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Briefly
- Solana had an up and down yr, highlighted by early all-time highs adopted by relative underperformance.
- Highlights embrace the launch of President Trump's meme coin, formation of Solana digital asset treasuries, and the rollout of SOL ETFs.
- The community is predicted to get sooner and cheaper with the implementation of Alpenglow.
Solana’s native token surged to a brand new all-time excessive shortly after the yr started, however the 2025 story of the speedy layer-1 community was not all up and to the correct: SOL has completed the yr in a critical droop, down considerably since this time final yr.
Nonetheless, the community made massive headlines, notched main technical enhancements, launched one other cell phone, and located a approach to higher intertwine with conventional monetary markets.
Right here’s a glance again at how 2025 formed up for Solana.
Trump launches a meme coin
The election of President Donald Trump despatched a shockwave of positivity into the crypto markets in November 2024. And whereas speculators could have forecasted eased laws and favorable market circumstances, they might not have foreseen that the president would ultimately launch his personal meme coin—TRUMP—on the Solana blockchain.
However that’s precisely what occurred on the night of January 17, simply days earlier than the inauguration of Trump. That evening, Solana meme coin merchants had been greeted with the launch and social media promotion of the official TRUMP token. After the preliminary shock and skepticism surrounding the validity of the token, it shortly jumped to a multi-billion-dollar absolutely diluted valuation amid billions in buying and selling quantity.
The frenzy of the second additionally impacted SOL, which matched TRUMP in creating its newest all-time excessive on January 19, when the community’s native token modified palms for $293.31.
However the momentum quickly after light, sending TRUMP and SOL each down from their peaks—steadily at first, and extra swiftly on the again of the Trump commerce wars and tariff bulletins. On April 6, Solana had fallen practically 64% from its high to vary palms at $105.77, in response to CoinGecko, the token’s low mark for the yr.
SOL just lately traded at $127.70 as of December 15, greater than 56% off its all-time excessive mark. TRUMP holders have fared far worse with the President’s meme coin down practically 93% from its peak, altering palms at $5.33 as of December 15.
Alpenglow incoming
Whereas the SOL token value has underperformed since its January burst, the underlying Solana community has been steadily bettering all year long. In Might, builders launched Alpenglow—a brand new consensus protocol that would reshape the efficiency of the community, bettering transaction finality by a minimum of 5x within the course of.
In September, Solana validators formally voted to implement the community improve, with 98% of votes in favor. After its passing, Anza lead economist and co-author of the Alpenglow white paper, Max Resnick, instructed Decrypt, “Apps are going to really feel quite a bit snappier and exchanges will be capable of safely credit score deposits a lot sooner.”
The improve is only one of a handful of key updates deliberate as its builders and builders race to make the layer-1 community dwelling to the “world’s most liquid markets.”
Alpenglow is predicted to be applied on testnet by December, with a mainnet rollout in Q1 2026.
Solana treasuries emerge
Regardless of rising to turn into the sixth-largest crypto asset by market cap, Solana should still really feel like a lesser sibling to conventional traders which have had rather more model publicity to majors like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
However the layer-1 community’s SOL token made a significant debut in conventional equities markets this yr as a wave of publicly traded digital asset treasuries (DATs) started to build up the token for his or her steadiness sheets. Such corporations adopted within the footsteps of Bitcoin behemoth Technique, which pioneered the crypto treasury wave.
In early April, real-estate know-how agency Janover—now often called DeFi Improvement Corp.—applied a method to construct its treasury with a give attention to Solana. Upexi, a client merchandise agency, created the same technique in the identical month.
All year long, the 2 collectively raised a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands and amassed greater than 4 million SOL in whole—about 2 million SOL every, now valued round $284 million for every respective treasury.
For a time, that was ok to position them on the high of the checklist for publicly traded Solana treasury corporations—till September, when medical design agency Ahead Industries acquired practically 7 million SOL utilizing practically all of the proceeds from a $1.65 billion PIPE.
However whereas preliminary pleasure surrounded their creation, resulting in share value spikes, the DAT commerce started to unwind because the yr went on and crypto asset costs fell. As soon as buying and selling as excessive as $22.70, UPXI shares had fallen to $2.04 by early December—a drop of 91%. Shares in DFDV fell across the similar, with Ahead Industries (FWDI) dropping round 84% from its peak.
Will they ever get better?
There’s rising doubt. The interim CEO of Solana treasury agency SOL Methods Michael Hubbard, which calls itself a DAT++ due to its give attention to its core Solana infrastructure enterprise, instructed Decrypt in November that he believes there’s no sustainable mannequin for DATs, including that the approval of staking ETFs will “eat their lunch.”
Wall Avenue joins the occasion
One of many final remaining conventional markets dominoes fell for Solana with the approval of spot and staking ETFs, permitting a broader spectrum of traders to realize entry to the token.
Lengthy anticipated, the Solana funds had been granted a “close to lock” label earlier this yr from ETF analysts however the authorities shutdown delayed their arrival till the ultimate week of October.
Nonetheless, the launch of Bitwise’s BSOL ETF attracted greater than $69 million in inflows upon its debut. Different ETFs like TSOL from 21Shares, Grayscale’s GSOL, FSOL from Constancy, and VSOL from VanEck additionally earned approval. Shortly thereafter, Solana even acquired its personal 2x levered ETF, permitting riskier traders to hunt double the return of the asset.
Total, ETF launches had been greeted properly by traders, resulting in a 21-day streak of internet inflows after first approval. As of December 15, SOL ETFs have generated greater than $600 million in internet inflows in response to knowledge from SoSoValue.
And whereas some predicted that their launch, and the respective purchase stress of digital asset treasuries (DAT), would result in an “epic finish of yr” run for the asset, it has but to come back.
