The skyrocketing meme coin Silly Dragon (SILLY) has now become the recognized spiritual totem of the Solana community. This article will review the journey of this meme dragon’s popularity.
Background:
Silly Dragon coin ($Silly) can be used to swipe credit cards! Supports Zebec prepaid cards, linked to Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Contents:
The Origin of the Meme Dragon
Hidden Easter Eggs at the Solana Annual Summit
Who is Spreading the Silly Dragon?
Becoming Solana’s “Official Meme” – What did SILLY do right?
The Birth of a Memecoin Star
Catching up with the Solana Meme Season
Recently, the Solana-based meme token SILLY has surged above $0.15, reaching a new all-time high. Currently, the top ten addresses holding SILLY (excluding CEX addresses) own 18.5% of the total supply. The highest floating profit among these addresses is 27,000 times, while the lowest is 0.7 times. The average floating profit is 30 times, and most of them were bought in the early stages and held until now.
What was the “origin” of the meme dragon in the early stages? Who is spreading the Silly Dragon? What did the Silly Dragon do right on its path to becoming Solana’s “official meme”? BlockBeats will discuss these in the following sections.
Silly Dragon can be traced back to September 6th. On that day, Anatoly, one of the co-founders of Solana, released a mysterious piece of information on social media. It consisted of only three dragon emojis and the words “Silly dragons.” With that, “Silly dragons” quietly came into existence in the Solana community, becoming their self-deprecating symbol.
However, despite its fun nature, the Silly Dragon did not immediately create a frenzy. It was like the ancient proverb “hidden dragon, crouching tiger,” quietly forgotten.
It wasn’t until the Solana annual event, Solana Breakpoint, that this story gained new life. The founder of Solana transformed into the legendary Silly Dragon, injecting new vitality and meaning into the character. This turned it into a highly influential meme, uplifting the entire community.
Solana Breakpoint is an annual conference organized by the Solana Foundation, celebrating the achievements of the Solana community and exploring inspiration for future development. From October 30th to November 3rd, the third Solana Breakpoint took place in Amsterdam, gathering 3,000 Solana developers, validators, founders, core engineers, ecosystem teams, etc., to discuss the latest developments and future roadmaps. The conference focused on substantial technological advancements and defining the flexible topics of the next-generation blockchain network.
Projects mentioned during the summit, such as SIMD (Solana Improvement Document), Helium, and Helius, had outstanding performances. Especially Helium, which achieved a 110% increase in its token MOBILE on December 14th, leading the DePIN track-related tokens. Apart from sharing introductions about various projects, the appearance of Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of Solana, sparked discussions.
On the opening day of the conference, which coincided with Halloween, Anatoly appeared in a green dinosaur costume, becoming the most unique and eye-catching presence at the summit. Anatoly introduced himself to the audience, saying, “I’m Anatoly, and I’m a silly dragon.” After saying this, Anatoly laughed shyly, amusing the entire audience.
Solana’s community motto is “Do hard things first,” and Anatoly’s costume and words were not only self-deprecating but also philosophical. He explained, “I’m standing here in a dragon costume. It’s important for us to discuss what we’re building and why we’re building it. We need to know what our goals are and what we want to achieve.”
After the summit, the Silly Dragon image appeared in the Solana community. On November 8th, Anatoly posted on social media, “year of the silly dragon,” injecting fresh and playful energy into Solana’s narrative. With 2024 approaching, coinciding with the Year of the Dragon, this narrative became more popular in the Chinese community, creating expectations for the storytelling and innovation surrounding this silly dragon.
Anatoly then followed the official SILLY Twitter account and loudly called for “urgent silly dragon memes.” This action not only increased the value of SILLY coin but also became a good story. Looking back now, Anatoly’s appearance in a silly dragon costume at the summit was not only a humorous self-expression but also a cleverly arranged Easter egg.
On November 9th, Solana builder Matty Taylor followed in Anatoly’s footsteps and made a thought-provoking statement on social media, saying, “Don’t take yourself too seriously, we all have a silly dragon inside us.” This researcher, who wrote a Bitcoin economics thesis during his undergraduate years and has been fascinated by cryptocurrency research, is now focused on Solana’s growth and expansion, and his words resonated within the community.
