Solana's native token hit new highs early in the year, but the story of 2025 for high-speed Layer 1 networks hasn't all been plain sailing. SOL ended the year in a deep recession, falling significantly from this time last year.
Nevertheless, the network has made headlines, made significant technological improvements, launched different mobile phones, and found ways to better intertwine with traditional financial markets.
Let's take a look back at what 2025 has been like for Solana.
President Trump issues meme coin
The election of President Donald Trump brought a positive shock to the virtual currency market in November 2024. Speculators may have expected deregulation and favorable market conditions, but they couldn't have predicted that the president would end up launching his own meme coin.playing cards—On the Solana blockchain.
But that's exactly what happened on the night of January 17, days before Trump's inauguration. That night, Solana Meme Coin traders were welcomed as follows: Launch and social media promotion Official TRUMP token. After initial shock and skepticism surrounding the validity of the token, the fully diluted valuation quickly soared to billions of dollars as trading volume climbed into the billions.
The enthusiasm of this moment also affected SOL, which hit a new all-time high alongside TRUMP on January 19th when the network's native token switched trades at $293.31.
However, the momentum quickly faded, and both TRUMP and SOL fell from their highs. It fell gradually at first, then more rapidly in the wake of President Trump's trade war and tariff announcements. On April 6, Solana fell nearly 64% from its all-time high, changing hands at $105.77, the lowest price for the token this year, according to CoinGecko.
SOL recently traded at $127.70 as of December 15, more than 56% off its all-time high. Things got even worse for TRUMP holders, with the Presidential Meme Coin falling nearly 93% from its all-time high, trading at $5.33 as of December 15th.
Arrival at Alpenglow
Although the SOL token price has underperformed since its burst in January, the underlying Solana network has steadily improved throughout the year. In May, developers introduced Alpenglow, a new consensus protocol that restructures the network's performance, improving transaction finality in the process by at least five times.
In September, Solana validators formally voted to implement the network upgrade, with 98% positive votes. Since his death, Mr. Anza has remained the chief economist and co-author of the journal. In the Alpenglow White Paper, Max Resnick said: decryption, “The app will be even more user-friendly, and exchanges will be able to make deposits faster and more securely.”
Upgrades are just one of them Several important updates are planned Its builders and developers are vying to make the Layer 1 network home to “the world's most liquid market.”
Alpenglow is expected to be implemented on testnet by December and deployed to mainnet in Q1 2026.
Emergence of Solana Treasury
Despite growing to become the sixth-largest crypto asset by market capitalization, Solana may still feel like a lesser sibling to traditional investors who have had far more brand exposure to major stocks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
However, the Layer 1 network's SOL token made its major debut on traditional stock markets this year, as a wave of publicly traded digital assets (DATs) began accumulating the tokens for their balance sheets. These companies followed in the footsteps of Bitcoin mega-strategy. wave of crypto assets.
In early April, real estate technology company Janover (now known as DeFi Development Corp.)Implemented a strategy to build the national treasury Focusing on Solana. Consumer products company Upxi founded Similar strategy in the same month.
Over the course of the year, the two have collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars, totaling over 4 million SOL. They each cost about 2 million SOL and are currently worth about $284 million in their respective treasuries.
For a while, that was enough to put them at the top of the list Listed Solana Financial Company—until September, working at a medical design company Forward Industries acquires approximately 7 million SOL using Substantially all of the proceeds from the $1.65 billion PIPE.
However, while excitement over their work initially led to a spike in stock prices, as the year progressed, DAT trading began to unwind and crypto prices declined. UPXI stock, which once traded as high as $22.70, had fallen to $2.04 by early December, a 91% decline. DFDV stock has fallen about the same way, and Forward Industries (FWDI) has fallen about 84% from its peak.
Will they ever recover?
My doubts are growing. Michael Hubbard, interim CEO of Solana financial firm SOL Strategies, calls himself “ DAT++ is focused on its core Solana infrastructure business; said decryption He said in November that he doesn't think there is a sustainable model for DAT, adding that approval of staking ETFs “would be eating lunch.”
Wall Street joins the party
One of the last remaining traditional market dominoes has fallen with Solana's approval. Spot ETF and Staking ETFmaking the token accessible to a wider range of investors.
The long-anticipated Solana fund is “Near Lock” label has been assigned It was announced by ETF analysts earlier this year, but the government shutdown delayed its arrival until the last week of October.
Nevertheless, The launch of Bitwise’s BSOL ETF is attracting attention Upon its debut, it brought in more than $69 million. Other ETFs also received approval, including 21Shares' TSOL, Grayscale's GSOL, Fidelity's FSOL, and VanEck's VSOL. Shortly after, Solana also acquired its own 2x leveraged ETF, allowing high-risk investors to seek double returns on their assets.
Overall, the ETF launch was well received by investors. led to 21 consecutive days of net inflows. After initial approval. As of December 15th, the SOL ETF was Over $600 million Net inflows from SoSoValue data.
And those launches and the respective buying pressure of digital asset bonds (DAT) “Magnificent end of the year” Run for wealth, but it has not yet come.
