How to create Meme Coins on Solana

8 min readApr 4, 2024

Introduction

Everyone in crypto space has heard that meme coins are hyping as hell these days, especially those built on Solana. This Meme coin craze has become one of the greatest trends of 2024, competing with the latest Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade and Bitcoin’s halving.

As the price of most of the Solana Meme coins keeps its course to the moon like WIF, SLERF, BOME, BONK, POPCAT and many others. Lots of web3 developers, crypto enthusiasts and traders are willing to have some benefits from it. That’s why creating a booming meme coin to drop it on the bullish market might be a great idea. Moreover, it not only expands the crypto market, but also contributes to the Solana Ecosystem which is always open for new exciting projects.

In our new guide “How to create Meme Coins on Solana” we’ll try to show you that creating a Meme coin on Solana from the technical side is not that hard as it seems, explaining each basic step of this process. Moreover, by the end of this guide you’ll get the idea how to access the Solana network with an extreme ease to bring your Web3 development ideas to reality.

Why Are Meme Coins on Solana So Popular?

Meme coins or more correctly meme tokens, often inspired by internet jokes or pop culture, have gained massive popularity due to their communal and often viral nature. They often have a playful or humorous nature and are created as a form of entertainment rather than as a serious investment. They also attract masses of investors because of their mindblowing volatility.

Solana, in particular, offers an attractive platform for meme coin creation due to its scalability, low transaction fees, and robust infrastructure. There’re not so many such huge blockchains that could offer such high throughput as Solana does. It is made to handle thousands of transactions per second, and fees for both developers and users remain less than $0.0025. The number of total transactions on Solana already equals about 300 Billions and keeps increasing every millisecond.

All those great features of Solana have made it a great place for you to build a Meme coin on. Moreover, for token creators Solana can offer a robust set of technologies of token extensions and the Solana Program Library (SPL).

So, your Solana meme coins are actually SPL tokens, which refer to fungible tokens on Solana. They attach to the SPL standard, allowing seamless integration with different apps and platforms that are based on Solana.

2 ways to build it

Once you’re got the idea what meme coins are and why Solana is great in cases of creating them, you’re ready to start building. The first important preparational step here is to get access to the Solana network. There are two main ways to do it:

Run your own Solana full node
Use third-party node providers just like NOWNodes.

Considering the first option is extremely time-consuming and resource-intensive, the second one is highly recommended. This way you can easily access different blockchains including Solana without caring about running your own full node.

Accessing Solana RPC Full Nodes for Creating SPL Token

So, as it was stated before, without connecting to Solana full nodes it is almost impossible to create an SPL token. That’s why NOWNodes is always here to help you in this case.

NOWNodes is a blockchain-as-a-service solution that lets users get access to full Nodes and blockbook Explorers via API. By choosing NOWNodes for your Solana Meme coins development needs you can make sure that your Solana nodes are under 24/7 surveillance.

It is now easier than ever before for you to connect to a Solana (SOL) node through the usage of the blockchain-as-a-service provider NOWNodes. All you have to do is to follow these simple steps:

Create an account at nownodes.io and verify it by email. (No KYC required)
Choose a tariff plan. There are a variety of plans that fit any development needs (including a START FREE plan!)
Create an API key. On the “DASHBOARD” page find and click the “ADD API KEY” button.
Use the provided SOL endpoint sol.nownodes.io and the methods from the “DOCS” page to interact with the blockchain.

Notice that on a START plan you can access only 5 blockchain networks, so make sure to add SOL to that list. Unlike that on a PRO plan or higher you can access any node out of 100 nodes available, including some 2 features such as WSS, Tendermint, and Webhooks.

Once you’ve got your API key and Solana RPC URL endpoint, you can start creating your meme coin on Solana ecosystem. Let’s dive into it!

Creating a Meme Coin on Solana Using Web3.js

There are two primal ways to interact with the Solana network for creating an SPL token — using Solana Command Line Interface (CLI) or using Solana Web3.js. In this tutorial we’ll explore the second option. So, to create your own fungible token on Solana network with Web3.js you can follow this simple steps. Let’s start with prerequisites.

Prerequisites

Set Up the Environment
First, ensure you have Node.js installed.
Then, set up your project directory using mkdir solana-token command
and install the Solana Web3.js libraries by running:

npm install @solana/web3.js

To install the @solana/web3.js library and

npm install @solana/spl-token

To install the @solana/spl-token library

Configure your solana/web3.js environment by utilizing your NOWNodes endpoint in your script:

const solanaWeb3 = require('@solana/web3.js');

// Your NOWNodes API key
const NOWNODES_API_KEY = 'your_nownodes_api_key_here';// Setting up the connection to Solana RPC via NOWNodes
const connection = new solanaWeb3.Connection(
    `https://sol.nownodes.io/<NOWNODES_API_KEY>`, 'confirmed' );

Make sure to replace 'your_nownodes_api_key_here' with your actual NOWNodes API key. This script sets up the connection to the Solana blockchain using your NOWNodes endpoint.

