To some extent, “YES.” Memecoins accounted for 41% of Solana’s on-chain activity and revenue.
Speculators were pricing an 11% and 2% chance of SOL hitting $200 and $250, respectively.
Solana [SOL] price has been consolidating above $150 after dropping by 38% from Q3’s high of $253.
If measured from its record high of $295, the altcoin, which had been a darling of the cycle in 2023 and 2024, had plunged by 47%.
According to an analyst, Flood, the recent SOL level was more than just a broader market weakness. He added,
“Feels very difficult to own Solana. The memecoin thesis is being BTFO in real time. Internet Capital Markets are completely fake.”
For perspective, in early 2025, the surge to $295 was triggered by the debut of Official Trump [TRUMP] memecoin. In fact, the memecoin supercycle was partly behind the dominant narrative in 2023 and 2024.
So, AMBCrypto evaluated the current memecoin’s impact on the chain.
According to Blockworks data, memecoin still dominated Solana App Revenue at 41%. In other words, the chain’s traction was still being driven by memecoins rather than real utilities.
At the same time, the memecoin momentum has contracted considerably since late 2024, as illustrated by the revenue figures.
As such, Flood’s thesis was apt in highlighting the SOL weakness as being tied to fading memecoin hype.
On the Internet Capital Markets front, however, Solana has led the entire sector in tokenized stocks.
Although the broader tokenized markets, including bonds, ETFs, were still heavily on Ethereum, Solana’s traction on on-chain stocks has been commendable.
However, it was yet to drive meaningful activity for SOL.
That said, another short-term pressure could be coming from recent Alameda Research unlock to repay bankrupt FTX victims. In its latest monthly unlock, the Alameda offloaded 193K SOL that were worth $30 million.
So, it translated to nearly 4x more potential selling pressure for the institutions to absorb. On the 11th of November, institutional inflows totalled about $8 million.
Although SOL saw $118 million in inflows last week, the current pace of demand from institutions and broader market weakness capped SOL’s recovery potential.
On the Options markets, traders were pricing an 11% chance that SOL could reclaim $200 and 2% odds of hitting $250 by the end of November.
Put differently, the market was pessimistic about SOL rallying to $200-$250 in the next two weeks.
