In a bizarre development, the anonymous developer(s) behind Solana-based memecoin Slerf mistakenly burned $10 million worth of assets.
Being an early investor in the Solana-based memecoin Slerf didn’t pay off as the token’s developer announced it mistakenly burned $10 million worth of SLERF meant for an airdrop to presale buyers. In a tweet on Monday, the developers further confirmed that the situation is irreversible as it has revoked mint authority and cannot produce new tokens.
Slerf’s Costly Mistake
Prior to the latest development, the Slerf memecoin project has reportedly raised a little over 50,000 SOL (approximately $10 million), and a further $10 million is stablecoins. The funds were slated for use in providing liquidity for the asset, with presale participants eligible to receive the SLERF tokens when the project launched.
However, things went wrong in that the Slerf developer(s) mistakenly burned the allocation designated for presale buyers, as well as tokens locked for providing liquidity. The total value of the tokens is estimated at $10 million, which the developer claimed he does not have the funds to refund. Additionally, investors expecting airdrop allocations would no longer receive any tokens.
Once i did that I went back to solana tools website and burned the lp not noticing I had burned the tokens just before.
The biggest probly here is I don't have 10m to refund the presalers. I've been up for 3 days preparing this and fumbled at the finish line.
— Slerf (@Slerfsol) March 18, 2024
Following the costly error, the Slerf developer hosted a space on X to apologize for the error. The SLERF developer team stated that the mistake was too costly for him and the entire team.
“I’m sick to my stomach; I’m literally about to throw up,” one of the developers, Slorg, said in the X space.
Slorg branded the Slerf token development as a side quest and noted that losing $10 million to such an enterprise is crazy.
“I’m lost for words. I don’t know what to do,” other developers added.
Some of the X space participants stated that the best way to address the issue was to “send it to $1 billion.”
Slerf Launches Despite Error
In the aftermath of the Slerf memecoin error, the project team proceeded with the launch, using the remaining 500 million of the tokens that were in circulation. The community has also since rallied behind the project, and multiple exchanges (Bitget, Lbank, and HTX) have already added support for the token.
At the time of writing, Slerf is trading at $0.473, with a $237 million market cap. At its peak earlier in the day, the coin had a value of $1.25, with a $620 million market cap, according to Coingecko.
Meanwhile, on-chain analyst Lookonchain reported that a trader cashed out $3.02 million in just 12 minutes trading SLERF. The trader bought the token immediately after it was launched with 9,894 SOL ($1.98 million) and resold it for 25,001 SOL ($5 million).