Create a new wallet to handle transactions. Ensure you securely store the generated keypair. You can generate keypair using the following command line:

const newAccount = solanaWeb3.Keypair.generate();

Creating the Token

As all the preporational steps are finished, you’re finally ready to code and mint your meme coin. Now, we’ll use the Solana Token Program to create your meme coin.

const { Token, TOKEN_PROGRAM_ID } = require("@solana/spl-token");
const { clusterApiUrl, Connection, Keypair } = require('@solana/web3.js');

// Initialize a connection
const connection = new Connection(clusterApiUrl('devnet'), 'confirmed');// Create a new token
async function createToken() {
    const payer = Keypair.generate(); // This keypair will act as the payer for the transaction
    const mintAuthority = Keypair.generate(); // Authority that can mint new tokens
    const freezeAuthority = Keypair.generate(); // Authority that can freeze token accounts    const token = await Token.createMint(
        connection,
        payer,
        mintAuthority.publicKey,
        freezeAuthority.publicKey,
        9, // Decimal places, matching the Solana CLI's default
        TOKEN_PROGRAM_ID
    );    console.log("Token Mint Address:", token.toBase58());
    return token;
}

After running this common your token will be created. However, it has no supply, so you need to mint some!

Minting Tokens

You can mint some token for your specific wallet, using:

async function mintTokens(tokenPublicKey, destinationAccountPublicKey, amount) {
    // Specify the mint public key, the destination account, and the mint authority
    await mintTo(
        connection,
        payer, // The account paying for the transaction
        tokenPublicKey, // The public key of the mint (token)
        destinationAccountPublicKey, // The public key of the account to receive the minted tokens
        mintAuthority, // The mint authority
        amount // The amount to mint, adjusted for decimals
    );

    console.log(`Minted ${amount} tokens to ${destinationAccountPublicKey.toBase58()}`);
}

Done, now if everything is done correctly you’ll see some fresh tokens on your account. To do this you can check the balance with this script:

async function checkBalance(publicKey) {
    let balance = await connection.getBalance(publicKey);
    console.log(`Balance: ${balance}`);
}

So that way the basics scripts that you’ll need for creating a meme coin / SPL token on Solana. Additionally if you need to add some details, send the transactions with the web3.js script, or do some other stuff such as wrapping SOL into your newly created Token you can refer to Solana’s official documentation.

What Should I Do Next?

Now all the basic token creation hard coding part is done. However, it’s still a long way to go ‘till you’ll finally be able to roll it up on the market.

After creating and testing your meme coin, consider the following steps to grow your project:

Research and understand the meme coin market. Before creating your meme coin, research existing meme coins on the Solana network and understand why they are so popular. This will help you identify potential opportunities and avoid common pitfalls.
Create a Brand around your meme coin: You won’t be able to grab the attention of investors and traders without good looking visuals and other brand assets. You need to create a solid logo, website design and some additional content to post on social media such as arts and of course memes as we’re making a Meme Coin!
Develop a Community: Engage with potential users and supporters through social media and cryptocurrency forums. You’ll definitely need to create:
A website of your project
X/Twitter page
Telegram community chat or channel
Additionally you can create other social media pages such as Reddit, Github, Facebook and even IG
Build a Use Case: Don’t let your project sink in the vast ocean of other “just memecoins”. Bring some worth to the ecosystem and crypto community! This could be through services, merchandise, some eco-friendly and volunteer activity, or as part of a larger dApp ecosystem.
Ensure Security: Regularly audit and test your smart contracts and wallet security to protect your community’s assets! Don’t be a SCAMMER, Bro!
Join the Solana Community — connect with other developers, get support, and stay updated on the latest developments in the Solana ecosystem. The Solana community is active on various social media platforms, forums, and developer communities.

Conclusion

So, hopefully, now you’ve got the idea how you can technically create a meme coin on Solana. Remember to thoroughly test your token before deploying it to make your meme coin project as transparent and understandable as possible, because Transparency is key to success in the crypto market. Not really many investors would like to bring their money to doubtful meme coins projects. So, you need to be transparent about the token’s characteristics, supply, and distribution, and communicate regularly with your community to keep them informed about updates and developments.

We really hope that this guide was helpful and provided you with the knowledge and skills to create your own unique Solana token. If you still have some questions or suggestions please feel free to bring them to our Telegram Builders Community or to our X/Twitter DMs.

Let’s get the meme building started #NOW