Solana’s 5th birthday: From pandemic origins to US crypto stockpile

Source: Coin Tegraph

Layer-1 blockchain Solana is marking its fifth anniversary since launching its mainnet in 2020. Over the years, it has become one of the most active blockchain networks by transaction volume and is among the few cryptocurrencies proposed for inclusion in a US digital asset reserve.

Since the first Solana block was built on March 16, 2020, the network has processed more than 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.

Here are some of the Solana ecosystem’s most notable milestones since it was launched by Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal to the public in 2020.

Solana was born just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit

While 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,” but Solana wasn’t launched until March 2020 — right as the world started to enact emergency measures against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The high-speed, low-cost layer 1 Solana blockchain launch was assisted by crypto-focused venture capital firm Multicoin Capital, leading a financing round for Solana, which brought in roughly $20 million worth of private token sales in July 2019.

Additional funding poured in soon after, and within 20 months of launching, Solana 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.

Solana hit hard by 2022 bear market, FTX collapse — but bounced back

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

Sam Bankman-Fried’s former firm purchased around 58 million Solana tokens — currently worth $7.4 billion — from Solana Labs and the Solana Foundation. Solana was “by far the most serious” layer 1 that FTX was helping scale, Fortune said in an April 2022 report.

FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022, and is still in the process of unlocking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of staked Solana tokens from FTX’s wallets. Solana’s price fell to $8.30 on Dec. 29, 2022.

Despite the setback, 2023 marked the start of Solana’s impressive comeback, which saw its market cap rise nearly 50-fold from $3 billion to over $140 billion by Jan. 19, 2025.

Memecoin craze takes Solana adoption to the next level

One of the biggest reasons behind Solana’s comeback was the crypto memecoin craze that took place between late 2023 and 2024 — a $100 billion market that Solana dominated.

Several Solana memecoins such as Bonk (BONK), Dogwifhat (WIF), Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) and Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) rose to multibillion-dollar market caps in early 2024 — around the time Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.fun became one of the most popular crypto platforms for memecoin lovers. 

Pump.fun alone has raked in over $540 million in revenue over the last 12 months and even surpassed Ethereum over 24-hour intervals at some points.

No Solana memecoin, however, drew more attention than the Official Trump (TRUMP) token launched by now-US President Donald Trump’s inner circle on Jan. 17 — which soared to a $14.6 billion market 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, DefiLlama data shows. 

happy 5th birthday @solana 🥳

congratulations on 5 years of building & shipping the greatest tech to ever grace our industry 🫶

manlets on top 🎉 pic.twitter.com/Clkv3eEpn9

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

The Solana blockchain has also become the third largest adopter of stablecoins behind Ethereum and Tron.

Solana unveils the first major crypto phone

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, however, 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.

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

The Trump administration says it will include Solana in the Digital Asset Stockpile, which it confirmed through an executive order on March 7. It is the youngest cryptocurrency on the list.

The Digital Asset Stockpile will initially use cryptocurrency forfeited in government criminal cases.

Related: Solana proposal to cut inflation rate by up to 80% fails to pass

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.

However, he later established a Bitcoin-only reserve and the Digital Asset Stockpile, which looks like it will include Solana in addition to Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and Cardano (ADA).

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.

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