Solana memecoin Slerf accidentally burns $10 million worth of funds raised from presale investors

A new Solana-based memecoin, Slerf, has faced significant challenges after the project’s developer accidentally burnt a major portion of the token supply — effectively losing $10 million, or the entirety, of presale participants’ money.

"Guys I f—ed up," the project's official X account wrote. "I burned the LP and the tokens that were set aside for the airdrop. Mint authority is already revoked so I can not mint them. There is nothing I can do to fix this. I am so f—ing sorry."

The Slerf team later went to an X Spaces to elaborate further on the situation. "I'm sick to my stomach," developer @Slerfsol said in a Space on X. "I'm literally about to throw up."

"I'm lost for words," they added. "I don't know what to do."

After the developer called the Slerf project a "side quest," a Spaces participant chimed in: "Losing $10 million on a side quest is crazy."

The price of SLERF has pumped approximately 242% over the past hour off the back of the news, with various participants in the X Space claiming the best course of action moving forward is to "send it to $1 billion." According to on-chain data highlighted by Lookonchain, one trader made over $3 million in 12 minutes trading SLERF.

The latest mishap follows a weekend rife with Solana-based memecoin presales, during which various random projects emerged and received significant funding, often amounting to millions of dollars.

This article has been updated with additional information. Furthermore, because multiple X accounts spoke simultaneously and due to the nature of X's user interface, this article incorrectly attributed quotes to user @SlorgoftheSlugs instead of @Slerfsol.