From pandemic origins to US crypto stockpile

Layer-1 blockchain Solana is celebrating its fifth 12 months since its mainnet launch in 2020 — changing into one of many greatest chains by transaction exercise and one in every of few choose cryptocurrencies included in a proposed US digital asset stockpile. 

Because the first Solana block was constructed on March 16, 2020, the community has processed greater than 408 billion transactions and practically $1 trillion value of worth on decentralized exchanges — establishing itself as one of many business’s main layer-1 blockchains.

Listed here are a number of the Solana ecosystem’s most notable milestones because it was launched by Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal to the general public in 2020.

Solana was born simply because the COVID-19 pandemic hit

Whereas Solana’s origins will be traced again to late 2017 when Yakovenko launched a white paper outlining a timekeeping methodology for blockchains known as “Proof of Historical past,” however Solana wasn’t launched till March 2020 — proper because the world began to enact emergency measures in opposition to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The high-speed, low-cost layer 1 Solana blockchain launch was assisted by crypto-focused enterprise capital agency Multicoin Capital, main a financing spherical for Solana, which introduced in roughly $20 million value of personal token gross sales in July 2019.

Further funding poured in quickly after, and inside 20 months of launching, Solana was hailed as a possible “Ethereum killer” because it soared to a $77.8 billion market cap on the peak of the 2020-2021 bull cycle.

Solana hit onerous by 2022 bear market, FTX collapse — however bounced again

The 2022 bear market, coupled with the catastrophic collapse of crypto change FTX, tanked Solana’s market cap to $3 billion — a whopping 96% fall from its earlier peak — by late 2022.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s former agency bought round 58 million Solana tokens — presently value $7.4 billion — from Solana Labs and the Solana Basis and was “by far probably the most severe” layer 1 that FTX was serving to scale, Fortune stated in an April 2022 report.

FTX filed for Chapter 11 chapter on Nov. 11, 2022, and remains to be within the technique of unlocking a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} value of staked Solana tokens from FTX’s wallets. Solana’s worth fell to $8.30 on Dec. 29, 2022.

Regardless of the setback, 2023 marked the beginning of Solana’s spectacular comeback, which noticed its market cap rise practically 50-fold from $3 billion to over $140 billion by Jan. 19, 2025.

Memecoin craze takes Solana adoption to the following stage

One of many greatest causes behind Solana’s comeback was the crypto memecoin craze that happened between late 2023 and 2024 — a $100 billion market that Solana dominated.

A number of Solana memecoins corresponding to Bonk (BONK), Dogwifhat (WIF), Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) and Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) rose to multibillion-dollar market caps in early 2024 — across the time Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.enjoyable turned some of the in style crypto platforms for memecoin lovers. 

Pump.enjoyable alone has raked in over $540 million in income during the last 12 months and even surpassed Ethereum over 24-hour intervals at some factors.

No Solana memecoin, nonetheless, drew extra consideration than the Official Trump (TRUMP) token launched by now-US President Donald Trump’s internal circle on Jan. 17 — which soared to a $14.6 billion market inside two days earlier than it got here crashing down.

The TRUMP memecoin briefly pushed Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) complete worth locked to $14.2 billion, trailing solely Ethereum, DefiLlama knowledge reveals. 

completely satisfied fifth birthday @solana 🥳

congratulations on 5 years of constructing & delivery the best tech to ever grace our business 🫶

manlets on prime 🎉 pic.twitter.com/Clkv3eEpn9

— pump.enjoyable (@pumpdotfun) March 16, 2025

The Solana blockchain has additionally develop into the third largest adopter for stablecoins behind Ethereum and Tron.

Solana unveils the primary main crypto telephone

In Could 2023, Solana launched the primary main crypto telephone, known as “Solana Saga.”

Gross sales for the Android system with the built-in crypto pockets began sluggish however skyrocketed after a 30 million BONK airdrop enticed memecoin lovers to make a purchase order.

Solana additionally unveiled a more moderen, shinier Solana “Seeker” smartphone final September to higher facilitate memecoin buying and selling and accrue token rewards.

Whereas most reviewers say the Solana telephones lack the technical capabilities of an iPhone or Google Pixel, Solana has seen over 140,000 presales for the 2 merchandise.

The Solana Seeker telephone is presently priced at $500.

Solana, nonetheless, has additionally been plagued with a number of community outages over its five-year span — halting block manufacturing for 20 hours in some cases. 

Solana validators have been pressured to restart the community on a number of events when community exercise surged.

A brand new unbiased validator shopper known as Firedancer is scheduled to go reside on Solana’s mainnet someday in 2025 to deal with Solana’s shopper range woes. It has been touted as a superior answer to “QUIC” — a Google-developed knowledge switch protocol that has failed to course of transactions on Solana over a dozen instances.

Solana set to be included in Trump’s Digital Asset Stockpile

The Trump administration says it’s going to embody Solana within the Digital Asset Stockpile, which it confirmed by means of an government order on March 7. It’s the youngest cryptocurrency on the checklist.

The Digital Asset Stockpile will initially use cryptocurrency forfeited in authorities legal circumstances.

Associated: Solana proposal to chop inflation charge by as much as 80% fails to cross

The US doesn’t seem to carry Solana, in accordance to crypto analytics agency Arkham Intelligence. Nonetheless, the White Home stated it could full an audit of crypto asset holdings.

Trump initially introduced that Solana would develop into a US reserve asset on March 2.

Nonetheless, he later established a Bitcoin-only reserve and the Digital Asset Stockpile, which appears to be like like it’s going to embody Solana along with Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and Cardano (ADA).

Solana is presently priced at $128.17 — the sixth-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $64.5 billion. Solana is down 56% from its all-time excessive because the broader market continues to navigate by means of recession fears and weakened market sentiment of late.

Journal: Comeback 2025: Is Ethereum poised to meet up with Bitcoin and Solana?