Solana's Market Cap Soars 50-Fold to $140 Billion in 2025
2min read Solana, a layer-1 blockchain, is celebrating its fifth anniversary since its mainnet launch in 2020. Over the past five years, Solana has processed over 408 billion transactions and nearly $1 trillion worth of value on decentralized exchanges, establishing itself as one of the industry’s leading layer-1 blockchains. The network was launched by Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal in March 2020, coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The launch was supported by crypto-focused venture capital firm Multicoin Capital, which led a financing round that brought in roughly $20 million worth of private token sales in July 2019.
Solana's origins can be traced back to late 2017 when Yakovenko released a white paper outlining a timekeeping method for blockchains called “Proof of History.” The high-speed, low-cost layer 1 Solana blockchain quickly gained traction, and within 20 months of launching, it was hailed as a potential “Ethereum killer” as it soared to a $77.8 billion market cap at the peak of the 2020-2021 bull cycle. However, the 2022 bear market, coupled with the catastrophic collapse of crypto exchange ftx, tanked Solana’s market cap to $3 billion by late 2022. FTX had purchased around 58 million Solana tokens, which were worth $7.4 billion at the time of the collapse. Despite this setback, 2023 marked the start of Solana's impressive comeback, with its market cap rising nearly 50-fold from $3 billion to over $140 billion by Jan. 19, 2025.
One of the biggest reasons behind Solana’s comeback was the crypto memecoin craze that took place between late 2023 and 2024. Several Solana memecoins such as Bonk (BONK), Dogwifhat (WIF), Fartcoin (FARTCOIN), and Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) rose to multibillion-dollar market caps in early 2024. The TRUMP memecoin, launched by now-US President Donald Trump’s inner circle, soared to a $14.6 billion market cap within two days before it came crashing down. The TRUMP memecoin briefly pushed Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked to $14.2 billion, trailing only Ethereum. Solana is home to many of the largest memecoins by market cap and has become the third largest adopter for stablecoins behind Ethereum and Tron.
In May 2023, Solana released the first major crypto phone, called “Solana Saga.” Sales for the Android device with the built-in crypto wallet started slow but skyrocketed after a 30 million BONK airdrop enticed memecoin enthusiasts to make a purchase. Solana also unveiled a newer, shinier Solana “Seeker” smartphone last September to better facilitate memecoin trading and accrue token rewards. While most reviewers say the Solana phones lack the technical capabilities of an iPhone or google Pixel, Solana has seen over 140,000 presales for the two products. The Solana Seeker phone is currently priced at $500.
Solana has also been plagued with several network outages over its five-year span, halting block production for 20 hours in some instances. Solana validators have been forced to restart the network on several occasions when network activity surged. A new independent validator client called Firedancer is scheduled to go live on Solana’s mainnet sometime in 2025 to address Solana’s client diversity woes. It has been touted as a superior solution to “QUIC” — a Google-developed data transfer protocol that has failed to process transactions on Solana over a dozen times.
The Trump administration has confirmed through an executive order on March 7 that Solana will be included in the Digital Asset Stockpile, which will initially use cryptocurrency forfeited in government criminal cases. The US doesn’t appear to hold Solana, according to crypto analytics firm Arkham Intelligence. However, the White House said it would complete an audit of crypto asset holdings. Trump initially announced that Solana would become a US reserve asset on March 2. Solana is currently priced at $128.17 — the sixth-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $64.5 billion. Solana is down 56% from its all-time high as the broader market continues to navigate through recession fears and weakened market sentiment of late.
Ask Aime: What led to Solana's significant market cap increase in 2023?
