Sam Bankman-Fried-backed Solana soars after ecosystem sees shiba inu-themed token airdrop

• Solana soared as much as 20% in the past day on news of a Bonk token airdrop.
• After losing nearly all its value in 2022 as Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire collapsed, solana ended a streak of nine consecutive losses.

Solana soared on Tuesday after a token airdrop from shiba inu-themed Bonk sparked interest in the cryptocurrency.

After losing nearly all its value in 2022 as Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire collapsed, solana finally ended a streak of nine consecutive days of losses.

SOL tokens climbed past $13 on Tuesday and were up 20% in the past 24 hours. By contrast, top cryptocurrencies bitcoin and ethereum were down 0.5% and 0.6%, respectively.

Bonk is airdropping roughly 50% of its tokens currently in circulation. Airdrops are unscheduled distributions of tokens, often for free, to wallets in order to garner interest in a specific crypto.

Of the Bonk tokens being airdropped, roughly 20% could be used for an ecosystem of 297,000 Solana-based non-fungible tokens and 10% could go to Solana-based artists, according to CoinDesk.

Meanwhile, Bonk has seen roughly $19 million in inflows in the past 24-hours. Bonk debuted on December 25 and currently has a market capitalization nearly $93 million.

Bankman-Fried once touted Solana as the most underrated cryptocurrency, and his companies held large positions on their books.

But FTX's bankruptcy filing amid reports that the crypto exchange transferred billions of dollars in client funds to Bankman-Fried's hedge fund Alameda soured sentiment on Solana in the crypto community.

Last month, CoinDesk reported that two of the Solana blockchain's top NFT collections, DeGods and Y00ts, will migrate to Ethereum and Polygon, respectively.