Solana Daily Volume Suddenly Surpasses Ethereum, Surpassing $2 Billion – Here's Why

Solana's decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are stealing the spotlight, with transaction volumes that would make even ethereum blush. What's behind this sudden surge? It's all down to dogs, or one particular Shiba Inu, to be precise.

According to DefiLlama data, trading volume on Solana’s DEX hit a whopping $2 billion in the past 24 hours. That’s more than ethereum, its army of layer-2 networks, and BNB Chain combined — a first for Solana.

The catalyst for this trading frenzy? A new meme coin called Neiro that has degenerate dogs salivating. Neiro is another dog-themed token, following in the footsteps of Dogecoin. But there's a twist: the Shiba Inu behind this meme is x.com/kabosumama/status/1817304824431657271″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow noreferrer”>apparently possessed by the same person who owns the dog that inspired Dogecoin.

As with any viral meme in the crypto world, Neiro’s popularity spawned a number of copycat tokens on Solana. The trading volume of these Neiro-inspired coins exceeded $1 billion, data from Dexscreener shows.

But here’s where things get complicated: which Neiro is the “real” Neiro? There are several tokens trading under that name, with the largest having a market value of $58 million, followed by another worth $13 million.

The debate over authenticity has sparked controversy in the Solana community. Some eagle-eyed investors noticed that the contract address of one variant ends with “pump,” indicating that it was created in Bomb.Funa popular Solana memecoin generator. This led some to dismiss the other variant as a copycat, though its proponents have dubbed it “Lab Neiro.”

Is Neiro's meme coin a rip-off?

To add to the confusion, both tokens are listed on CoinGecko, with Lab Neiro having a market size four times larger than the so-called “True Neiro” created on Pump.fun.

The Neiro meme didn’t stop at Solana’s borders. It also made its way to ethereum, but with a sinister twist. The ethereum version turned out to be a classic “honeypot” scam: a token that can be bought but not sold, except by its creators. This fraudulent token managed to reach a market value of $50 million before being discovered.

According to recent reports, the original developer of Neiro has cashed out $2.85 million in a potential withdrawal. The Neiro developer turned a modest 3 SOL (around $550) into a 5,169x profit. Blockchain sleuth Lookonchain broke down the developer’s moves in a July 28 article. x.com/lookonchain/status/1817416920351834593″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow noreferrer”>mail:

“He sold $68M of Neiro for $15,511SOL ($2.85M) across multiple wallets, for a realized gain of $15,508SOL ($2.85M). (…) He also sent $10M of Neiro to the dead wallet, leaving $19.5M of Neiro ($1.8M), for an unrealized gain of $1.8M!”

For those unfamiliar with crypto lingo, this pattern of behavior (where insiders quietly sell a large portion of their tokens and disappear into the night) is what's known as a “rug pull.”