BSC boosts DEX trading volume surpassing Solana, is the MEME track king changing hands?
Recently, the performance of the BSC chain has once again attracted market attention. From August 21 to 23, the trading volume of BSC DEX exceeded that of Solana for three consecutive days, ranking second only to Ethereum. There are also signs of increased discussions on social media about MEME coins on the BSC chain.Author: Frank, PANews
Recently, the performance of the BSC chain has once again attracted market attention. From August 21 to 23, the trading volume of BSC DEX exceeded Solana for three consecutive days, ranking second only to Ethereum. There has also been an increase in discussions about MEME coins on the BSC chain on social media. Additionally, Binance founder Zhao Changpeng is reportedly set to be released from prison on September 29, which will also bring positive benefits to the development of the BSC chain ecosystem. Various signs indicate that the BSC chain seems to be gaining momentum and may become a new hotbed for MEME coins.
The Rise of BSC Over Solana
In fact, the gap between the BSC chain and Solana was not that large before. By November 2023, the daily trading volume of the BSC chain was still ahead of Solana. Until the recent bull market, the MEME craze that erupted on Solana attracted a number of MEME players to shift from Ethereum and BSC to Solana. Furthermore, compared to the high topic engagement of Ethereum and Solana, BSC has been more like a silent player in the community. However, even in this situation, the DEX trading volume of BSC has consistently remained in the top 5.
As of the afternoon of August 27, the total trading volume of DEX on the BSC chain was $1.34 billion, while Solana's was $1.2 billion. Compared to data from the past two months, BSC has indeed seen a significant increase, as its DEX trading volume was around $500 million previously. On August 21, it suddenly surged to $920 million, nearly doubling. 
In contrast, Solana's on-chain performance has shown a clear decline recently. Over the past two months, Solana's DEX daily trading volume has remained around $2 billion, peaking at $3.3 billion on August 5. However, starting from August 9, Solana's DEX daily trading volume began to fall below $1 billion and continued to decline, hitting a low of around $600 million on August 16. Although there has been a recovery since then, it has only risen to below $1 billion, with the overall DEX daily trading volume dropping by nearly half. 
With the rise of BSC, it has managed to surpass the Solana chain once again. However, the glory of the BSC chain seems to be fading; in May 2021, the weekly data on the BSC chain reached $46.6 billion, averaging about $6.6 billion per day. The current data is only about 1/5 of that.
Does CAT Bring a MEME Craze?
On BSC, the trading volume ranking is led by CAT, a newly created MEME token that was launched on August 22. However, data from August 27 shows that this token's two trading pools contributed $80 million in trading volume, far exceeding other tokens.
CAT stands for Simon's Cat Token, inspired by the animated web series and book collection created by Simon Tofield. This animation has previously accumulated over 20 million fans worldwide, and after its launch on the 22nd, CAT quickly went live on several exchanges, including Gate.io, KUCOIN, and MEXC.
The token was launched by Floki, and it currently has over 30,000 holders, with a maximum increase of about 2 times. After its launch, it conducted an airdrop for FLOKI holders in collaboration with Binance, distributing 90 billion CAT tokens proportionally to eligible FLOKI holders based on their holdings. Based on the price of $0.000025 on August 27, this airdrop amounted to approximately $22.5 million, which is considered a large-scale airdrop among MEME coins.
Perhaps due to the interview effect of CAT, the issuance of tokens surged. On August 24, the number of newly deployed contracts on the BSC chain skyrocketed to 39,104, while this figure is usually around 10,000. However, the number of verified contracts has not increased significantly, remaining around 300.
Data from August 27 shows that the new trading pools on the Solana chain (created within 24 hours) had a trading volume of about $220 million, accounting for approximately 18.3% of the day's trading volume. In comparison, the corresponding data for the BSC chain was around $120 million, accounting for 8.9% of the total trading volume that day. This data indicates that, comparatively, the new trading pools on Solana contributed a larger proportion of the day's trading. Similarly, regarding the newly issued trading pools that day, BSC saw 387 new tokens launched, while Solana had 1,358. This comparison shows that BSC still has a significant gap in the number of MEME tokens issued compared to Solana.
Perhaps to further boost trading volume within the ecosystem, the BSC chain launched a three-month BNB Chain Gas subsidy program on August 19, with total rewards exceeding $1 million. According to the announcement, this reward will subsidize up to 80% of the gas fees for newly built DAPPs.
However, the key one-click token issuance platform that could boost the MEME craze has not developed satisfactorily on the BSC chain. The recently launched MEME token issuance platform on the BSC chain, Four.meme, had a maximum market cap of only $54,000 as of August 27.
Overall, while the recent brief surge on the BSC chain is related to MEME tokens, the popular CAT is not a "grassroots" product in terms of its issuance method; it comes from a well-known IP, a mature community, and strong backing from Binance. To keep the public chain's data active, more similar projects may be needed. On the other hand, with the noticeable decline in data on the Solana chain, the era of widespread token issuance seems to be quietly coming to an end.
