Solana breaks $200 as memecoin and airdrop interest continue

Solana’s surreal price run continues

article-image

nicemeanin/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Solana crossed the $200 mark for a few hours Sunday night, recapturing the threshold for just the second time since 2021. 

The rally would be short-lived, as Solana (SOL) tumbled Monday to around $190. And it will still need to climb to around $260 to set a new all-time high, according to CoinGecko. 

After languishing for months amid the fallout of FTX’s collapse, Solana interest picked up near the end of 2023 as airdrops and memecoin speculation drove user interest. Solana’s ecosystem will see another airdrop soon as the cross-chain messaging protocol Wormhole gears up to release its W token, with some of the supply unlocking on Solana.

Read more: Wormhole’s W airdrop to ‘acknowledge and reward’ dedicated users

Partly due to airdrop allocation farming, the total value locked of Solana’s DeFi protocols has continued its steady upward trajectory that began in mid-November, sitting at around $4.6 billion, according to DeFiLlama.

The chain has also seen a notable recent increase in stablecoin volume. Solana processed more than $100 billion in USDT and USDC transfers on multiple days last week, according to Blockworks Research.

But memecoins have become the latest center of gravity in the Solana world. Platforms like DEX Screener have made the low-fee layer-1 a popular venue to speculate on fly-by-night tokens hoping to become the next dogwifhat (WIF). 

Influential crypto figures including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin chimed in on memecoins last week, with some casting them as a symptom of crypto’s broken moral compass and others saying they’ll be the go-to-market strategy of the future. 

Read more: Crypto leaders insist memecoins have a purpose

Solana has also seen some interest from institutional platforms. Grayscale’s Solana Trust, named GSOL, has seen its market price climb for the past three weeks. GSOL’s net asset value per share, or the value per share of GSOL, is near its highest point since the product started trading in April 2023. It’s not Grayscale’s only foray into SOL. Its staking fund, which launched last month, included Solana among a group of assets being staked.

Read more: Grayscale announces fund aimed at optimizing staking rewards

21Shares and VanEck are a couple of other firms offering exchange-traded products that provide exposure to the Solana ecosystem.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

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.png

Research

The march toward an interoperable and onchain-by-default internet depends on reliable messaging and value transfer across heterogeneous domains. Crosschain protocols now process >$1.3T in combined annual transfer volume and secure tens of millions of user interactions, yet no single design dominates.

article-image

The goal, per Santiago Santos, is to make crypto a relatable piece of tech for people who may not even understand it

article-image

Stripe stablecoin unit aims to operate under a federal charter enabling regulated stablecoin issuance and custody services

by Blockworks /
article-image

Will TradFi make crypto better or create more problems than it solves?

article-image

Subtle decisions by risk curators saved Aave from significant turmoil

article-image

The new Rootstock Institutional unit aims to connect professional investors to Bitcoin-native yield and liquidity strategies anchored in BTC’s security layer

by Blockworks /
article-image

DOJ files record civil forfeiture against more than 127,000 BTC linked to scam activity

by Blockworks /