Elon Musk has once again ignited the meme coin market, delivering a “big golden dog” that surged nearly 10,000 times in three days—$ASTEROID—to the vast community of players.

However, while this “big golden dog” has sparked a rally on the Ethereum mainnet, it has also stirred anxiety in the SOL trenches…

“Space Dog” ASTEROID

ASTEROID was originally designed as a zero-g indicator for the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission in September 2024. It was actually made into a plush toy and flew into space with astronauts, floating inside the capsule to remind them when they entered a weightless state.

Although ASTEROID is not a real dog, it can be said that it is the first “Shiba Inu” to enter space.

Liv Perrotto, the creator of ASTEROID, was herself a young girl who hoped that ASTEROID would inspire all children to bravely pursue their dreams: “Look, even a little Shiba Inu has gone to space; when I grow up, I can definitely do it too.” However, after battling bone cancer for five years, she unfortunately passed away on January 14 of this year.

Liv’s biggest dream in life was to meet Elon Musk, and she even prepared a list of questions to ask him when they met. After Liv’s passing, her mother, Rebecca Perrotto, revealed this handwritten list of questions:

The last question on the list was, “Can you make ASTEROID the mascot of SpaceX?”

On April 17, Musk replied to a tweet by @glennbeck mentioning this matter, saying, “Will answer later.”

On April 19, Musk answered all the questions on the list, and for the question “Can you make ASTEROID the mascot of SpaceX?” Musk’s reply was, “OK.”

Typical Musk narrative, and with a grand angle—SpaceX’s new mascot. But this time, the wealth effect didn’t happen on SOL; instead, it occurred on the Ethereum mainnet.

The $ASTEROID on the Ethereum mainnet started operating in September 2024, but after March 2025, its official Twitter account also became relatively inactive, updating only every few months, and the official website linked in the bio is no longer accessible.

They once allocated 0.5% of the tokens to St. Jude Hospital, aligning with the donation of all proceeds from the sale of Asteroid Shiba plush toys by creator Liv Perrotto to fund children’s cancer treatment. However, this was already in 2024.

Creator Liv Perrotto’s mother, Rebecca Perrotto, claimed the 485.98 SOL fee revenue from $ASTEROID on SOL, which was launched via the Bags platform. The total fee revenue has now reached 856.46 SOL.

After claiming the fee revenue, she did not publicly disclose this action on X or other social media platforms, nor did she express any stance regarding the related meme coins on ETH or SOL. The only statement she made about cryptocurrency was actually unfavorable:

Under a tweet from Aster listing ETH $ASTEROID, @AJamesMcCarthy commented that profiting from a deceased young girl’s creative design is despicable behavior. Rebecca Perrotto replied, “This is so disheartening.”

Thus, the two $ASTEROID tokens—one old and one new—each have their own advantages in terms of narrative, but it cannot be said that the old one on the Ethereum mainnet ultimately standing out is a “victory for the community,” as the CTO team had been inactive for over half a year before encountering this major opportunity.

But there are other developments causing anxiety in the SOL trenches.

SOL Is Being Drained

Wojak is a classic meme image, familiar to all meme enthusiasts. The $WOJAK on SOL began a slow recovery in late March, gradually rising from a market cap of $3 million to a peak of $12 million.

However, this came to an abrupt halt on April 17, the day Musk announced he would respond to Liv Perrotto’s questions. From April 17 to the present, $WOJAK on SOL has fallen by over 50%.

In contrast, $WOJAK on ETH rose by about 44% on April 17 and continued to climb in the following days, rapidly surging from a market cap of $6 million to as high as $45 million at one point.

In just one day, the roughly twofold market cap lead that $WOJAK on SOL had over $WOJAK on ETH was quickly reversed.

The reversal of $WOJAK on SOL is a dangerous signal for players in the SOL trenches. Unlike native SOL memes like $neet or IP-backed memes on SOL like $troll, neither $WOJAK on ETH nor SOL holds any IP. Their competition is not only seen as a contest of community vitality but also reflects capital preferences. While native, high-quality meme tokens on SOL remain unaffected—and even $troll on SOL has risen (though not as dramatically as $troll on ETH)—such tokens are few and far between.

Will pump.fun Face Challenges?

Many English-speaking players believe that pump.fun’s low-cost token launches no longer signify “fair launches” but have become a race to see who can acquire 5% or more of the supply faster and cheaper. People miss the days when buying 0.x% of the supply and sharing a common dream could lead to market caps in the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

Although it’s unclear whether this sentiment will actually lead to changes in the SOL ecosystem, some launchpads are already attempting to leverage this sentiment to challenge pump.fun.

Printr, a launchpad backed by Bybit, introduced “Proof of Belief,” where developers can enable this mode during token launches to distribute creator revenue to token stakers. Alternatively, they can choose to automatically use creator revenue for buybacks and burns or add it to liquidity pools.

A popular new token issuance experiment comes from @xbt2027, who calls it “D27/D17.” The main token $2027, launched on the Ethereum mainnet, has surged up to about 15 times since its issuance.

Compared to bonding curves, this model operates at a much slower pace, divided into five stages:

– Stage 1: 10% of the total token supply is allocated for initial fundraising, similar to sending funds to a wallet and waiting for tokens, but with a 100% refund option.

– Stages 2, 3, and 4: Up to 5% of the total token supply is allocated per stage, with token valuations increasing relative to Stage 1 by 1.21x, 1.44x, and 1.69x, respectively. Refunds are still available but not at 100%; the refund ratio for each stage depends on the previous stage’s fundraising performance.

– Stage 5: If the fundraising cap is not reached, unsold tokens from Stages 2, 3, and 4 are carried over to this stage. This stage also has a fixed allocation of 5% of the total token supply for sales, and refunds are not available.

Through the sales, 20% of the total token supply is sold across these five stages. Another 10% is locked into the liquidity pool along with 90% of the sales funds, while the remaining 10% of sales funds is used to buy back $2027. All remaining issued tokens are burned.

It is called an “experiment” because this model has not yet been solidified through smart contracts to form a standardized and automated operation. Currently, two tokens have completed fundraising through this experiment: $2027 on the Ethereum mainnet and $XBT, which is set to launch on SOL. $XBT raised a total of 8,146.349 SOL and will have its TGE at 00:00 on April 21.

This model clearly aims to slow things down and reward believers (those entering in Stage 1 have the lowest cost and highest refund flexibility), while addressing issues like early sniping and poor liquidity in current meme tokens.

Although it’s uncertain whether these new experiments or launchpads can change the overly PvP nature of the SOL ecosystem, through the actions of these project teams, we can sense that the resentment towards PvP on SOL has grown so strong that projects believe they can leverage this sentiment to attract users and break through. Perhaps the SOL ecosystem will indeed undergo some changes. Perhaps pump.fun is also feeling anxious.