At the same time, Solana NFT expert and Frictionless Capital managing partner Legend (@SolanaLegend) fell in love with Solana at first sight. Legend initially favored the Ethereum ecosystem until he discovered the high gas fees, which made him realize the problem. Coincidentally, his friend’s venture capital company participated in Solana’s seed investment, and after seeing Solana’s performance data, Legend was immediately attracted.
On November 16th, Legend tweeted, “This is the season of silly dragons.” In the comments, community members expressed their desire for a “Silly dragon token.”
On November 18th, LacedUp (@HODLonBRO), an ambassador for Solana wallet Solflare, also shared his thoughts, saying, “Glad to be working for Solana.” The comment “What a silly dragon” became a common meme phrase in the Solana community, used to praise and self-deprecate the developers’ dedication to building Solana’s “silliness.”
Solana community members shared the first dragon meme, an illustration named Drako, saying, “When I was still fantasizing about the possibility of dragons, a silly dragon appeared, captivating me. Let’s rewrite the epic of Solana memes together.”
On December 8th, Yaoyao (@ynonestop), responsible for Solana’s growth, combined the words “silly” and “Solana” into “Soylano,” stating, “2024 is the Year of the Dragon in China, which will be the year of the silly dragon (Soylano) in crypto.”
It is worth mentioning that the narrative of dragon culture is not unique to Solana. In fact, as early as March of this year, the Bitcoin ecosystem had introduced the LONG token, representing small-scale Western dragons, as well as the DRAG and DADA tokens, representing Eastern dragons, which sparked the “battle between Eastern and Western dragons” in the community. This demonstrates the modern interpretation of ancient legends within cryptocurrency culture.
In the Solana community, the popularity and spread of the Silly Dragon meme came at the right time. With the Year of the Dragon approaching, this image not only sparked celebrations for the dragon year but also brought unprecedented attention and liquidity to Solana. In the digital currency market, a meme with characteristics of the founder often ignites a frenzy and even triggers a short-term FOMO effect.
For example, the meme coin featuring Vitalik Buterin’s cat Hemule in Ethereum’s ecosystem saw great success. In Solana, the Silly Dragon meme’s popularity and spread are perfectly timed.een topped the trading popularity list on een at one point. Kevin Sekniqi, co-founder of Avalanche, also became another popular meme with his dog, Bear. Even the Metis ecosystem has launched a meme coin called VMUM, named after “Vitalik’s mother”, and even her cat, Barsik, has become part of the meme.
The Solana community has clearly drawn inspiration from these phenomena. With Anatoly’s Halloween image and the “Silly Dragon” avatar, the community cleverly combines ancient dragon culture with the modern digital world, creating a unique and fascinating story. This is not only a modern interpretation of ancient legends, but also an interesting exploration of how the digital world can integrate with traditional culture.
The Solana community needed a meme that could represent its spirit and culture, and the birth of the Silly Dragon was fittingly perfect. With the support of the Solana community and developers, everything fell into place.
Twenty days after the summit, a social media account called Drako (@DrakoSolana) entered people’s sight, with its avatar and captions taken from a classic silly dragon meme. Judging from its establishment time and the attention it received from early tweets, @DrakoSolana’s performance far exceeded the well-known Silly Dragon.
However, the unfortunate fact is that despite Drako’s growing influence, it has not yet launched its own token. This left room for the current $SILLY. The emergence of SILLY seems to fill this gap and becomes a new choice for community members seeking digital currencies related to the silly dragon.
With the establishment of this social media account with a green silly dragon cartoon avatar, the first tweet was released, “Year of the Silly Dragon,” and the flagship meme coin $SILLY was born.
The green dragon image corresponds to Anatoly’s tweet released in early November, and the color and image also correspond to Anatoly’s Halloween costume. However, in the early stages, the released tweets did not have any tags for easy indexing, and the number of retweets and comments was very small, and it did not receive widespread attention.
On December 4th, the Silly Dragon token contract SILLY was successfully deployed, adding a new chapter to the silly dragon story. Following that, Silly Dragon began actively announcing its community deployment on social media, including its official website, Telegram group, vision description, and the token’s listing on Solana Raydium and Jupiter exchanges. The vision of the silly dragon is described as a symbol of art, passion, and the power of Solana, showcasing a new narrative that transcends digital boundaries.
