A non-fungible token (NFT) artist going by the pseudonym Kero broke the crypto internet after he raised more than $10 million in Solana (SOL) in less than a day during the presale of a meme coin, which apparently started for a laugh.
Kero launched the presale after conducting a poll on X on whether they should launch a coin on Solana “for fun” to mark the occasion of joining the network.
After garnering more than 5,000 votes in the poll, the little-known NFT artist then launched a coin presale by posting a wallet address, which accumulated over 55,000 SOL, or $10.4 million at current prices, in a matter of hours.
Kero admitted to being clueless about what to make before the poll and named the new coin SNAP, after one of their meme characters Coco, a croc drawn in the style of another popular meme character, Pepe the Frog.
SNAP officially launched on March 16 and is already being listed on various exchanges, such as CoinW.
An analysis by The Block using data from Solscan revealed that most contributions in the prelaunch were made in small amounts, averaging about 3.5 SOL, although there were a few contributions in the hundreds.
Kero is the creator of several NFT collections including Rare Coco and Snappy Cocos. Despite a history with NFTs, the artist does not have much of a track record when it comes to issuing tokens, leaving the worth of investments in the new venture rather ambiguous.
Some contributors claimed to have received tokens worth $17,000, but the meme coin is still in the early stages of development, with limited market liquidity, and its value is yet to stabilize.
SNAP is currently trading at $0.00004256, a 52.5% drop from the level it entered the crypto market at, according to data from CoinGecko.
In that period, it became the 30th most traded cryptocurrency, registering a trading volume of more than $679 million. It also has a market capitalization of $70.24 million, putting it on CoinMarketCap’s digital asset list at #2,374.
Kero’s jump from an NFT artist to a token millionaire overnight sparked a lot of buzz in the crypto community, with some expressing disbelief as to how an unknown artist could accumulate such funds in such a short amount of time.
Others have come out to announce that they will also be launching their own meme coins in an effort to challenge the rationale behind supporting individuals with little experience.
The overwhelming contributions to the SNAP presale underscore the growing interest in meme coins and how their value can skyrocket by just riding a wave on social media.
