In a muted continuation to the start of 2024, Solana slipped nearly 4% between Jan. 9 and 15, before recovering sharply post-CPI numbers.
TL;DR
- Solana is down 5% to $186, TVL slightly drops to $8.7B
- Hacker exploits Litecoin’s X account to promote meme coin
- Mango Markets shuts down operations
- Crypto market gains strength after 2.9% CPI print
- A Solana trader spends $200K in fees to snipe an AI meme coin, only to sell at a significant loss
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Introduction
In a muted continuation to the start of 2024, Solana slipped nearly 4% between Jan. 9 and 15, before recovering sharply post-CPI numbers. $SOL’s slip can largely be attributed to an overall crypto malaise caused by a Bitcoin shakeout and pre-inflation number jitters that saw the king coin’s price briefly dip below the $90K mark before running it up to $100K (again).
On the upside, Jupuary is here!
Elsewhere, Solana's hot DePIN project Nosana is launching a GPU marketplace to democratize access to the computing power needed to drive artificial intelligence.
Solana-based DEX Mango Markets is closing shop after settling with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC has been accused of stifling crypto innovation, but all these concerns could be a thing of the past as its lame duck Chair Gary Gensler winds down his last few days in office.
On a brighter note, institutions are bullish on Solana ETFs, with JP Morgan projecting that Solana-based ETFs could pull in $5.2 billion in the first year.
And then, just when it seemed the drama couldn't get any juicier, scammers made headlines by hacking Litecoin's X account to promote a Solana meme coin.
Update: the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December came out at 2.9% against an estimate of 2.9%, prompting crypto assets to climb higher, with Solana jumping more than 4% to reach $195.
Here is this week's roundup of twists and turns in Solana and its ecosystem.
Solana Numbers the Last 7 Days
Source: CoinMarketCap
- Price: $186.66, down 5.08%
- Market cap: $90.43 billion
- DeFi TVL: $8.737 billion
- Daily active addresses: >5.9 million
- 24H trading volume: $2.52 billion
It was a bearish week for Solana as it plunged to $175, its lowest price in over a month. Bitcoin also slipped to $89.9K but quickly recovered the losses. After extending its monthly loss to 14%, Solana’s 24-hour trading volume fell to $2.49 billion, losing nearly half its previous value. (In the last few hours after writing this, Solana has made a strong comeback, crossing $200 once again as Bitcoin price action and SOL ETF fever heat up.)
Solana’s total value locked (TVL) stands at $8.737 billion, and the number of daily active addresses saw a slight decline to 5.9 million.
Source: Artemis Terminal
Given Solana's declining trading volume this week, it is unsurprising that the DEX volume took a hit, nosediving 10% to just over $27 billion.
Source: DeFiLlama
Raydium, Solana's flagship DEX, saw a 23% decline in trading volume, with two other decentralized exchanges performing even worse. However, Mantis stood out with a remarkable 239% increase, while the rest of the lineup had mixed results.
Source: DeFiLlama
How Did Solana Stack Up Against Its Competitors?
The majority of the top 10 cryptocurrencies are in the red. Solana is down nearly 5%, while Ethereum follows closely with a 4.46% drop.
XRP is back in Q4 2024 mode, climbing more than 21% to reach $2.82 and setting a new high for the year. The XRP pump comes as K33 suggests that Donald Trump's inauguration may no longer trigger the typical “sell-the-news” reaction in the crypto market.
Source: CoinMarketCap
The CMC Altcoin Index barely moved the needle this week as it increased from 44 to 45. Factor in that the Greed and Fear Index has dropped to 51, and you can see that traders are taking a cautious approach.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Solana's decline in TVL wasn't enough to dethrone it from the second spot. The network generated $3.69 million in fees (over 24 hours), surpassing Ethereum's $2.95 million, while Tron earned $1.99 million.
Source: DeFiLlama
Solana Ecosystem the Last Week
The trading volume on Solana's ecosystem decreased by 17% while the market cap more than doubled to $815 billion.
