Bonk Inu was one of the hottest Solana tokens earlier this year, leading a frenzied market at the time.
Bonk Inu developers released the dog-themed protocol’s native decentralized exchange (DEX) earlier today, marking one of the first major releases for the popular token.
Named BonkSwap, the DEX will utilize Solana smart contracts to allow users to swap solana (SOL), bonk inu (BONK) and stablecoins. The majority of fees (80%) on BonkSwap will be used to reward liquidity providers and locked stakers of Bonk and BonkSwap LP positions, which will likely accrue value for bonk holders
As such, developers plan to release more features in the months ahead, including a bonk-based game and futures offerings on the Bonkswap exchange.
“In the coming months we will integrate incredible, rewarding Bonk-powered games, add innovative trading features like options, and perpetual futures powered by HxroNetwork, and expand liquidity to make trading Bonk easier than any other token in Solana,” Bonkswap developers tweeted.
Bonk took center stage in the Solana ecosystem in January as sentiment around the blockchain network took a hit in the aftermath of the Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX debacle.
BONK ran up as much as 3,200% in just three weeks, almost single-handedly inciting activity in the Solana ecosystem, as previously reported.
Bonk Inu is a team of 22 individuals with no singular leader, all of whom were involved in the inception of the project, CoinDesk learned from one of the several developers. All of them have previously built decentralized applications (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFT) and other related products on Solana.
As such, the team does not see itself as a dogecoin (DOGE) or shiba inu (SHIB) rival and points out BONK is already different from the gazillions of dog-themed meme coins already in the market.
“It’s already more useful than either of those. There’s (not) much you can do with SHIB or DOGE on-chain,” a Bonk developer told CoinDesk in January, adding there are over 50 integrations with other projects for using BONK already in the first few weeks after issuance.
These integrations included use cases ranging from minting NFTs to using BONK to trading futures and options to betting with BONK at Solana-based decentralized casinos.