Pre-order holders of Solana’s ‘Chapter 2’ mobile phone had a brief chance to profit from the yet-to-be-released mobile phone — after memecoins airdropped to buyers briefly exceeded the cost of the phone.
In April, the teams behind two cat-themed memecoin projects: Cat in a dog’s world (MEW) and Maneki (MANEKI) airdropped tokens to the wallets of crypto users who pre-ordered the new Chapter 2 device — which initially cost $450 upfront.
On April 1, the team behind MEW airdropped 37,600 of its tokens to each holder. At its peak post-airdrop price of $0.0089, this allocation was worth $334, according to CoinGecko data.
Similarly, a total of 5,199 MANEKI was airdropped to each holder on April 24, which also hit a peak price of $0.269 on April 25.
Combined with other memecoin projects, including Wuffi (WUFFI), which airdropped 114,000 tokens to Chapter 2 wallets, the combined airdrops would have garnered holders $480 — allowing them to pay off the device and even make another $30 in profit, according to airdrop value checker twoloot.com,
The memecoins have since dropped in value, however, with MEW now only worth $220 at current prices while MANEKI has fallen to $124.
When pre-ordering Chapter 2 devices, buyers were required to connect a Solana wallet address, meaning that the airdropped tokens were available to holders before the phone arrived.
Related: BONK, POPCAT and Solana memecoins stay green even as Bitcoin price drops
Owners of Solana’s first mobile device, the “Saga,” also received the same amount of Maneki in their wallets.
The original Solana Saga was released in May 2023 to little fanfare, with many reviews detailing technical issues and usability concerns with the devices.
However, the phones began flying off the shelves in December when degens figured cottoned on to a bizarre arbitrage opportunity presented by a memecoin rally for Bonk (BONK).
Between Nov. 15 and Dec. 15, 2023, the price of BONK surged more than 1,100%. At peak prices, the value of the 30,000 BONK airdrop was more than $1,150 — $551 more than the original $599 price tag attached to the Saga phone.
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