at least one security vulnerability.
However, they could also reflect a creator’s lack of knowledge about proper security procedures, especially if they’ve launched a token as a joke or to troll the industry.
Blockchain scam prevention tools have been developed to detect potential honeypots by performing smart contract and token analysis in real-time.
Magazine: 1 in 6 new Base meme coins are scams, 91% have vulnerabilities
