Solana’s (SOL) total value locked (TVL) has soared past the $11 billion mark for the first time since the FTX collapse sent the crypto market tumbling in 2022. Recall that FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried was a staunch Solana supporter.
SBF has since been sentenced to a life behind bars, but SOL has fared a lot better. As data from DeFiLlama shows, the TVL has reached $11.37 billion, a new all-time high (ATH).
The blockchain’s surge in TVL coincides with a new ATH for the SOL price, which climbed to $294 on Sunday, January 19, although the fifth-largest crypto by market cap has since fallen back to $244.74.
The increase in both TVL and price was fuelled by Donald Trump’s memecoin launch on the Solana blockchain. The Official Trump memecoin TRUMP, saw a record start to trading after it was announced at the Crypto Ball, an event hosted in Washington DC on Friday.
TRUMP’s pump pushed the whole Solana ecosystem higher, with listings on major exchanges like Binance, Kraken and Bybit and announcements that Coinbase would follow soon.
Read more: Swiss Government-Owned PostFinance To Launch Ethereum Staking for 2.7 Million Customers
The memecoin has sky-rocketed to become the third-largest behind Shiba Inu and Dogecoin. That has triggered a massive trading frenzy on the network with platforms like Moonshot recording $400 million in volume and bringing 200,000 new users within 12 hours.
While this happened during a typically quiet weekend trading session, it has become a crucial stress test for Solana’s network stability, potentially attracting sustained institutional interest if the blockchain proves robust enough to handle the increased activity.
Speculations About Solana ETF Run Wild
Further fuel to the fire for SOL is the ongoing speculation around the pending approval of a Spot Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF). Following Trump’s return to the White House, paired with Gary Gensler’s departure as the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), odds have increased that a fund could be approved soon.
However, speculations vary widely whether XRP, Litecoin or Solana will be the first through the gate when it comes to an altcoin ETF.
And while the US Spot Bitcoin ETF was a great success, the same can’t be said for the Ethereum ETF launch – so it remains to be seen how much a potential further altcoin launch can impact the price of the underlying digital asset, like was the case with Bitcoin.
Also, there are hints that Trump could include SOL and other alts in strategic reserve, going beyond a purely Bitcoin strategy.
Disclaimer
This article is provided for information only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
