The Absurd Rise of $BONK Shows That Nobody Learned Anything In the Crypto Crash

Update: As of Friday, January 6, the price of $BONK has fallen more than 60% in 24 hours.

If you've been keeping up with the news around cryptocurrency over the past couple years—the rise and fall of hyped-up memecoins, the never-ending series of implosions and broken promises—you might think that a majority of investors have by now learned their lesson. People still invest in crypto, sure, but the days of doge-themed derivative coins pumped on social media with FOMO-stoking marketing and giveaways are done, right? Well, take a look at Twitter's trending topics and weep: $Bonk is taking over. 

Bonk is a doge-themed cryptocurrency on the Solana blockchain, and it launched in December, billing itself as being "for the people and by the people." Bonk's value has pumped 2,500% since its launch—1 Bonk is now worth $0.00000258—with the obligatory Forbes contributor article highlighting the rally. There are innumerable tweets from various projects and influencers advertising giveaways for Bonk in exchange for retweets and likes, NFT projects are integrating Bonk, and there are already several copycats of unclear trustworthiness promoting themselves as being a way to catch the Bonk hype wave if you missed it at launch—there's Bonk Max, Baby Bonk Inu, and Bong Inu. Bonk has no public face, and no official Telegram or Discord, just a Twitter account and a bare-bones website. As previously mentioned, "$Bonk" was a Twitter trending topic on Thursday. 

Bonk has chiefly been a boon to Solana, which has struggled since the FTX collapse thanks to its associations with former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Half of all Bonk tokens were "airdropped"—or given away for free—to Solana NFT projects, blockchain developers, and various other early adopters, with a full 20% of tokens reserved for the Bonk team as well. With the token's rise in value due to outsiders buying in, these early no-cost holders have likely already made on-paper returns (Bonk claims that project contributors' compensation is on a vested 3-year schedule). 

This is all absurd. So far, Bonk is speedrunning what is by now a very familiar script, and there’s a nagging feeling that we’ve seen how similar stuff has ended many times before. For example, doge-themed memecoin Shiba Inu was a darling of crypto investors for much of 2021—some became on-paper billionaires—but has now lost over 90% of its value, with many investors left holding the bag. Airdropped community coins like $GAS and $SOS were once highly hyped, but the’ve since cratered by nearly 100%.

Putting aside any attempt at predicting the future of Bonk, investors could take on less risk if they tried crossing the Grand Canyon on a tightrope while holding a Shake Weight.

You don't need to be a crypto-genius to see what Bonk’s rise means: that nobody has learned anything at all.