Author: 1912212.eth, Foresight News
The long-lasting Solana meme craze has finally come to an end.
On February 27, in the cryptocurrency market correction, SOL was last quoted at $140, with the price already halved from the historical high set in January.
From the early bome/wif to the subsequent AI altcoins, and finally the celebrity-themed altcoins, one after another, some have made a fortune, some have left in disappointment, and some are still searching for the 100x opportunity. When market liquidity deteriorates, not only meme coins, but various Altcoins also perform poorly, with continuous declines.
Some vent their anger on various VC coins, some complain about the rapid fluctuations of meme coins, and some begin to reflect on the many issues with the much-praised Solana.
Celebrity coins drain market liquidity, insider trading is rampant
After the Trump-themed altcoin emerged, many were amazed by its huge wealth effect. At that time, SOL approached $300, hitting a new high, while ETH remained stagnant, and many Ethereum whales even considered switching to SOL. However, the subsequent trend of SOL/ETH surprised everyone, as ETH did not fall much, while SOL slid all the way down, with the SOL/ETH ratio once falling from 0.09366 to the current 0.05981.
Due to the massive unlocking on March 1 and a series of negative impacts from celebrity-themed altcoins, SOL has once dipped to around $140.
What did the Trump celebrity-themed altcoin bring? In addition to the huge traffic exposure, the crypto community soon tasted the bitter fruit. Many teams saw the quick money in meme coins and quickly launched Melania Trump-related meme coins, causing investors to lose billions of dollars.
The market is already tired of memes. No influential celebrity-themed altcoins have emerged since late January. However, there are still teams plotting to harvest market funds. On February 15, the team behind LIBRA used the influence of the Argentine president to launch a meme coin, ultimately cashing out over $100 million, while 24 traders lost over $1 million on LIBRA, and 61 traders lost over $500,000. The biggest loser realized a loss of $5.17 million, having spent $5.6 million to buy 2.1 million tokens, and eventually sold them for only $430,000.
Solayer developer Chaofan Shou released a relationship diagram of the LIBRA token issuance event, stating that the behind-the-scenes conspiracy group issued the LIBRA token through the issuing advisor Hayden Mark Davis (Kelsier Ventures) and outsourced the market making to an Indian company. Kelsier Ventures and the market maker are also insiders of the MELANIA, ENRON, BOB, RAG, M3M3, and OGME tokens. The main sponsor of LIBRA, KIP Protocol (founder Julian Peh), connected with the entourage of Argentine President Milei, facilitating Milei's tweet to shill the token.
Insider trading is also constantly eroding market confidence.
According to Lookonchain's monitoring, before the launch of LIBRA, a certain whale created 2 new wallets and transferred funds to the new wallets to buy LIBRA. After the launch of LIBRA, it immediately used the newly created wallets to spend $2.02 million to buy 5.08 million LIBRA, and quickly sold them for $8.74 million, making a profit of $6.72 million.
In addition, internet celebrity MrBeast is under investigation for his connection to more than 50 potentially insider trading-related crypto wallets, which have collectively made over $23 million in profits.
The game of celebrity influence promotion and catching up with the fastest runners has made most market players more cautious in the face of losses, and the market liquidity drained has not returned. Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi said the Meme coin cycle has ended, and he likened the current Meme coin ecosystem to a casino, where each "slot machine" is owned by different people, an unsustainable model. Haseeb also pointed out that the celebrity token craze has cooled down rapidly or even passed, and he called on the industry to unite and not support such token projects that exploit the community, in order to completely end this phenomenon.
Pump.Fun sells billions of dollars worth of SOL
As the eye-catching meme launch platform this round, Pump.Fun's brilliant performance has won a lot of market attention. Many coins with market caps of billions or even tens of billions of dollars have been born on it, making it shine for a time. However, behind its glory, the continuous selling of SOL has also caused considerable controversy.
On December 10, 2024, Pump.Fun's total revenue reached 1,661,078 SOL, about $362 million, and it subsequently sold $289.5 million on exchanges and DEXes.
In 2025, the Pump.Fun team accelerated the selling of coins:
On January 2, Pump.Fun.Fun transferred over 290,000 SOL, worth $50 million, to exchanges, and a few hours later transferred another 63,170 SOL, worth $131 million, to exchanges.
On January 8, Pump.Fun transferred 98,593 SOL, worth $20 million, to exchanges;
On January 14, Pump.Fun transferred 122,620 SOL, worth $217.5 million, to exchanges;
On January 21, Pump.Fun transferred 116,000 SOL, worth $280 million, to exchanges;
On January 29, Pump.Fun transferred 90,000 SOL, worth $205 million, to exchanges;
On January 30, Pump.Fun transferred 98,000 SOL, worth $222.7 million, to exchanges;
On February 7, Pump.Fun transferred over 140,000 SOL, worth about $266 million, to exchanges;
On February 13, Pump.Fun transferred over 148,000 SOL, worth $281.7 million, to exchanges;
On February 20, Pump.Fun transferred over 65,000 SOL, worth about $109.7 million, to exchanges;
On February 26, Pump.Fun transferred over 87,000 SOL, worth about $125.8 million, to exchanges;
The massive transfer and selling of SOL earned by the ecosystem team has undoubtedly cast a shadow over the SOL price, and will have a negative impact on the downward trend of SOL when the market sentiment is poor. On March 1, over $2 billion worth of SOL will be unlocked, which will inevitably make the market more pessimistic.
Fundamentally, Pump.Fun may not be considered an industry innovation, as its one-click meme feature has made the crypto industry increasingly casino-like, with one wave of skyrocketing and plummeting after another, constantly consuming market capital and confidence.
Currently, Pump.Fun is building its own liquidity and testing token swap functions. Affected by this factor, another meme-driven RAY has also plummeted, from a high of $8.7 to around $2.4.
Memes have seen huge declines
While memes often have much higher returns than other tracks in bull markets, their declines are also extremely severe when market liquidity is tight. The previously red-hot WIF once plunged from over $4 to $0.6, BONK from around $0.00006 to $0.000014, TRUMP from around $70 to $13. PENGU once plunged from around $0.04 to $0.0086.
A slew of AI-themed altcoins like AI16Z and FARCTION have also seen massive declines, with some down nearly 10 times from their peaks.
Almost all memes and AI-themed altcoins have been quickly abandoned by the market, with a strong wait-and-see sentiment. Perhaps the capital willing to return after the speculation frenzy has dissipated is no longer as abundant as before.
The data shows that in February this year, the number of active addresses on the network dropped to an average of 9.5 million per week, a decrease of nearly 40% from the 15.6 million active addresses in November 2024.
The New Blockchain King?
The FUD that was previously on Ethereum has now shifted to Solana. Ethereum, with its comprehensive ecosystem development, is still the top blockchain by market capitalization. Solana, with its high performance, has garnered a lot of attention in this cycle's meme wave, thanks to its powerful wealth effect. However, from an industry perspective, Solana has not given birth to true industry innovations like DeFi, nor has it received widespread praise from both inside and outside the crypto community. The brutal PVP test is ultimately a zero-sum game, with some rejoicing and others lamenting.
Memes are a game of attention, and when attention dissipates, it often leads to a mess. The previous NFT boom was like this, and the current meme craze may be the same.
Solana still has a long way to go.