Source: CoinMarketCap
It is a red wave of losses in the Solana ecosystem, with a few outliers notching some gains.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Top Gainers:
Top Losers:
- Bio Protocol (BIO): -33.57%
- Ai16z (AI16Z): -27.86%
- Helium (HNT): -21.13%
- FTX Token (FTT): -18.42%
- Jito (JTO): - 18.34%
Solana DeFi
Solana experienced a nearly 2% drop in its TVL but continues to hold its position as the second-largest DeFi network. Tron, on the other hand, slid 7.5%, further solidifying Solana's standing in the DeFi space. Hyperliquid stood out with exceptional performance, gaining 23% and bringing its TVL to $1.95 billion.
Source: DeFiLlama
Tron’s drop left it with a 5.65% share of the DeFi sector, while Solana’s increased to 7.31%. Hyperliquid’s exploits gave it 1.64% of the market share.
Source: DeFiLlama
Solana Meme Coins
Remove a few Solana meme coins and what remains is a paradise for short traders. The Solana meme coin ecosystem is currently deep in the red. In a desperate move, bad actors hacked Litecoin's X account to promote a Solana meme coin.
In a classic case of "the early bird catches the fattest worm," a Solana trader paid a $200,000 priority fee to snipe a meme coin. But what seemed like a bold move quickly turned into a costly gamble, as the trader ended up selling the meme coin at a significant loss. If this is not a double blow, I don’t know what is!
Source: CoinMarketCap
Top Gainers:
- RETARDIO (RETARDIO): +15.27%
- Daddy Tate (DADDY): +6.58%
- Mother Iggy (MOTHER): +2.4%
- Hehe (HEHE): +1.5%
Top Losers:
- Fwog (FWOG): -25.53%
- Mumu the Bull (MUMU): -24.57%
- Boba oppa (BOBAOPPA): -20.42%
- Moo Deng (MOODI): -19.61%
- Goatseus Maximus (GOAT): --19.52%
Solana DePIN
Source: DePIN Scan
- Solana DePIN sector was deep in the red, with Helium (HNT) taking a 22% hit.
- Nosana avoided the chop with a 5% gain thanks to its launch of a GPU marketplace.
NFTs
Solana is proving its dominance in the NFT space, now attracting nearly 33% of users, up from 30.6% just a week ago. Meanwhile, Polygon and Bitcoin took a step back, while ApeChain managed a small but notable increase.
Source: NFT Pulse
Top 5 Solana News Stories
Jupiter Prepares Jupuary Airdrop
Leading swap aggregator Jupiter has begun whitelisting Solana wallet accounts for their next airdrop, scheduled for Jan. 16-20 and before the Jan. 25-26 Catstanbul conference in Turkey, and by the looks of it (well at least my gazillion wallets), it’s gonna be a doozy. You can link your wallets in preparation here at https://jupuary.jup.ag/, but please beware of scam phishing sites.
A total of 700 million JUP tokens worth $575 million are allocated for the airdrop, with 440 million tokens going to users, 60 million JUP to stakers, and 100 million to be used as “carrots” for growth campaigns.
MoonPay Acquires Solana's Helio for $175 Million
MoonPay has acquired Helio, Solana's leading payment app, for $175 million, aiming to enhance its payment services. The acquisition marks a significant step in MoonPay's expansion strategy.
Nosana Launches GPU Marketplace
Nosana has officially launched its decentralized GPU marketplace, offering affordable and scalable AI computational power for inference workloads. The platform marks the end of a year-long beta phase and aims to democratize access to GPU resources.
Mango Markets Shuts Down After SEC Settlement
Mango Markets, a Solana-based DEX, is shutting down after reaching a settlement with the SEC, ending operations following governance votes and legal challenges from a 2022 exploit.
Litecoin's X Account Hacked To Promote Fake Token
Litecoin's official X account was hacked to promote a fraudulent Solana-based token using the LTC ticker, briefly boosting its market cap to $27,00 before dropping sharply to $3,400. The unauthorized post, including a fake contract address, was quickly removed.
What You Can Do Now
- Prepare your Solana wallets for a possible Jupiter windfall.
- Explore Nosana's new GPU marketplace to unlock scalable AI computational power.
- Beware of scammers that may impersonate Mango Markets following its closure.
- Monitor how Sol Strategies' $20 million raise will accelerate Solana staking and investment growth.
- Always verify token sources to protect yourself from crypto scams.
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