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Bonk, which started as a joke meme coin in late 2022, has unexpectedly turned into a real business. You can find the details in our blog post.
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The BONK meme coin started as a joke to spread some wealth across Solana when FTX’s late-2022 implosion left that crypto ecosystem down badly. But one year later both are up big, making BONK into an unlikely something else: an investor in a venture fund.
According to a recent governance vote, the 12-person Bonk DAO council, a group of Solana power brokers who manage $124 million worth of BONK tokens, is looking to invest $500,000 of its treasury into an early-stage startup fund that will back projects building on Solana.
Colosseum aims to organize hackathons on the Solana ecosystem such as BONK
The fund will be organized by a new startup accelerator called Colosseum, which aims to organize hackathons that will bring new projects to the Solana ecosystem. Last week, the Solana Foundation handed over this responsibility to Colosseum, which is led by former Solana growth lead Matty Taylor.
“We were actually quite surprised because we haven’t heard of a DAO making this kind of investment in a venture fund before,” Taylor said. He declined to discuss Colosseum’s ongoing fundraising process, citing current securities laws.
The BONK DAO emerged in early 2022 with the creation of the BONK token. The meme coin’s creators allocated more than 15% of the total BONK supply to the group, allowing them to use the funds to manage and finance community projects. The Cayman Islands-based entity is still the largest single holder of the meme coin, currently holding more than 12% of the total BONK supply.
Since then, the group has decided to direct BONK to hackathon sponsorships, liquidity pools, and Solana-based DeFi partners. This investment is the group’s first attempt to write a venture check, according to its governance page.
The decision to send money to the Colosseum passed with eight votes in favor and none against. The proposal stated that it would “help support builders in the ecosystem and diversify the DAO treasury across early-stage builders and founders via equity.”