Meme ebbs, Solana’s “good luck” has run out

Due to Solana's outstanding performance in this round of market trends, many people believe that this round of bull market is Solana's bull market. Looking at Solana's development history in the past few years, whether it is taking advantage of the DeFi Summer and Wall Street's entry, or grabbing the Meme craze as a life-saving straw and "returning as a king" after FTX went bankrupt and got into trouble, all of these make people feel that Solana's fortune is too good.

However, giants like FTX can fall overnight, and Meme also has its own ups and downs. Recently, Meme has shown obvious signs of "ebb", coupled with the upcoming super-large unlocking, it can be said that misfortunes never come alone, Solana's pressure has doubled, is its "good luck" really used up?

Meme Tide Falls

Recently, on-chain data shows that Solana on-chain transaction volume has dropped rapidly since February, and the number of launches on related platforms such as Meme launches has dropped sharply. Popular projects in the Solana ecosystem have all fallen sharply, and various FUD voices have begun to appear on social platforms.

The original Meme rose amid the calls for "anti-VC", "no takeover", and "fair launch". However, after the rise of the Meme craze, various institutions took advantage of the situation to become "big dealers" and quickly occupied favorable ecological niches. The crypto community soon discovered that without continuous capital injection, Meme, which relied solely on fair launches, was like a flash in the pan. As a result, most people threw themselves into the arms of various institutions and took over their orders.

Then, the Presidential Coin, which represents the top celebrities, was born. The Trump Family Token first quickly drained the liquidity in the market, and then the Mile Token came on the scene and dealt a heavy blow. Afterwards, people gradually discovered that there was a trading team behind these celebrity projects, and some were even related to each other. There was an invisible big hand behind each hot project, and the crypto community suddenly felt that it was being pressed to the ground and rubbed repeatedly. Some KOLs bluntly said that our crypto community just wanted to get out of the circle, not to let celebrities outside the circle come in and withdraw money...

In the final analysis, the craze of Meme and the bursting of the bubble ultimately exposed the "evil" of human nature. Greedy retail investors' excessive speculation could not escape the fate of "taking over the plate", which dealt a huge blow to the Meme market and was like a blow to the Solana ecosystem, which had already benefited from the Meme craze and gained a rapid upward momentum. The relationship between them is self-evident.

Large unlocking at an extremely inopportune time

While we are still immersed in the sadness of the Meme ebb, another desperate news came: "11.2 million SOL will be unlocked on March 1st." At first, people mistakenly thought that this was the unlocking planned in the Token economic model. Usually, this type of unlocking is a planned small-scale unlocking, which has little impact on the market, but this large unlocking is the second wave of blows brought by FTX's bankruptcy. Simply put, these 11.2 million SOLs are part of the tokens sold during the FTX liquidation process. These tokens set a certain lock-up period (Vesting Schedule) when trading, usually 1-3 years, and the lock-up period expires in March 2025, so they enter the circulation market.

After FTX went bankrupt in November 2022, the huge amount of SOL held by its affiliate Alameda Research became part of the liquidation assets. It is estimated that FTX/Alameda initially held about 58 million SOL, accounting for 10%-15% of the total supply of Solana at the time. The bankruptcy trustee (led by John J. Ray III) then sold these tokens to institutional investors at a discount. It is reported that the purchasers of these tokens at the time included Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Figure Markets and other institutions. According to information on X and on-chain data (such as Lookonchain tracking), the market estimates that these tokens will be sold at a price of about $60-80 per token (30-40% of the current market price).

Since the 11.2 million SOLs to be unlocked were purchased at a low cost by institutions at a discount, the market expects that if no one takes over the off-site order quickly to digest it, it is likely to bring huge selling pressure to SOL after unlocking, and the current pressure has been given to the current market price and Solana ecological community.

Is Solana's good fortune over?

So has Solana's good luck really run out? It seems not. Whether it is the Solana spot ETF that is expected to be passed this year or Trump's series of crypto-friendly policies, they can be regarded as the continuation of Solana's good luck.

The Solana spot ETF, which may be passed as early as June this year, is highly anticipated. Currently, on a well-known prediction platform, the probability of Solana ETF passing in 2025 is 84%, and the probability of passing before June 31 is 38%. Judging from the performance of the two spot ETFs, Bitcoin and Ethereum, the current holdings of Bitcoin spot ETF are worth more than 110 billion US dollars, and the holdings of Ethereum spot ETF are worth more than 10 billion US dollars. Judging from the institutional support rate of Solana, at least billions of US dollars will flow in, so it will naturally be able to easily cover the negative impact of the unlocking of 11.2 million coins. However, the problem is that the unlocking is imminent, and the ETF will be passed for at least a few months.

Trump's series of friendly policies are actually being gradually implemented, which is a friendly regulatory environment for the entire crypto industry. Thanks to the accelerated catalysis of the Meme craze, Solana's ecosystem has also been remarkable. In early 2025, Solana's on-chain DEX transaction volume once exceeded Ethereum, which was considered to have successfully passed the stress test, and both the number of users and the activity have strong momentum.

In addition, Solana's developer community is growing at a very fast rate. Coupled with the iterative upgrades planned in Solana's future roadmap, it will improve the existing deficiencies in technical solutions. Its ecosystem continues to attract more and more attention, and some top institutions such as Paypal and Franklin Templeton have also joined in the adoption.

Conclusion

Whether the Meme craze cools down or large amounts are unlocked, these are actually short-term "pains", which are very common in the encryption field. It cannot be concluded that Solana has fallen. Moreover, when its ecological development momentum is good, it has encountered the east wind of friendly encryption supervision, which is more beneficial for the number one public chain founded in the United States. As for the longer term future, we will wait for more tests brought by time.