Crypto Shrinks 6% as Solana Downtime, Binance Investigations Weigh Heavily

Cryptocurrency’s month is off to a rocky start, with top 10 tokens down 7% on average

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by axel rangel

share

key takeaways

  • All top cryptocurrencies are down in the month to date
  • Solana and binance coin are the worst performing top tokens

Crypto has shed a further 6% from its total market value over the past week, with ether (ETH) rival solana (SOL) performing the worst among top tokens.

SOL has dropped 13% over the last seven days, from $45.75 to $39.71 as of 2:30 pm ET. Losses were spurred by a June 1 network outage triggered by NFT-minting bots, which prevented transactions from being validated for 4 ½ hours. 

Binance’s native token BNB and Polkadot’s governance asset DOT both lost 11%; the second- and third-worst hit of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap (sans stablecoins and wrapped assets).

BNB, notably,  dropped up to 11% on Monday on news of the SEC investigating Binance’s 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) for the token. The regulator is reportedly determining whether the ICO constituted an unregistered securities sale. 

On the same day, Reuters reported that Binance had facilitated $2.35 billion worth of illicit transactions between 2017 and 2021, ranging from proceeds of illegal drug sales to investment fraud and hacks.

In fact, none of the top 10 cryptoassets posted gains over the past week. ETH and another competitor, avalanche (AVAX), both lost 9%, while XRP and bitcoin gave up 5%.

TRON’s circulating supply has shrunk 9% since stablecoin launch

TRX had proven resilient since the collapse of Terra and its algorithmic stablecoin UST in early May, rising 30% throughout the month — while every other top cryptocurrency traded firmly in the red. 

Days prior to Terra’s implosion, TRON founder Justin Sun launched the blockchain’s own stablecoin, Decentralized USD (USDD), complete with a mint/burn mechanism reminiscent of UST.

Like Terra, TRX holders can mint $1 worth of USDD by burning one TRX. The mechanism, combined with existing burn functionality on certain TRX transactions, has caused the token’s circulating supply to diminish 9%, while USDD’s market value has grown to $667 million.

In turn, traders have bought TRX to exchange for USDD to take advantage of double-digit USDD yields on TRON-powered lending protocol JustLend. 

But USDD’s bullish impact on TRX’s price has slowed in the past week. Unlike in May, TRX has been underwater just like all the other top tokens – having sunk 3%. Cardano has performed slightly better, having dropped just 1%.

Cryptocurrency’s total market value is now $1.22 trillion, according to TradingView’s total crypto index. That’s down from $1.29 trillion at the start of the month and nearly half its collective capitalization from the start of the year, when all digital assets were worth $2.19 trillion.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

  • Blockworks Daily: The newsletter that helps thousands of investors understand crypto and the markets, by Byron Gilliam.
  • Empire: Start your morning with the top news and analysis to inform your day in crypto.
  • Forward Guidance: Reporting and analysis on the growing intersection of crypto and macroeconomics, policy and finance.
  • 0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox. Market highlights, data, degen trade ideas, governance updates, token performance and more.
  • Lightspeed: Built for Solana investors, developers and community members. The latest from one of crypto’s hottest networks.
  • The Drop: For crypto collectors and traders, covering apps, games, memes and more.
Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template Presentation.jpg

Research

The Solana validator landscape has changed drastically over the past year. The chain now has 1,332 active validators with 380.9 million SOL staked (63.9% of supply) as of February 2025. Validator revenue had diversified beyond inflationary rewards (still making up 55%) to include Jito tips (30%), priority fees (24%), and base fees (<1%), in January, especially with the increased activity on Solana. Since then, issuance has become dominant again (76%), while Jito tips (14%), priority fees (9%), and base fees (less than 1%) have reduced in share of February 2025. There has been a strong shift towards non-inflationary revenue sources, which have become more central to validator economics as priority fees and off-chain blockspace auctions gain traction. Client diversity has also improved drastically, with implementations such as Agave, Jito-Solana, and Frankendancer already in use, and upcoming clients like Firedancer and Sig expected to further strengthen resilience and reduce reliance on a single codebase.

article-image

BWR analyst Carlos Gonzalez Campo explains the consequences of SOL inflation and transfers lost to “leaky buckets”

article-image

Empire co-host Santiago Santos makes the case that memecoins have actually helped push infra forward…just not in the way you think

article-image

A16z Crypto lists seven buckets for tokens and recommendations for how to regulate them, in a filing submitted to the SEC

article-image

New model aims to resolve trading inefficiencies with a single execution layer and market maker changes

article-image

Investors navigating BTC face short-term unpredictability, influence from other markets

article-image

The GENIUS Act aims to establish regulatory guidelines for stablecoins