The newly launched Pudgy Penguins cryptocurrency Pengu (PENGU) has flipped Bonk (BONK) to claim the crown as the largest meme coin in the Solana ecosystem, with a market cap of $2.65 billion.
The shift is the culmination of a rally that kicked off on Christmas Eve when the token gained over 30% in 24 hours.
PENGU Rises
Data from the crypto price tracking website CoinGecko shows that the broader Solana meme coin market has experienced explosive growth, with its total valuation rising to $18.2 billion, a 10.3% increase over the last day.
Anchoring this performance was PENGU, which posted an 11.2% jump in the past 24 hours and a remarkable 22.3% rise in the last seven days.
The meme coin, airdropped to members of the globally successful Pudgy Penguins NFT community on December 17, has not been without controversy. Soon after the token’s launch, the floor prices of the NFT collection plunged by more than 50%, wiping out any gains made since early November.
According to analysts, this was largely because the value of the collection was partly pegged on exclusive access to the brand, with the introduction of PENGU making investment in the NFTs more accessible, therefore diluting their worth.
On its rollout, the coin shot to a record high of $0.0684 before dropping to a record low of $0.0114. It then see-sawed for the next few days, moving between $0.038 on December 18 to $0.0231 on December 20. However, since December 23, it has been making steady gains, going as high as $0.0417 on Boxing Day, a price that pushed its market cap to $2.62 billion.
BONK Falls
Conversely, the previous king of the Solana meme coins, BONK, showed more modest improvements in its price over the last seven days, going up 6.9% in that period. Further, across two weeks, it lost 17% of its value, with CoinGecko data showing another 23% plunge over 30 days, putting its market cap at just over $2.5 billion and allowing PENGU to surpass it.
The competition doesn’t end there. Other meme tokens like dogwifhat (WIF) and Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) are vying for investor attention. On Christmas Eve, the former reached an all-time high of $1.02, pushing its overall worth beyond the $1 billion mark.
However, despite Fartcoin being among the top gainers across seven days with a price increase of 13.1%, it has plummeted 15% since December 25. With a unit currently changing hands at about $$0.986, its $1.072 billion market cap is still some ways behind WIF’s $1.9 billion.
Read the full article here