Stephanie Douse 
Solana-based DeFi token Serum(SRM) has seen a significant increase in trading volumes over the last 24 hours, as optimism over an NFT launch coupled with significant whale accumulation accelerated trading volumes.
SRM surged 10% in the last 12 hours, reaching a high of $2.542. It also appeared to be rapidly recovering from a one-month low. SRM’s 24-hour trading volume soared by 79% to $185 million.
The project said its Surfers collection of 5,000 generating non-fungible tokens (NFT) will launch on the Solana (SOL) network via Burnt Finance’s Ignition Launchpad. This coming project might have caught the attention of the Ethereum (ETH) Whales.
NFT holders will be able to participate in giveaways and other events, according to Serum. The team also added that Whitelist members can start minting NFTs on April 19th, while the public will be able to do so on April 21st.
Serum is ranked 159th among the largest cryptocurrencies, with a total market capitalization of $332 million.
SRM is the most purchased token by ETH whales in 24 hours.
According to statistics from Whalestats, SRM surpassed the FTX token and Shiba Inu token to become the most purchased token by ETH whales in the last 24 hours.
The ETH Whale named “Three Arrows,” scooped up the most SRM tokens. The whale wallet has added over $167.5 million worth of 65,966,540 Serum tokens. Meanwhile, the Three Arrows is holding over $194 million worth of SRM tokens. However, the top ETH whales own about $207 million worth of Serum tokens cumulatively. It only accounts for 2.32% of overall holdings.
The “Three Arrows” ETH whale has also added approximately $81 million worth of FTX tokens in two transactions in the last 24 hours, according to WhaleStats.
Whale accumulation in the crypto market has increased in recent sessions, as a widespread decline in valuations has made several coins vulnerable to bargain buying.
Serum also sees Defi’s interest
A proposal from Ratio Finance aims to apply a grant of $500,000 to allow SRM to be used for farming rewards on the Defi platform Atrix Protocol.
If adopted, the proposal is likely to make SRM more appealing as a Defi medium.