Under the narrative of SILLY, it is not just a token but also a heritage that is creating a unified and artistic expression, driven by the revolutionary power of blockchain technology. Every holder, every enthusiast is an important part of this journey, contributing to a narrative that transcends digital boundaries. In the realm of the silly dragon, art and deep emotions merge with innovation, heralding an era when the community writes history together.
At this point, the account was recognized by the community as the official Twitter account of the silly dragon project. On the same day, the official Silly Dragon Twitter account posted “Leave your wallet,” and as soon as the message was released, the number of retweets and comments on the tweet increased exponentially, and the silly dragon image officially entered the public eye.
The silly dragon did not miss this huge traffic wave and immediately held a silly dragon art contest, where users could freely create and publish artwork related to the silly dragon in the comment section. The top 5 liked and retweeted entries would receive 10 million SILLY tokens. The competition attracted a large number of cryptocurrency enthusiasts, such as bitget ambassador @Cryptozone04 and @heyjerey_, @CRYPTOKRALI3, and other key opinion leaders (KOLs).
On December 8th, the Chinese community of the silly dragon was established, with an image of a silly dragon wearing red traditional Chinese clothing and holding the Chinese national flag. On December 12th, the official held the silly dragon video contest, awarding 1 million SILLY tokens to the top three TikTok video creators who could best tell the silly dragon story (including all the latest updates).
On the same day, Anatoly paid attention to the account, but it still did not attract widespread attention. According to birdeye data, the price and trading volume of SILLY only saw a slight increase that day.
On December 16th, Anatoly posted on social media, stating, “In need of a silly dragon meme,” which successfully ignited the community’s enthusiasm and caused a significant increase in the price of SILLY. From then on, the silly dragon became the official meme of the Solana community.
At that time, the Solana community had another major event. The Saga Web3 phone launched by Solana came with 30 million BONK tokens as a gift. Due to the significant increase in the price of BONK at the time, the value of the gifted BONK tokens exceeded the price of the phone itself. According to information obtained by BlockBeats, Saga currently has a premium rate of 500% on the secondary market, with a price of up to $3,000.
This unique marketing strategy not only increased the sales of Saga phones but also ignited the meme season in the Solana community. ZERO, COQ, !knoB, WIF, and others became hot targets for speculation.
Traders made huge profits of $1.47 million within five days by trading the meme token WIF. The trading volume of Solana DEX also exceeded $5 billion, setting a new record in history, and even surpassed Ethereum’s trading volume within 24 hours.
Taking advantage of the Solana dog season’s popularity, the official Silly Dragon account hinted at an airdrop plan, further fueling the FOMO sentiment in the Solana community. The tweet featured a video of Anatoly dressed in a silly dragon cosplay costume, and Anatoly also retweeted the tweet.
Since then, SILLY has experienced an impressive surge in market capitalization and trading volume within two days. The trading volume on decentralized exchanges such as Jupiter reached $30 million, and the market capitalization increased from zero to nearly $10 million, a staggering 900% increase.
In addition, SILLY has actively collaborated with CEX. On December 21st, Bitget announced that it would list Silly Dragon (Silly) on the Innovation Zone and MemE Zone, and LBank announced on the 25th that it would launch SILLY U base contracts.
Currently, SILLY’s token price has shown an overall upward trend since its release. Although Anatoly’s change of avatar on the 22nd caused SILLY to drop more than 45% within a day, the narrative of SILLY has not suffered as a result.
On December 27th, according to Bitget market data, SILLY surged past $0.15, reaching a new all-time high and ranking in the top three in terms of real-time gains. According to the analysis by blockchain data analyst Yu Yan, the highest floating profit in addresses holding SILLY is 27,000 times, the lowest is 0.7 times, and the average floating profit is 30 times. Most of them bought in extremely early and held until now.
In internet culture, there is nothing more central than memes because the market is basically a meme, driven by narratives that are the most eye-catching of the day, week, or year. The success of the silly dragon meme relies not only on Solana’s admiration and promotion of silly dragon culture but also on the community’s trust in Solana, which has also propelled Solana to surpass Ethereum’s seven-day DEX trading volume for the first time in history.
As described by BEN SPARANG, a member of the Solana Foundation, “This is a small step for mankind, but a big step for the silly dragon.” This not only affirms Solana’s technological achievements but also symbolizes Solana’s possession of a legitimate meme culture and spiritual totem, which will play a huge role in promoting community unity.
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Anatoly Yakovenko
Silly Dragon
Solana
Silly Dragon