Meme Coins, Mega Fees: How Bonk, Fartcoin & Friends Power Solana Staking

Solana’s fast and cheap, and meme coins are pushing it harder. Here’s how memes fuel this machine.

Solana’s meme-coin scene has exploded over the past year. Tongue-in-cheek tokens such as Bonk and Fartcoin now post nine-figure daily volumes, rivaling blue-chip DeFi assets. That frenzy isn’t just a trader’s sideshow, it directly boosts validator earnings and, by extension, staker yields.

Volumes That Move the Needle

• Bonk regularly clears $300-350 million in 24-hour spot turnover, making it one of Solana’s top-traded assets.

• Fartcoin hit ~$150-200 million on its busiest days, driven by pump.fun launches and bot-powered micro-trades.

High throughput plus sub-cent fees turn Solana into the preferred arena for rapid-fire meme speculation. Every swap, snipe, and bot re-list pushes transaction counts higher—keeping blockspace in constant demand.

Jito Tips: Meme Coins’ Hidden Tax

Most high-frequency traders use Jito bundles to guarantee inclusion. They attach a tip—an extra SOL payment—to entice block builders. Early 2025 data show:

• Jito Tips account for 60 %+ of all priority fees on Solana.

• Tip spikes track meme-coin volatility; when Bonk or Fartcoin volumes surge, daily tip outflows jump as well.

• Priority bidding has shifted from legacy DEXs to meme-centric venues like pump.fun, Pumpswap and Telegram bots.

Because validators share a slice of these tips with their delegators, every frenzy pumps passive rewards for ordinary SOL stakers.

Why Validators (and Stakers) Love Meme Mania

1. Fee diversification – Base network fees remain low, but priority tips add a variable, demand-driven income stream.

2. MEV bundles – Jito’s off-chain auction captures sandwich and arb profits that would otherwise crowd blocks with spam.

3. Stake magnet – Operators running the Jito client can advertise higher real yields, attracting fresh delegation and improving network decentralisation.

Toby’s Take

Meme coins are volatile, but the fee tail-winds they create are real. More blockspace bidding means richer validator economics, which is exactly where Toby’s Open MEV tooling and validator-optimisation stack shine. The louder the meme crowd trades, the more opportunities surface for efficient block building